If every human life matters to Democrats, then why does our president persist in creating the festering hellhole at the southern border? The answer is particularly inhuman. It’s because he thinks it will garner votes for his party, and his constituents love having the virtuous clout of being the ones responsible for opening the doors of opportunity to illegal immigrants.

This virtue without prudence and politics without conscience are adding to an ever-mounting death toll at the souther border.

The cost among migrants is incredibly steep. Many of these foreign nationals are desperate to start a new life in the U.S. and are forced to endure unspeakable evil as the price of entry. According to the Texas Public Policy Foundation: “In fiscal year 2021, there were nearly 2 million migrant apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border, and that number only accounts for the people encountered by border agents. More than 400,000 more migrants eluded apprehension and are counted among the ‘got-aways.’ Last year also met another unfortunate record — 147,000 unaccompanied migrant children entered into the U.S., 122,000 were taken into the U.S. custody, the previous record being 69,000.”

Of those millions of people who were admitted into the U.S., it is not known how many of them are victims of human trafficking. Those who made it into the U.S. interior are lucky that they at least made it with breath still in their bodies.

Many migrants are not so fortunate. The sheer amount of death and carnage that they have suffered is so great that the National Sheriff’s Association is compiling photos of the dead to share with the public. The intent is to put faces to this humanitarian crisis in the hopes of galvanizing the federal government into acting.

The life toll for migrants is not surprising. Last June, 53 illegal immigrants who were in an abandoned truck in San Antonio literally cooked to death. That horrific event is sadly one of many instances of mayhem against migrants.

In FY2020 — the year Joe Biden ran for office on promises of an open border — the reported deaths of migrants at the border were 557. In FY2021, there were nearly 750 deaths, shattering all previous records. No records have been released for 2022 as of yet, but it would not be surprising if that number was exponentially higher.

Crime has also been on the rise at the border. Gang members, drug peddlers, and armed criminals have been a dangerous challenge for law enforcement. In FY2021 alone, the number of wanted noncitizen criminals was almost 30,000. The recidivism rate for previously apprehended individuals was 27%, the highest it’s ever been. Furthermore, the encounters with these individuals are life-threatening for our Border Patrol. On Monday, The Washington Times reported that Border Patrol in California had a run-in with four armed illegals. Luckily, those illegals dropped their weapons and fled back to Mexico, but what if they had decided to fight? What if they had encountered unarmed U.S. citizens just going about their business?

Americans living in border states like Texas, Arizona, and California are overwhelmed with the vast influx of illegal immigrants who have infiltrated their states. Arizonans have resorted to using shipping containers to block the gaps in the border wall to help stem the flow. Citizens like those in Yuma are frustrated that the federal government is demanding that the shipping containers be taken away while not offering any other solutions to protect American citizens from the invasion that the Biden administration created.

Yuma is overwhelmed. According to the Daily Mail, 250,000 illegal immigrants have flooded the city over the past year. To give perspective, the population of Yuma is just over 96,000. Compare that to the outcry from places like Martha’s Vineyard, where only 50 illegals were flown, or New York City, where 4,000 illegals have been bused. These leftist bastions are outraged at Republican governors who confront them with the humanitarian crisis created by supporting open-border policies. So much for their virtue.

President Biden and his policies have created an attractive nuisance by opening up the borders, and the human cost is unbearably high. Biden would do well to remember his own criticisms of former President Donald Trump’s handling of COVID-19 and apply them to himself more appropriately in this instance. The difference is that the border crisis is a problem Biden created (very unlike the black swan event that COVID was for Trump). Biden said at a 2020 campaign event: “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America. … If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive.”

Seems like a fitting indictment for Biden’s own reckless inaction on the border. If Biden had done his job, hundreds of migrants would not have lost their lives, and millions of American citizens would not have to be afraid to go about their lives because of his inept border policies.