Opinion | The Republicans’ Border Crisis
Opinion by Daniel Henninger • 21h The Wall Street Journal

The United States, an alleged superpower, may soon join Italy, Greece and Russia as validation of Adam Smith’s cautionary maxim: There is a great deal of ruin in a nation. The irony is that America’s slow disintegration is occurring in perhaps its most robust state, Texas, where the southern U.S. border essentially no longer exists.

In December alone, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 302,000 encounters with illegal migrants at the southwest border. Total encounters for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 were an almost incomprehensible 4.7 million.

To endure, great nations find their way to solving large problems. Migration may turn out to be the issue that swallowed America’s democratic order.

Other than Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, no one in the past year has disagreed that the “situation” at the southern border is a crisis. Until they were forced to respond by overwhelmingly unfavorable opinion polling about the border last month—even in New Hampshire’s primary—the Biden-Mayorkas see-no-problem pose was the nadir of political cynicism. But now come Donald Trump and his congressional followers, chasing the presumed political rewards of doing absolutely nothing about a serious national problem.

Oklahoma’s very conservative Republican senator, James Lankford, has spent weeks attempting to shape a compromise on illegal migration with Democrats that would permit passage as well of a supplemental bill that has funding for embattled Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. This isn’t the unto-eternity discussion of reforming Social Security. These are national-security matters that needed addressing yesterday by the people elected to prevent the U.S. from being crushed by unsolvable problems.

About a week ago, Mr. Trump told congressional Republicans via his Truth Social platform to oppose any Lankford compromise: “I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING.” He elaborated: “A Border Deal now would be another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats. They need it politically.” Mr. Trump ended his input by offering a solution to the current border crisis: “If you want to have a really Secure Border, your ONLY HOPE is to vote for TRUMP2024.” Amid these statements, House Speaker Mike Johnsonwrote that the Lankford compromise would be “dead on arrival.”

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