As the House voted Thursday to bar foreign nationals from voting in local Washington, D.C. elections, Democrats and their public-relations team in the corporate media have rolled out the big guns in attacking such election integrity efforts. They’re painting the legislation that ensures noncitizens cannot vote in elections as the next so-called “Big Lie,” sticking to their well-worn narrative that noncitizens already are prohibited from voting in U.S. elections and that such violations “don’t exist.”
But one of the fiercest opponents of the election integrity legislation has said the quiet part out loud, as Democrats are wont to do.
‘Alien Suffrage’
As Fox News reported, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., wrote a full-throated defense of “Alien Suffrage” in a 1993 paper for the American University Washington College of Law, where he serves as Professor of Law Emeritus. Raskin is ranking member of the House’s Oversight Committee, which, among other things, has constitutional oversight of the District of Columbia.
“In this Article, I will argue that the current blanket exclusion of noncitizens from the ballot is neither constitutionally required nor historically normal,” Raskin wrote. “Moreover, the disenfranchisement of aliens at the local level is vulnerable to deep theoretical objections since resident aliens — who are governed, taxed, and often drafted just like citizens — have a strong democratic claim to being considered members, indeed citizens, of their local communities.”
A top Democrat leader unveils liberal plans to give illegal immigrants right to vote in local, state, and federal elections.
Writes that illegals “have a strong democratic claim to being considered members, indeed citizens”. https://t.co/k3u4bVlyb9
Not surprisingly, Raskin was among 143 Democrats voting against the Republican-led bill blocking illegal immigrants and other foreign nationals from voting in elections in the district, over which Congress has ultimate authority. Interestingly, 52 Democrats joined Republicans in passing the measure — because the vast majority of Americans believe only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in local and U.S. elections. Taking the opposing view is not a smart reelection strategy for politically vulnerable liberals.
Several cities in Raskin’s home state have allowed foreign nationals to vote in local elections for years. Takoma Park, Maryland in November celebrated its 30th anniversary “of the first non-US. Residents” voting in the Washington, D.C. suburb.
“Even if it’s only a handful voting in elections—and it’s more than that—it’s a huge step forward for democracy,” said Seth Grimes, a leftist community organizer, in an official city press release. “Non-citizens have a stake in civic affairs, and everyone should have a voice in who governs them.”
Polling shows an overwhelming number of Americans don’t share Grimes’ point of view, or the one expressed in Raskin’s law school report. A national poll conducted last year for Americans for Citizen Voting by RMG Research, Inc., found 75 percent of respondents were opposed to allowing foreign nationals to vote in their local elections.
In his 1993 paper, Raskin argued that the “emergence of a global market and the corresponding dilution of national boundaries, would invite us to treat local governments as ‘polities of presence’ in which all community inhabitants, not just those who are citizens of the superordinate nation-state, form the electorate.”
“Alien suffrage would thus become part of a basic human right to democracy,” the now-congressman wrote.
Does Raskin still feel that way? His office did not return The Federalist’s request for comment.
Media: Alien Voting Doesn’t Happen and It’s Fine When It Does
After Thursday’s vote, it’s not a leap to suspect many of Raskin’s fellow Democrats support foreign nationals voting in local elections. If they were against it, they would have voted for the D.C. election integrity measure.
Corporate media, of course, have been running interference for Democrats in the weeks since former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s presumed presidential nominee, and Speaker Mike Johnson announced the rollout of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. The SAVE Act is aimed at shoring up glaring holes in the 30-year-old National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) passed during a simpler time, when politicians believed in borders. The bill would amend the 1993 “Motor Voter” law to require individuals to provide proof of citizenship before they are automatically registered to vote at state departments of motor vehicles and other agencies. It also requires states to remove foreign nationals from their voting rolls, something too many state election officials have been loath to do. The NVRA does not require direct proof of citizenship for voter registration.
Republicans say the legislation is crucial in the wake of the millions of illegal immigrants that have poured through the U.S. southwest border since Joe Biden took the presidential oath of office in January 2021.
