A commander in chief has many tough duties to perform, and it’s hard to imagine the stress and anxiety that the job puts on one person.

While the commander in chief faces multiple challenges, we believe one of the most crucial jobs a president has is protecting the homeland and its citizens.

Protecting U.S. citizens should be one of the top priorities of a president. While President Joe Biden can rightfully take credit for eliminating some pretty bad terrorists in the Middle East, he cannot take any credit whatsoever for protecting our citizens from those who are attempting to come into our country to cause us harm.

Since taking office Jan. 20, 2021, Biden has turned a blind eye to our Southern border and on his watch has allowed hundreds of thousands of people who defy and disrespect our laws free passage into our country. In doing so he has tied U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s and the Border Protection’s hands, resulting in a totally inadequate response to the torrent of humanity pouring across our Southern border.

In a directive from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, immigration officers can no longer detain and deport people from the U.S. solely because they are undocumented.

By leaving the border open, as Biden has done since taking office, people with long criminal records have entered this country and will most likely commit crimes on our soil. This is very troubling, to say the least. Not only are his policies openly inviting illegal immigrants to come into our country, he is also indirectly giving terrorists who wish Americans harm easy entry into our country.

Statistics don’t lie. In the last fiscal year, 42 migrants on the terror watchlist have been arrested by Customs and Border Protection at the U.S.-Mexico border. One suspected terrorist, Isnardo Garcia-Amado, was released into the United States and was not arrested until two weeks after he was matched to the terror watchlist.

Last week, an Iraqi man accused of having ties to ISIS was plotting to assassinate former President George W. Bush, according to an FBI search-warrant application. The suspect, Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab, was planning to smuggle recruits through the U.S.-Mexico border. Shihab said he wanted to assassinate Bush because he felt he was responsible for killing many Iraqis and breaking apart the country after the 2003 U.S. military invasion.

The mere fact that 42 migrants on the terror watchlist have attempted to gain access to our country and one terrorist did gain access before being arrested should concern us all regardless of political affiliation because at the end of the day we are all at risk because of this threat.

FBI Director Christopher Wray recently testified at a Senate hearing that Customs and Border Protection is facing a “heck of a challenge” when it comes to national security threats.

“Director Wray finally was asked under oath during testimony, he actually talked about the porous border and said absolutely it’s a national security threat, we should be concerned,” Mark Morgan, former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, told The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat. “In my opinion, there’s no doubt that this incident is not the only one and we’re going to hear about more in the future.”

This is Biden’s own FBI director essentially saying that his boss’ inaction has caused this crisis on the border and in doing so has allowed terrorists to try to use that inaction and vulnerability to gain access to our country.

“This illegal alien who was here in the country was going to use our Southwest border to bring more terrorists across because he said ‘it was wide open, it was easy’ to bring additional individuals across our southern border,” Morgan said. “Over 750,000 illegal aliens have slipped into our country and evaded apprehension. Think about the potential national security threat that’s already in the United States.”

Morgan couldn’t be anymore on point.

We can ill afford to have another attack on our homeland, but the fact that one terrorist successfully got in and more than 40 others tried unsuccessfully to use our Southern border show that Biden’s inaction has invited those who wish us harm to use his open-border policy to come to this country to kill Americans.

Biden is clearly derelict in his duty and his oath as commander in chief. We are very hopeful that another attack doesn’t happen on our homeland, but if one does happen it’s all on Biden and his failure to take this threat seriously and deal with the crisis his policies created on our border.