Better in their words…

We’re not sure what the more alarming news is: a rash of squatters in people’s homes, or the video of the invasion of illegal aliens in action in Texas. But the two are connected.

We’ll start with the invasion and the New York Post video that went viral Thursday.

As roughly 600 migrants amassed at the border, the Post says that the Texas National Guard attempted to “organize them into smaller groups.” Chaos soon erupted, however, when more than 100 illegal aliens overwhelmed the troops and pushed through a fence, demanding entry into the U.S. And why wouldn’t they? When he was running for president, Joe Biden told people in other countries to “surge” to the border. They just took him by one of his favorite words — literally.

In 2022, we called Biden’s open border and the millions of illegals pouring across it an intentional invasion. The video sure looks like what we described. Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s spokesman didn’t use the word “invasion” but said, “The surge today in El Paso is the direct result of the unsustainable chaos President Biden has unleashed on the border.”

The governor also posted a reassuring message on X: “The TX National Guard & Dept. of Public Safety quickly regained control & are redoubling the razor wire barriers. DPS is instructed to arrest every illegal immigrant involved for criminal trespass & destruction of property.”

Amazingly enough, Joe Biden was in Texas Thursday, except he was hours away in Dallas attending two private fundraisers.

Biden has allowed roughly nine million people to illegally cross the U.S. border since he took office in January 2021. It’s unclear how many of them still reside in the country, awaiting whatever deportation or asylum hearings however many years in the future and putting down roots in the meantime.

Some number of them may be putting down roots in someone else’s home. Uninvited.

News came out this week about the plight of a New York City homeowner. The woman inherited the Queens home after her parents’ deaths and planned to put it on the market only to discover squatters had occupied it. When she changed the locks, she was arrested rather than the squatters because New York City law grants tenants’ rights to squatters after a mere 30 days on a property. New York state law requires at least 10 years.

That sort of thing belongs in dystopian fiction, not reality.

The backstory is that the city’s law is a case of unintended consequences. It began as a bid to reduce homelessness, but obviously, this squatter and others have exploited it to steal homes. Now, this particular case has been sent to a landlord-tenant court, and it takes an average of 20 months to resolve cases.

This particular squatter doesn’t appear to be an illegal alien, but a Venezuelan national named Leonel Moreno told his 500,000 TikTok followers this week that this is exactly what illegals should seek to do. “If a house is not inhabited,” he said, “we can seize it.” He claims to have “African friends” who have “already taken about seven homes.” He insists that the way migrants can avoid becoming a “public burden” is to “invade unoccupied homes.”

There’s that word again — invade.

Biden has been sending illegals all over the country. Sometimes they stay in hotels, sometimes in schools, but he’s not all that concerned with where to put them. How many will end up squatting in private homes?

Squatting has become a huge problem in places like New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, the latter of which we noted in February has more than 1,200 homes currently occupied by squatters.

Fortunately, some are fighting back. Florida just passed a law that gives police authority to immediately remove squatters. In California, one guy who out-squatted the squatters started a new business called Squatter Hunters, which helps people professionally retake their homes by hiring new squatters to oust the old ones. Not all heroes wear capes.

Why is this happening? Arguably, it started with Donald Trump’s well-meaning eviction moratorium during COVID. That was due to expire, of course, but Joe Biden extended it at every opportunity. Before long, it became the norm and has undermined fundamental property rights all over the country.

“Look, they built the country,” Biden said the other day when he was busy walking back having used the term “illegal” to describe Laken Riley’s murderer. Continuing to conflate illegal and legal immigrants, he added that they are “the reason our economy is growing.”

We’d hardly call it growing the economy for millions of illegals to pour across the border and to be advised to start taking our homes through squatter’s “rights.” But that seems to be the reality coming to a neighborhood near you.

Exit humor headline from The Babylon Bee: “Checkmate: Trump Sneaks Back Into White House, Invokes Squatter’s Rights.”