“There is currently an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system, and that is the threat of noncitizens and illegal aliens voting in our elections,” Johnson said at a Capitol press conference earlier this month announcing the bill.
But the accomplice media, while conceding foreign nationals have been caught voting in federal elections, assert the act is extremely rare. Besides, the left’s messengers contend, what illegal alien in his right mind would risk committing a felony just to vote in a federal election? The New York Times accused Republicans of “Sowing [a] False Narrative.” The Associated Press asserts“Noncitizen voting isn’t an issue in federal elections,” while it acknowledges that it does happen.
“To be clear, there have been cases of noncitizens casting ballots, but they are extremely rare. Those who have looked into these cases say they often involve legal immigrants who mistakenly believe they have the right to vote,”AP admits.
So much for the idea that any illegal vote dilutes the validity of an election. Again, the corporate media like to put qualifiers on fraud, forced by the facts to acknowledge its existence but insisting it isn’t “widespread.”
“They’ve used ‘widespread’ for years as a way of downplaying any concern about it,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and Senior Legal Fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. “We don’t have ‘widespread’ bank robberies but we have enough of them that we take very detailed security precautions to prevent them. Election fraud is exactly the same.”
Hans Von Spakovsky points out: “We don’t have ‘widespread’ bank robberies, but we have enough of them that we take very detailed security precautions to prevent them. Election fraud is exactly the same.”https://t.co/xKMn3uRBxFpic.twitter.com/erB4hxK2cQ
Raskin isn’t the only Democrat who has defended foreign nationals voting in elections. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, has been very vocal in his support for aliens voting in New York local elections. His New York congressional colleague, leftist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has suggested the Republican-controlled House’s bill to bar foreign nationals from voting in D.C. is reminiscent of the days of slavery.
“They’re singling out the residents of the District of Columbia and expanding in the history of disenfranchisement that goes all the way back to the legacy of slavery,”she said last year.
James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said the bill aims to rectify the D.C. City Council’s decision to “recklessly allowed non-citizens to participate in elections in our nation’s capital.”
“This move by the Council was irresponsible and subverts the voices of American citizens,” Comer said in a statement. “Today, Congress took action and I applaud the passage of legislation that will now prohibit non-citizens from voting in District of Columbia elections.”
The House bill pertaining to D.C. elections and the SAVE Act aren’t going anywhere this year with a Democrat-controlled Senate and a president who appears to be running a Democrat Party future recruitment drive. But Americans, many of whom don’t support illegal aliens and other foreign nationals voting in U.S. elections, know where the party stands heading into the November election.
“Rep. Raskin is okay with the ‘dilution of national boundaries.’ I am not. And neither are the majority of United States citizens,” said Jack Tomczak, national field director for Americans for Citizen Voting, which is leading a growing national effort to amend state constitutions to include citizen-only voting language.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
Flyers reportedly posted around a Resource Center Matamoros facility in Mexico encouraged illegal immigrants — who are not eligible to vote in the United States — to vote for President Joe Biden in November, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. One of the organizations operating out of the Resource Center Matamoros (RCM) has ties to Biden’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose articles of impeachment the U.S. House of Representatives delivered to the Senate Tuesday afternoon.
The flyers, which the Oversight Project posted photos of on X, read “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” The Heritage Foundation said the flyers were first discovered by Muckraker but also confirmed to The Federalist that their own team had obtained a copy of one of the flyers “inside the RCM office.”
“The flyer in the X thread is a direct scan of the one our folks obtained on-site inside the RCM office,” a Heritage Foundation representative said. “The flyers were also posted all over the camp in the port-a-potties.”
Nevertheless, others have raised questions about the flyer, including Fox News’ Bill Melugin.
“I am extremely skeptical of this. The flier appears to be a word for word Google Translate copy & paste of a portion of the NGO’s English website, with ‘vote for Biden’ randomly added in at the end, when it does not appear on the site,” Melugin posted on X. “The translation is bad, then you have ‘bienvenidos’ spelled wrong and ‘todos con Biden’ added onto the flier with a Biden logo.”
