In the first few months of the Biden administration, America has seemingly sent a message internationally that the U.S. is no longer making its security a top priority, and not just at the southern border.

The current migrant crisis, which has spiraled into a human tragedy, was created by President Biden when he declared his intention to legalize as many as 11 million illegal Central American and Mexican residents of the U.S. in the wake of his victory in this past November’s election. 

This incredibly dangerous messaging from Biden, along with the administration’s decision to cease border wall construction, played a part the 78,323 encounters between border patrol and migrants in the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California during the month of January. Not surprisingly, this was more than twice the 36,585 border patrol encounters reported in January of 2020, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 

Despite a media blackout, the truth about the situation is evident, and the cartels and human traffickers are well aware of America’s new attitude towards illegal immigration and are raking in the profits as they benefit from enabling human transport as well as activities related to illegal drug trafficking and other criminal activities.  

Now we’ve seen detention centers that were built to house individuals awaiting their day in court date to determine their fate in the U.S. become filled well beyond capacity. But despite this, Department of Homeland Security Chief Alejandro Mayorkas claimed just weeks ago that there was no crisis at the border, while simultaneously acknowledging that the U.S. is on pace to encounter more illegals on the southern border than at any time in the last two decades.

Hearing Mayorkas deny the obvious, especially considering that he occupies a post that is so incredibly important to the safety of Americans, should certainly do more than just raise eyebrows, especially when considering that DHS also oversees one of America’s most vital security agencies, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

CISA is tasked with handling American cybersecurity and protecting our critical infrastructure, including America’s power grid. This is particularly concerning, consider that hackers from several countries including Russia and China are known to have already successfully compromised existing vulnerabilities in the energy grid. 

Adding to these matters is the fact that CISA has thus far failed to reach its full operational capacity according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. The report showed that the agency is yet to implement the final phase of organizational changes that were outlined as part of the CISA Act of 2018.

The act created a new organization chart, infrastructure security points of contact and incident response centers, but as of mid-February of this year, over 50 planned tasks were yet to be completed.

Additionally, organizational changes at CISA are still expected to occur at the top, as President Trump appointment Brandon Wales, who was appointed to replace the fired former director, Cristopher Krebs, is merely seen as a placeholder for Joe Biden’s eventual nominee. This leaves the agency in a somewhat compromised position, with widescale incidents like the SolarWinds hack, recent attacks from the Chinese hacking group Hafnium that affected Microsoft’s Exchange Server software as well as Advanced Persistent Threat or APT attacks against Fortinet FortiOS, that have compromised a reported nine federal agencies in addition to countless private sector entities.

The state of denial regarding the border issue that the leader of the United States’ top federal executive department directly responsible for public security is currently in invites offensive acts of aggression from not only the cartel, human traffickers and terrorists, but also state-sponsored hacking groups looking to attack America via hacks against our critical infrastructure. 

America has become a very different country than it was under President Trump just a few months ago. The new global reality sees an emboldened North Korea testing tactical guided missiles, while Iran and the international community discusses the lifting of Washington’s sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program. It didn’t take long for America’s enemies to start taking advantage of our domestic state of chaos.

Julio Rivera is a business and political strategist, the Editorial Director for Reactionary Times, and a political commentator and columnist. His writing, which is focused on cybersecurity and politics, has been published by websites including Newsmax, Townhall, American Thinker and BizPacReview.

Image: CISA

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