“I respect no borders and cannot be contained by any walls.” —part of Joe Biden’s vision for restoring America’s “moral” standing in the world, July 11, 2019

“Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Thursday released a sweeping immigration plan that would impose a moratorium on deportations, ‘break up’ existing immigration enforcement agencies, grant full welfare access to illegal immigrants and welcome a minimum of 50,000 ‘climate migrants’ in the first year of a Sanders administration.” —Fox News, November 7, 2019

“In FY19, a total of 851,508 individuals were apprehended between ports of entry on our Southwest Border.” —U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which further notes that 161,051 people have been apprehended so far in FY2020

“Some 328 illegal immigrants from China have been nabbed jumping the U.S.-Mexico border so far this year, according to Homeland Security data that raises the prospect a coronavirus carrier could sneak into the country via the border.” —Washington Times, March 5, 2020

Today’s Democrat Party is many things. Tragically, one of the main things is having the conviction that America is an inherently racist nation requiring fundamental transformation. Thus when the Trump administration imposed a suspension of entry visas for those traveling from China — as in the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak — Joe Biden once again reminded the nation of his party’s twisted priorities. “We have, right now, a crisis with the coronavirus,” Biden stated at a January campaign stop in Iowa. “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.”

Science? During the outbreak of a possible viral pandemic, science is about isolation, quarantines, travel restrictions, and every other effort employed to contain that virus. Science is about realizing that containment and porous borders are mutually incompatible concepts.

Politics, by contrast, is attempting to obscure that reality in service to naked partisan interests. “The last thing that the border states need are infected illegal aliens coming through, blending into the population, and spreading the disease to health care workers, and in poor neighborhoods,” states columnist Daniel Greenfield. “But that’s exactly what the Democrats seem to want.”

It’s not the first time. In 2014, this writer posted a column asking “anyone with an iota of investigative journalistic integrity, in combination with a team of dedicated epidemiologists, to determine beyond a reasonable doubt whether the current outbreak of Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) — which is killing and paralyzing American children — is directly related to the Obama administration’s decision to allow 66,000 illegal alien children and their families virtually unfettered entry into America.”

That too was a triumph of politics over science, as the unfettered entry was abetted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It violated its own guidelines barring unvaccinated individuals from entering the country. As a result, children with infectious diseases like chicken pox and tuberculosis were given free rein — and the same media that has raised the alarm about coronavirus to a level bordering on overt hysteria remained virtually silent about a virus that killed at least nine children and afflicted 50 more with full or partial paralysis.

“During the peak of the humanitarian crisis, we were apprehending around three Chinese nationals per day. This year we are seeing approximately five per day,” stated former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in a recent interview. He further noted that in the last year “there was an 85% increase … in the number of Chinese nationals sneaking in the country illegally over the southern border.” That number, he says, is “estimated upwards of 12,000 a year.”

The word “estimated” should infuriate every sentient American concerned about a viral epidemic. According to a 2017 Homeland Security report, 55% to 85% of those attempting to illegally cross the border were apprehended or interdicted in 2016. In a better nation, a 30-point spread would be embarrassing. In this one it has led to a promise by both Sanders and Biden to provide a “pathway to citizenship” for the 11 million illegal immigrants currently residing in America.

Unfortunately, that too is an estimate. A research study led by Mohammad M. Fazel-Zarandi, a researcher at Yale and MIT, pegs the number of illegals residing in the United States at somewhere between 16.5 million and 29.1 million.

Regardless, this nation has endured a wholesale invasion of illegal aliens for decades. It is an invasion that serves the interests of both political parties, each of whom had control of the White House and both chambers of Congress for two years (Democrats from 2009-2010 and Republicans from 2017-2018) and did absolutely nothing to stem the flow.

And let’s not forget our activist judiciary. In the midst of a viral outbreak, a three-judge panel from the left-leaning Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to keep asylum seekers in Mexico while their claims are being processed. They also ruled that Border Patrol agents must process claims for illegal border crossers.

That ruling was stayed, but during a House Homeland Security Committee meeting on March 3, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf was chastised by Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) for making a connection between illegal immigration and the coronavirus, even though as of that date Mexico had five confirmed and 21 possible cases. “You were not, surely, suggesting that the problem that we are seeing in this country with the coronavirus is the result of — or was caused by undocumented immigrants coming across the south border. Is that what you’re saying?” Demings asked.

How would one know for certain, Mr. Demings? Moreover, what — exactly — are you and your party willing to risk for the sake of pursuing a political agenda that makes a complete mockery of the Rule of Law?

Greenfield knows the answer. “The Democrats want open borders for drug cartels, human traffickers, and the coronavirus,” he writes. “And if the outbreak and its financial repercussions improves their political prospects, then it’s a win-win situation. When the coronavirus spreads, when our economy shakes, then the Democrats win.”

In other words, we now have a major political party so consumed by a combination of Trump hatred and bankrupt ideology that its leaders would countenance possibly the most damning Pyrrhic victory in the history of mankind.

Coronavirus will ultimately wane. The Democrat Party’s ideological bankruptcy is enduring.