Before leaving for his rather embarrassing appearance in Normandy, President Joe Biden signed his long-awaited executive order "cracking down" on illegal immigration at the southern border. So what has changed since that happened? Even the Associated Press was forced to admit yesterday that the answer is pretty much nothing. They brought us the story of Gerardo Hanao, an illegal migrant from Colombia. He crossed the border into California on Thursday and was taken into custody by the Border Patrol. So far, so good, right? But instead of being shipped back to Colombia, he was dropped off at a bus stop in San Diego. From there, he took a train to the airport and boarded a flight to Newark. Mr. Hanao reportedly doesn't even have a notice to appear in immigration court. It would seem that he is here to stay. Why couldn't he be deported? According to the Biden administration, there were no flights available to send him back to his home country.

The Border Patrol arrested Gerardo Henao 14 hours after President Joe Biden suspended asylum processing at the U.S. border with Mexico this week. But instead of being summarily deported, he was dropped off by agents the next day at a San Diego bus stop, where he caught a train to the airport for a flight to Newark, New Jersey.

Henao, who said he left his jewelry business in Medellin, Colombia, because of constant extortion attempts, had one thing working in his favor: a scarcity of deportation flights to that country. Lack of resources, diplomatic limitations and logistical hurdles make it difficult for the Biden administration to impose its sweeping measure on a large scale.

The policy, which took effect Wednesday, has an exception for “operational considerations,” official language acknowledging the government lacks the money and authority to deport everyone subject to the measure, especially people from countries in South America, Asia, Africa and Europe who didn’t start showing up at the border until recently.

When it comes to policies enacted by the Biden administration, the devil is always in the details. In this case, there was a clause providing exceptions to deportation based on "operational considerations." The "consideration" in this case was that they were unable (or unwilling) to identify an available flight to Colombia. This consideration will apply to migrants from South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Seriously? That covers everyone coming from every continent except Australia and Antarctica, plus Mexico and Canada. Nobody lives in Antarctica (aside from some researchers who stay there on a temporary basis) and we see almost no migrants coming from Australia. It's also worth noting that if any of us wanted to fly from San Diego to Newark we would need to show multiple forms of ID after removing our belts and shoes. It would seem that none of that applied to Mr. Henao.

Would someone from the Biden administration care to explain how they couldn't manage to find a plane to put this guy on? They don't seem to have any trouble finding planes to bring tens of thousands of migrants to America from all over the world using the CBP One app that Biden provided for them. Surely those flights must be able to turn around and go back after they deposit their load of illegals in our cities around the country. Couldn't Henao have been put on one of those? Just don't let him know if it's a Boeing 737 Max or he might refuse to get on. (And who could really blame him at this point?)

Let's say there actually weren't any flights available. Henao entered the country illegally by crossing the border from Mexico into California. Clearly he is familiar with the route. Why couldn't he be sent back in the reverse direction? Tell him to wait in Mexico as he should have been told as soon as he arrived. That's how the system is supposed to work and Joe Biden claimed that we are going to be going back to those types of policies. Let the Mexican government deal with him. Yes, he would probably just cut a deal with the cartels to smuggle him back across the border again, but at least it would be a start.

Adding insult to injury, the Department of Homeland Security bragged to the Associated Press, saying that there have been 17 deportation flights out of the United States since the new policy took effect. Their destinations included "Uzbekistan, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico." Yes, they included Colombia as the second nation on the list. And yet there wasn't a seat for Mr. Henao. What a shame. 

This entire "crackdown" touted by the Biden administration was a sham from the beginning. He made the announcement because his poll numbers are tanking and Donald Trump is surging, with voters citing the border crisis and immigration as one of their top concerns, along with the economy and inflation. But he was never serious about it. Joe Biden and the Democrats want millions upon millions of illegal aliens to flood the country and they're not going to slow down now. If Americans aren't entirely suicidal at this point, they will reelect Donald Trump in November and then we'll show you what a closed border actually looks like. And we'll find the planes to start deporting people by the thousands. I'm sure Boeing has a few spares lying around that we could use.