WaPo reports the following story of an Amazon delivery gone poorly: Youngkin: Jordanians ‘crashed’ Quantico. Feds: It was an Amazon delivery.
The basics are as follows: two Jordanians who worked for an Amazon contractor and who were in the US illegally got confused trying to make a delivery at Quantico. They did not ram the gate, and the only legal issue was their immigration status. The story was recounted, albeit with substantial factual errors on social media by a man described by the Post as “a Virginia military veteran, Republican activist and grilled-cheese restaurateur known for bucking the state’s coronavirus pandemic restrictions.”
His account asserted, falsely, that the two individuals ran through a gate at Quantico and that one of them was a known terrorist. But, again, no gate was crashed or rammed, nor was any such attempt made. Rather, two dudes with limited English skills got lost.
Yet Youngkin was more than willing to amplify this story by asserting it was evidence of a terror threat.
“Just a few months ago, Quantico Marine Corps Base’s front gates were literally rammed by two Jordanian illegal immigrants in a box truck trying to get into the base,” Youngkin told a breakfast gathering of GOP activists at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July. “It’s happened to bases in California. It’s happened all over the country. We have people coming across the border who want to do our nation harm. We must stop it.”
This is utterly irresponsible and is nothing more than stoking xenophobia. These are utterly untrue assertions.
And then we get stuff like this from Youngkin’s spokesperson:
“President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has quietly dismissed the charges without acknowledging what truly matters — two illegal Jordanian immigrants came dangerously close to breaching the premier Marine Corps Base Quantico, just outside our nation’s capital,” Martinez said in an email to The Post on Thursday.
This is absurd. The notion that getting directions wrong on a delivery equates to being “dangerously close to breaching” the base is just laughable. Underscoring that they were Jordanian is just an appeal to Islamophobia. If they were undocumented Swedes, I suspect we wouldn’t be having this conversation. And the likelihood is that the two individuals were visa overstayers who simply wanted employment.
But why bother with reality when you can stoke fear? Why govern responsibly when you can maybe score a couple of cheap political points? Why act like adults at all?
And it is not just Youngkin and his staff, but members of the US House of Representatives.
“Notwithstanding the dismissal of these charges, Americans deserve answers on why these two individuals were here illegally,” Rep. Mark Green (R-Tennessee), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said in an email to The Post, which claimed one of the men “entered through the Southwest border, claimed asylum, and was released into the interior just a month before the incident at Quantico.”
I still think it is more likely that they were visa over-stayers than having walked into the US. I will further note that if some dude from Jordan navigated his way to Latin America so he could eventually get a job delivering packages for an Amazon contractor, then maybe that tells us more about what motivates immigration than it does anything about terrorism.
Back to Youngkin:
In interviews and speeches, Youngkin has routinely mentioned the Jordanians at the Quantico gate as part of a trio of problems — along with fentanyl overdoses and sexual assaults — that he attributed to Biden’s border policies.
This kind of stuff just emphasizes to me that either people like Youngkin really aren’t serious about any of this. I noted yesterday the complexities of the fentanyl issue and noted why illegal immigration is not the driver. I understand the general concern about terrorism, but I will note (as I have for over two decades now) that it is easier for terrorists to fly into the United States and enter legally than it is to walk across the southern border. I would also add that despite paranoia about illegal immigration and terrorism since 9/11, that fear has proved to be unfounded.
In regards to sexual assault and other crimes along those lines (including human trafficking), there is no denying that these problems exist. But the notion that they are uniquely linked to Biden administration policies (or, really, to any specific policies of any administration) makes no sense. It is a rather obvious side effect of the general lawlessness associated with the overall situation and unless there is a comprehensive solution to the problems of humanity itself that lead to a situation like we find on the border, no policy is going to totally eliminate it. The notion, for example, that Trump’s mass deportation plans will somehow stop sexual assaults of migrants is a non sequitur.
To be clear: I am not being dismissive of sexual assault and related crimes. I am simply being realistic about the context of the situation and what actions solve, and do not solve those specific problems. The entire border region is a swirl of various black market activities. The presence of law enforcement is definitionally scarce in much of the space we are discussing and people are trying to be smuggled into the country. That sexual assault and other crimes take place is hardly surprising. These are broader comments on human nature and not comments on border policy, per se.
Indeed, if Republicans who constantly cite this concern really want to decrease the chances of such outcomes, they would need to take away the black market aspect of entry into the US, i.e., far more open borders, as they would decrease the general level of criminality at the border.
At any rate, Youngkin and others should be ashamed of themselves for sloppy and irresponsible rhetoric based on rumors and xenophobia. But, instead, they see too many rewards in the behavior. Indeed, I highly suspect that the incoming presidential administration will behavior exactly like Youngkin did in this case. Indeed, they will be worse.
