Todd Bensman’s new book is potentially one of the most important journalistic works of our time. The author guides readers through the vast and complex set of threats American citizens face from the unrelenting illegal immigrant invasion of our country. During the journey, he dispels many of the myths surrounding the “migrants” that the mainstream media, Democrat politicians, and the non-governmental and “religious” organizations never admit, and which he aptly calls the “migrant advocacy complex.”

Overrun demonstrates how Joe Biden almost single-handedly orchestrated this debacle, beginning with his campaign promise to end deportations and essentially “defang and ground ICE officers,” which opened the floodgates before he even took the oath of office. It was, as the cartel bosses told Bensman, “la invitación,” the new president’s “welcome to immigrants to cross the border illegally and stay.”

Never has any American President done more to precipitate such a crisis. All previous administrations, including those of Clinton and Obama, recognized to some degree the folly of open borders and took steps to mitigate it.

One of the author’s revelations is the fact that most of the immigrants at the heart of Overrun aren’t fleeing imminent death, persecution, rape, or Communist gulags. “Instead,” Bensman writes, “most are fleeing poverty, local crime, and poor governance, which unfortunately describes the common conditions of billions of people throughout the world that the United States simply cannot take in.” Sprinkled within these masses are known terrorists; some are criminals, including those who have committed heinous crimes both in their home countries and since sneaking into ours.

Over the years, the author interviewed thousands of migrants in his many journeys to both sides of the Mexican border and along the well-traveled routes between South America and the U.S. What he found is that migration ebbs and flows with the rhetoric foreign nationals hear from American politicians. They use what Bensman calls the “immigrant decision-making calculus,” which means they weigh the odds of whether they will be able to walk right in and avail themselves of American good will and largesse, or whether, as they did during the Trump years, they will have to “remain in Mexico” for months until they can get a hearing.

Bensman discovered during his many interviews that most migrants were unhappy and even angry with having to wait for their hearings. Some tore up their papers and went back to their home countries, proving the lie that they were in imminent danger there.

During the final two years of the Trump administration, far fewer attempts at illegal entry were made because the migrants’ decision-making calculus determined that the often long and arduous journey, and the thousands of dollars in payoffs to the Mexican cartels to ferry them across the border, were not worth it.

President Trump had a three-pronged strategy to stem the tide, which to this reviewer was sheer genius. It included his demand that Mexico seal its southern border under the threat of onerous trade tariffs, and his creation of a national interest for Mexico and the other source countries, which incentivized them to stem the flow. He accomplished all this despite a hostile media that fabricated and spun countless negative stories, despite relentless attacks from virtually all the Democrats in power, and despite opposition from many in his own party.

Of course, Overrun includes all the mind-boggling numerical data that justifies the book’s title. Bensman writes that, until 2021, “the highest number of Border Patrol apprehensions ever recorded was 1.6 million in fiscal year 2000. Between 2010 and 2016, it never exceeded 500,000....” In 2021, the total was nearly 1.7 million, and it has climbed steadily since. In 2022, the number reached 2.37 million. Bensman emphasizes that these numbers do not count “got-aways.” In total, some 7 million illegals have entered this country since the Biden Administration took power, and more millions will do so by 2024.

Perhaps because he has witnessed so many aspects of this invasion firsthand, the author believes that “as a news story, this was on a par with the moon landing or humanity’s mastery of intercontinental flight.” But it has scarcely been treated as such — there have been instances when the administration’s spokesperson and Vice President Harris have foolishly declared the border “closed.” Bensman decided to write his book in order to expose the truth and record this monumental event in U.S. history.

His mix of experience and ability served him well. Bensman is not only an exemplary journalist, an intelligence and counterterrorism expert, a researcher and writer, but he is a master storyteller as well. Overrun reads like a novel, and is at its best when recounting the first-person accounts of the illegal immigrants themselves. Were it not at once so infuriatingly, frighteningly, and outrageously real, it would make for an absorbing and entertaining read.

Bensman describes how his Jewish great-grandmother, who lived in his family home for five years while he was growing up, legally emigrated (as did all his great grandparents) “from the Pale of Settlement, an area covering today‘s Ukraine and many former Soviet countries that unleashed soldiers and militias to frequently attack them.” He writes that few other countries would take Jews in, and Israel had not yet come into existence, so as a young girl, his great-grandmother traveled with her father, a rabbi, through Ellis Island to America. She was a legal immigrant, as were the 12 million plus who entered the country in this manner over a period of six decades. But what Bensman is talking about in Overrun is a flood of people who flout our laws at the behest of those charged with enforcing those laws, to the tune of 7 million in 30 months.

He further notes that the chaos in American streets is due to Biden’s open borders, aggravated by the “ultra-violent movement commonly known as ‘antifa.’” Beginning in 2021, antifa activists began disrupting ICE operations and the organization committed itself to “reimagining the border as open to all who would like to cross it.”

In assessing the threats we face, Bensman notes that 40 percent of illegals entering our country come from 160 countries other than Mexico and Central and South America. He writes that “258 known terrorists” have crossed the border, and that “these are the ones we’ve caught.” How many are among the “gotaways” is anyone’s guess. Others are on the terror “watch list,” and 75,000 so-called “special interest aliens” entered the country during a period of nine months.

Bensman correctly believes the time has come for Americans to reclaim their country and that there is hope despite dark times when those in power refuse to even acknowledge the problem. “The puppet strings for the important control of illegal immigration all lead into the White House and, to a limited extent, Congress,” he writes. “Short of any appreciable congressional action, the White House becomes the default location where a mass migration is started and stopped.”

He asserts that the current asylum law must be scrapped and rebuilt, and that immigration loopholes must be closed, such as “the Flores loophole,“ which places a 21-day detention limit on families who immigrate illegally before they must be set free into the country. Even under the best of circumstances, Bensman explains, 21 days is not enough time to properly vet the arrivals.

He adds that once this happens, “laws already on the books are sufficient to end mass illegal immigration if merely enforced to their letter, with consistency over time across the entirety of the border. Because the system was otherwise never ‘broken’ beyond the asylum law and loopholes that allow foreign nationals to bypass congressional law, ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ beyond those two problems was never necessary.”

As the 2024 elections approach, the American electorate has a chance to reclaim the country. After all, most citizens never voted for such a dangerous experiment, and polls show the extent to which the Biden Administration is viewed in an unfavorable light, due in large part to the ongoing border crisis. The question becomes how far the radical extremists who have taken control of the government will go to ensure they remain in power by influencing the election outcome.

Bensman reports that his own extensive research in the field shows that not only are Republicans tired of the onslaught, but that “moderate Democrats” are also rebelling against the current White House, and that “this border crisis presents a rare opportunity for both parties to find common ground and equal willingness to fix an obvious homeland security problem. If partisans will divide on just about every other issue, a mass migration of this historic magnitude should stand as one of the few that ought to draw an authentic bipartisan response.”

Overrun is not only a worthwhile read but a must read for citizens who recognize the gravity of the emergency we face and are determined to do something about it, before our republic is lost forever.

About the Author:
Todd Bensman currently serves as the Texas-based Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington, D.C. policy institute for which he writes, speaks, and grants media interviews about the nexus between immigration and national security. For nearly a decade prior to joining CIS in August 2018, Bensman led counterterrorism intelligence for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division and its multi-agency fusion center. Before his homeland security service, Bensman was an award-winning journalist for twenty-three years, covering national security after 9/11 as a staff writer for major newspapers.

To read the entire book, go to Amazon.com OR BarnesAndNoble.com to order!

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