Although the Badger State is 2000 miles away from Mexico, the fallout of Biden’s open border bleeds into the American heartland, literally so in many cases. In reality, the Biden-Harris open borders agenda transforms every jurisdiction in America into a border town, including small villages like Whitewater, Wisconsin. That previously tranquil small town of 15,000 in southern Wisconsin has been flooded with about 1,000 new migrants during Biden’s term, mostly from Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Such a mass influx places intense strain upon public resources, including schools ill-prepared to handle so many new students, many of whom do not speak English. Whitewater city council member Brienne Brown told Wisconsin PBS that “we are a poor town that has limited resources.”
That stress was also reflected by the overwhelmed police department there. Whitewater Police Chief Daniel Meyer wrote that “Our law enforcement staff have responded to a number of serious crimes linked to immigrants in some manner, including the death of an infant child, multiple sexual assaults, and a kidnapping.”
Clearly, among the masses that trespass into America amid Biden’s border chaos, some dangerous and problematic people arrive with ill intent. Dealing with those malicious actors has become the unfortunate task of law enforcement and citizens all over America, even far away from the southern border.
One tragic and totally preventable such crime just unfolded in rural Rusk County of northern Wisconsin. Local resident Steven Nasholm was killed by an illegal alien drunk driver, Jorge Sanchez-Tzanhua. The assailant was previously convicted of drunk driving in Wisconsin just over a year ago but was never deported.
The victim, Nasholm, leaves behind a widow and three young children. His obituary described him as a “quick-witted” husband and father who “loved tractors, bear hunting with his hounds, driving semis and motorcycles, and fixing lawnmowers and ATVs.”
This tragic Wisconsin death received little media attention since preventable illegal migrant crime does not fit into the media narrative regarding Biden and the border. Similarly, our polling also shows that the shocking murder of Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus also largely escapes notice among Wisconsin voters.
Specifically, my populist right labor organization, the League of American Workers, just commissioned a poll of 600 likely voters in Wisconsin, evenly split between Trump and Biden 2020 supporters. Our survey revealed that half of Wisconsin voters know “nothing at all” (29%) or “not much” (21%) about the brutal, unprovoked slaying of Laken Riley.
Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student out for a daytime jog on a seemingly safe campus when she was violently killed by a previously arrested illegal alien, Jose Antonio Ibarra. Not surprisingly, more conservative voters are better informed about the Laken Riley slaying since mainstream corporate media platforms have largely buried the horrific facts of the case.
Nonetheless, a supermajority of Wisconsin voters do communicate strong views on immigration overall and soundly reject the open borders radicalism of Biden and Harris. When asked to rate the federal government’s job performance in controlling America’s border, only 4% responded with “very strong,” while a whopping 51% said “very weak.”
This big split on border/immigration issues may prove decisive in a super-tight Wisconsin horse race. Right now, Trump leads a multi-candidate race in Wisconsin by +1%, in a state that was decided by a mere 20,000 votes in 2020, out of 3.2 million cast. Will immigration chaos in Wisconsin tip the balance for President Trump? Will quasi-“border towns” like Whitewater vote to demand border security? It seems likely.
Steve Cortes is former senior advisor to President Trump, former commentator for Fox News and CNN, and president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group.