Across the globe, hostile nations like Russia are using migration, instead of tanks, as a weapon of war to destabilize and even bankrupt countries and facilitate terrorist attacks from within.
Migration is being used to attack Finland, Italy, France, Poland and — no surprise — America.
But the Biden administration is asleep at the switch, oblivious to the threat.
Though most of the migrants crossing the US southern border are in search of economic opportunity, our enemies are using some as tools.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is rightly sounding the alarm about what he calls an “invasion.”
So are 10 top-ranking former FBI officials, who sent Congress a letter this month warning of a “new and unfamiliar” type of warfare.
Heed their words.
The letter points to the danger of a large number of military-aged men “who could begin attacking gatherings of unarmed citizens,” duplicating the horrors of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
It also warns some migrants are on the terror watch list or from countries designated state sponsors of terrorism.
Europe gets it. France’s interior minister cautioned last year that failing to expel illegals has led to past terrorist incidents and will again.
The left claims it’s “racist” to refer to migration as an “invasion.”
Nonsense.
Ask Finland.
Finland locked its eastern border in November after Russia flooded the country with migrants from as far away as Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria, likely in retaliation for Finland joining NATO.
In the Western Hemisphere, the anti-American Nicaraguan government is doing what it can, welcoming charter flights of Haitians and Cubans heading to the US border.
The Ortega regime uses migration as a way to attack the United States, reports the Associated Press.
Texas is on the receiving end.
Abbott is laying miles of razor wire along the Rio Grande to deter border crossers.
Customs and Border Protection officials, on order from President Biden, began cutting Texas’ wire to let migrants in.
Biden has made CBP a concierge service for migrants.
When CBP spotted several hundred migrants waiting on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande Oct. 26, it used a forklift to pull Texas’ fencing out of the ground and hold the wire high enough to allow 300 migrants to walk into the country.
The feds did this, “escalating matters” as Texas said in a legal brief, two days after Abbott sued in federal court.
The Biden administration insists that under the US Constitution, immigration is exclusively a federal matter.
But a federal district court judge noted the feds are “obviously derelict” in executing their “duties” to “deter, prevent, and halt unlawful entry into the United States.”
The judge ruled, however, that Texas hadn’t proved Team Biden was breaking the law in cutting its border wire.
Abbott appealed, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Biden’s Border Patrol to stop cutting wire.
Then Biden leapfrogged over the Fifth Circuit, going directly to the US Supreme Court.
The justices have yet to rule on the merits, but last week they lifted the restraining order to allow the feds to resume cutting Texas’ wire for now.
Even so, the justices didn’t bar Abbott from laying more wire.
And he’s doing just that, vowing to protect his state from what literally is an “invasion.”
Liberal critics mock Abbott for invoking the Constitution’s invasion clause, which says that if a state is “invaded,” it can defend itself in the absence of federal help.
A federal appeals court ruled in 1996 that “for a state to be afforded the protections of the Invasion Clause, it must be” under attack by “another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.”
But that 20th-century definition of invasion is outdated. Now war is being waged with migrants, not just missiles.
The letter to Congress warns an “invasion of the homeland” is “unfolding now.”
Military-aged men from Russia and China pose an “alarming and perilous” threat.
Attorneys general from 26 states — all Republicans — sent a strong message Monday supporting Abbott and condemning Biden’s open-border policy.
Several of these states have also dispatched state troopers or National Guard to help Abbott.
“If the Biden administration won’t do its job to secure our border and keep Americans safe,” said Iowa’s attorney general, “it should step aside and let the States do the job for them.”
Amen.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey
