Senator Hassan is a Democrat representing New Hampshire, but she talked the Republican talk during her southern border walk. Wise voters see the move for what it is: a Hail Mary by a cynic, facing a fourth-and-long on re-election.

The long-ago host of “Wall Street Week,” Louis Rukeyser, once remarked that when Republicans start sounding like Democrats, you might as well vote for the real thing; the reverse is also true.

Our open border has led to record deaths from fentanyl and gang violence, while overwhelming schools and social services. In addition, the cruelty of drug cartel human trafficking turns this pathway to citizenship into a dangerous trek. No just nation would encourage the risk.

Yet encourage it the Biden administration does, and it’s set to make the welcome mat bigger by terminating Title 42, a Covid-era rule that enabled America to stanch the flow of illegal entry amid the pandemic.

Doing so now would be awful timing for Democratic candidates, which is why several blue state senators have urged the president to keep Title 42 in place to give them a fighting chance of holding their seats.

For this reason, Ms. Hassan while at the border campaigned against the White House as if it isn’t held by her party. The administration, she said, “needs to address certain gaps in physical barriers along the border.” 

A wall by any other name ….

While urging more resources and personnel, she repeated that she’d “keep pushing the administration to develop a really strong and strategic plan for how we will secure our borders when Title 42 is lifted.

“And I’m going to keep pushing them to delay lifting Title 42 until that plan is in place.” As radio host Derek Hunter remarked with sarcasm, she was “sounding like a right-wing wacko,” adding, “Isn’t it great? When they’re up for re-election, boy howdy. Suddenly, Democrats … get conservative.”

Border security used to be a topic of bipartisan agreement, but Ms. Hassan’s party now sees the benefit of bringing in millions of future voters, making it easier for foreign nationals to cross the Rio Grande than it is for American citizens to pass through Customs at JFK airport.

At least 2 million have entered America on Biden’s watch. They dodged the vaccination requirements, interviews, financial requirements, and criminal background checks ⁠— all the staples of our legal immigration system.

As someone who has gone through the immigration process with my wife, I have stood in line outside the ICE office in Newark, New Jersey, at 3 a.m., with people from all over the world waiting for their chance to join the American family.

One young fellow called Spike, for his uncanny resemblance to the filmmaker Spike Lee, shows up at 2:30 each morning to sell his spot for $20. Nobody cuts the line just because they think the wait is too long, and they deserve a shorter path to citizenship than the one in place. 

The White House press secretary, Jennifer Psaki, complained after Ms.  Hassan’s trip, “There is no question we have a broken immigration system” — like a child frustrated by a difficult toy, declaring it busted and demanding a new one that’s easier to work.

Our laws are our laws. If Congress wishes to change them, it’s in its power to do so. In the meantime, our leaders are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. They cannot simply ignore it because they want new voters or cheap employees who won’t kick up a fuss.

President Reagan liked to tell a joke about a Republican campaigning in farm country. Unable to find a podium, he had mounted a dung heap and remarked, “That’s the first time I’ve ever given a Republican speech from a Democratic platform.”

Ms. Hassan read from the Republican platform, but her election-year strategy resembles the horse manure of Reagan’s joke. Granite State voters who liked how Ms. Hassan sounded at her photo-op can vote for the real thing in November.

Only then will they be sure they get a senator who walks the talk that Ms. Hassan gave at the border.