Over the previous four years ending January 20, our nation prided itself on establishing border security. We built hundreds of miles of new border wall and cut illegal crossings to numbers unseen in decades. Less than six weeks later, however, the story is far different, and so is the narrative: What were “kids in cages” under President Donald Trump are now residents in “massive congregate care facilities.” And those facilities need to be massive. The Department of Homeland Security is predicting 117,000 unaccompanied children will be arriving at the border this year — a number that will shatter previous records.

Regardless of the semantics, the fact remains that the election of Joe Biden was the spark that encouraged a new swarm of illegal immigrants to attempt to cross the border — so much so that smugglers are resorting to wristbands to keep track of them all. If Barack Obama’s administration considered 1,000 attempted crossings a day a “crisis,” then what does Team Biden call a number six times as large?

If you’re a Democrat politician, you’re probably calling it “voter recruitment.”

In the interim, the administration is simply terming this situation a “challenge.” And a moral one, according to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “It takes time to build out of the depths of cruelty that the administration before us established,” he opined. He also implicitly acknowledged that a giant proverbial “WE’RE OPEN” sign at the border is problematic. “We are not saying, ‘Don’t come,’” he added. “We are saying, ‘Don’t come now.’”

Oh.

“Give us time,” Mayorkas pleaded, “to build an orderly, safe way to arrive in the United States and make the claims that the law permits you to make.”

But they are coming anyway, and some are wearing shirts with the Biden/Harris logo beseeching the new administration to “please let us in!” (Their newfound command of English is amazing! Seriously, some enterprising reporter should ask the question: Who paid for and handed out the shirts — a coyote or the DNC?)

Perhaps there’s an incentive. As Fox News reports, “Biden has promised to accept more refugees into the country during his time in office and implement more ‘humane’ policies, such as a proposal to pay for the transportation and health care costs of migrant families who were separated at the border under the Trump administration.”

It’s a policy that brought friendly fire from a Texas Democrat. “The bad guys know how to market this. … You just can’t say, ‘Yeah, yeah, let everybody in,’ because then we are affected down here at the border,” said Representative Henry Cuellar, whose southern Texas district straddles the Mexican border around Laredo. Moreover, loopholes in existing law have created a shift in migration patterns — instead of Mexican men looking for work, now entire families (and family-type units) risk their lives to cross the border with the payoff of being released into the U.S. pending a far-off court date that will be ignored.

As immigration expert Mark Krikorian notes, “The Biden administration is telling prospective illegal aliens ‘now is not the time to come,’ but those who do come are being released into the U.S. with a piece of paper and a wave goodbye. What did the White House think would happen?” An onslaught, that’s what.

And it’s an onslaught that’s dangerous and perhaps deadly. After a report surfaced of asylum-seekers testing positive for COVID-19, Senator Tom Cotton declared, “President Biden’s border crisis is a superspreader event.” Yet those who tested positive upon arrival in Brownsville, Texas, were still free to travel on to various destinations across the country, as the tests were administered by the city of Brownsville after those tested were dismissed from ICE custody.

In short, what we have is a significant downgrading of the situation at the border, which was becoming manageable under President Trump. Over the last six weeks, the ones experiencing the “depth of cruelty” are the Border Patrol and those legal immigrants who have spent thousands of dollars and hours of their time trying to get through the process correctly only to see a scofflaw cut them off in line. And don’t underestimate the impact on jobs and wages for American citizens due to the flood of cheap labor.

Sadly, unless common sense somehow prevails, it’s going to be quite awhile before Biden’s border crisis abates.

(Updated.)