Biden White House Deflects Blame for Bishop Evans’s Death

The Texas National Guardsman was at the border as part of Governor Abbott’s operation to secure the border — because the feds have failed to do so.

Y esterday, when asked whether the White House felt “any responsibility” for the death of Bishop Evans, the Texas National Guardsman who drowned trying to save illegal immigrants who were crossing the Rio Grande, spokeswoman Jen Psaki deflected blame.

“Well, of course, we are mourning the loss of his life, and we are grateful for the work of every National Guardsman.” But: “I would note that the National Guard worked for the states, and so he is an employee of the Texas National Guard, and his efforts and his operation were directed by there, not by the federal government.”

While she is technically correct, her answer glossed over the Biden administration’s own role in exacerbating the border crisis — a situation that produces avoidable tragedies such as this one. President Joe Biden’s more “humane” approach is encouraging a dangerous system for illegal immigrants and Americans alike.

Evans, a 22-year-old Texas National Guardsmen, perished while trying to save two illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. His body was recovered yesterday. Evans was sent to the Texas border under Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star — Abbott’s answer to Biden’s defunct policy and Psaki’s target during yesterday’s briefing.

Under Operation Lone Star, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers and the National Guard work with local law-enforcement agencies to shore up a porous border. The mission began in March 2021 in response to a growing surge of illegal immigrants under the Biden administration.

Operation Lone Star is far from perfect. Aside from its huge price tag, the mission has placed DPS and National Guard personnel into jobs they are not trained — or hired — to do. Additionally, it has misrepresented its efficacy. An investigation by ProPublica, the Texas Tribune, and the Marshall Project found:

The state’s claim of success has been based on shifting metrics that included crimes with no connection to the border, work conducted by troopers stationed in targeted counties prior to the operation, and arrest and drug seizure efforts that do not clearly distinguish DPS’s role from that of other agencies.

The investigation went on:

DPS, the only agency to release some records related to Operation Lone Star’s results, has made several significant revisions to the arrest data, including removing charges. The agency did not provide details that would help determine how the cases that remained are connected to the initiative’s goal of deterring border-related crime. The agency also failed to identify arrests and drug seizures that could have occurred without the additional personnel made available through the operation.

But while Abbott’s program has faced bipartisan criticism over a range of issues, the National Guard is at the border, simply put, because the feds are not — at least, not at a level needed to deal with the influx.

The Biden administration has been unwilling to secure the border and complicit with dangerous and even lethal policies. As the administration continues to lower the bar for asylum, Border Patrol is being overrun with a record-breaking number of encounters and asylum claims. During my recent trip to the Texas–Mexico border, law-enforcement officers all told me the same thing: White House messaging is playing a big role in the surge.

Jim Volcsko, a recently retired Border Patrol agent, told me that “whatever they say in D.C. has a ripple effect.” Andrew Arthur, a senior fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a former immigration judge, said the current surge is “the direct consequence of volitional choices that have been made in Washington, D.C.” The consequences are tangible: An on-duty 25-year veteran border officer told me that the border “is the worst I’ve ever seen it.”

In March, Border Patrol exceeded the 200,000-encounter mark for the second time in this administration. Border Patrol apprehended 209,906 illegal immigrants, breaking a monthly record from March 2000. This number will only grow when Title 42 is lifted in May, removing all caps on asylum claims. On top of that, the Biden administration is creating an expedited “rubber stamping” asylum process, sending the message that the border is more open.

In Del Rio, Texas, I saw various families and individuals “surrender” to the National Guard near the Rio Grande and await Border Patrol to pick them up for asylum processing. Many are earnestly looking for work, endeavoring to be productive members of the American community. One illegal immigrant from Venezuela, for example, told me that he “came to work for a better future for my wife, for my daughters.” He couldn’t find any work in his own impoverished country.

The problem is that open-border messaging without immigration reform (such as increasing work visas and making them more easily accessible) means that asylum-seekers will continue to overwhelm the system, leaving the rest of the border dangerously unattended.

Sergeant Juan Maldonado, a media officer for DPS, told me during a ride-along in Del Rio, Texas, that Operation Lone Star “is about supporting the citizens of the state of Texas in providing security for the criminal trespassing.” Maldonado is talking about smuggled migrants coming through the southern border while Border Patrol is tied up with asylum claims, unable to do its job in the field. “The [Border Patrol] agents want to work,” a DPS officer told me, “but their upper management . . . has got them changing diapers” instead of apprehending smuggled crossers.

With such a situation, the lives of law-enforcement officers and illegal immigrants are at risk.

Various criminals are among the ranks of others being smuggled across the border looking for a better life. A DPS officer told me that some of the adults sneaking through are the “people that don’t want to get caught.” Just the week before my visit to Texas, two sexual predators were captured sneaking through the Del Rio sector. Traffickers also abound and are likely more active than ever. The Texas Public Policy Foundation argues that under this administration, “inadequate federal resources incentivize innocent people to put themselves at the mercy of human smugglers.” Children and women are often trafficked and abused as a result of the porous border. The Texas Public Policy Foundation writes:

Sophisticated transnational syndicates are notorious for using children to get single, adult males not just across the border, but through Border Patrol processing. Once these men are granted a stay, they smuggle the children back across the border where they will continue to be trafficked. Studies done by the Latin American branch of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women estimates that 60% of Latin American children who set out to cross the border alone or with smugglers have been caught by the cartels and are being abused in child pornography or drug trafficking.

Arthur told me that “the policy of this government is encouraging . . . those vulnerable children being left to fend for themselves at the border.”

Illegal immigrants are the ones who suffer the most from Biden’s “humane” approach. The inhumanity of the broken border transcends countries, defining the harrowing journeys many face on their trek north. I spent a morning with a group of asylum-seekers, and they told me about the terrifying journey:

Those who went through the “selvas,” or jungles, of South and Central America reported horrific stories of women being raped by gang members and “indios,” the indigenous peoples. “They traffic so many people,” one of the men told me. “Everyone, even pregnant women.” Smugglers in the Panamanian jungle left women to drown in the river, they said.

Once the border-crossers arrive in the U.S., they still face deadly risk, including drowning in the Rio Grande as Evans did. Just two weeks ago, Cristopher Alvarado Sabillón, a 14-year-old who traveled to Eagle Pass from Honduras in a group of minors, drowned while crossing the river in Eagle Pass. NBC reported: “During the four days Cristopher was missing, at least 10 other people migrating to the U.S. drowned trying to cross the river in the same spot.” The current that swept them away was the same that claimed Evans’s life.

Many illegal immigrants die of heat stroke as they cross private ranches in the hot Texas sun (this will get even worse, presuming that Title 42 is lifted as the summer begins). Law enforcement and ranchers reported an unprecedented number of dead bodies during this administration.

Yet Psaki on Monday went so far as to claim the president is pursuing “smarter security” at the border, “something he’d be happy to work with governors on . . . whenever they’re ready to do that.”

I recently asked a Border Patrol agent whether the administration had shared a plan to deal with the impending deluge at a post–Title 42 border. “Not that they’ve told us,” he answered, as he loaded up a van of asylum-seekers.

Abbott’s approach — no matter how flawed — was not the direct cause of Evans’s death. The blood at the border is on the Biden administration’s hands.