Another social media user associated with a left-wing immigration group claimed to have spoken with the executive director of RCM and said the posters were “Totally fake” and “Made up by two posers.”
It is unclear whether RCM authorized the posting of the flyers, but the Heritage Foundation told The Federalist that because they found flyers in the RCM office, they have “every reason to believe” the flyer is from the organization. The Federalist reached out to RCM for more information but did not receive a response.
The flyers “appear to be handed out when illegal aliens use the RCM for assistance in coming to the USA,” according to the Oversight Project.
These flyers were discovered by @realmuckraker throughout the Resource Center Matamoras (RCM) location including on the walls of port-a-potties
They also appear to be handed out when illegal aliens use the RCM for assistance in coming to the USA pic.twitter.com/hvlkwOI5Xs
RCM says it is “a humanitarian organization that provides a safe space where refugees at the southern Texas-Mexico border can access legal and social support services.” Its “6-unit office complex” hosts the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), which provides “legal assistance and assistance with obtaining formal documents for job search and integration into the city of Matamoros as [migrants] wait to access the asylum process in the US.”
RCM founder and executive director Gaby Zavala previously worked with La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE)– a left-wing organization that is partnered with the Open Society Institute, as pointed out by the Oversight Project. The Open Society Institute is funded by left-wing billionaire and mega-donor George Soros.
RCM also worked alongside Team Brownsville, a left-wing organization, and Angry Tias and Abeulas, which aims to help illegal immigrants cross the border, according to the Oversight Project.
RCM has significant ties to Soros-funded non-profits operating in the United States, including Save the Children, Team Brownsville Texas, and Angry Tias and Abuelas pic.twitter.com/cydCAM4PdE
Mayorkas — whose disastrous handling of the invasion at the southern border earned him impeachment by the House — was formerly on the board of HIAS and in his current role with the Biden administration has met with members of both Angry Tias and Abuelas as well as LUPE, according to Judicial Watch.
While illegal immigrants and other noncitizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections, federal voter registration forms simply require each individual to check a box affirming he is a U.S. citizen. The lack of any requirement that new voters show documentary proof of citizenship prompted former President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday to announce Republican legislation that would demand such documentation from new registrants.
The federal government currently prohibits states from requiring potential voters to provide such proof to register to vote in federal elections. States may require proof of citizenship to register for statewide elections, as Arizona does. But even in Arizona, a voter who attempts to register to vote with the state form but fails to provide proof of citizenship must then be registered to vote on a federal-only form.
During the 2020 presidential election, 11,600 voters voted using a federal-only ballot, AZ Free News reported. President Joe Biden won the state by 10,457 votes.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.
Hundreds of foreigners who camped at the border, broke the fence with their hands, sticks, and different tools they had placed blankets over the spikes and entered the United States through the area known as Gate 36 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on March 21, 2024. (Photo: Christian Torres/Anadolu/Getty Images)
After a key House committee advanced legislation this week to require a citizenship question on the U.S. Census, support for the measure could be growing in the backdrop of the border crisis and its potential impact on congressional reapportionment. Heritage Action, a policy advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation, announced Friday the Equal Representation Act would be scored as a key vote. The bill is S 3659 in the Senate and HR 7109 in the House. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
Under current law, foreign citizens living in the United States are counted in the Census, and thus toward congressional apportionment. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., publicly admitted, “We have a diaspora that can absorb a significant number of these migrants. … I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.”
Democrat Congresswoman Yvette Clarke on illegal immigrants in America:
"I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes."
The end game: Dems are willing to destroy what it means to be an American citizen to help themselves politically. pic.twitter.com/3XmBDqYEsH
“Joe Biden’s deadly border policies have made the illegal immigration crisis the number one concern of the American people, and voters are pleading for Congress to fight back,” Heritage Action Executive Vice President Ryan Walker said in a statement.
The House version has 100 co-sponsors and was approved by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. After being in all but one census from 1820 to 2000, the Census citizenship question was abandoned in the 2010 questionnaire during the Obama administration.
🚨PASSED🚨
We just passed this commonsense bill through our committee.
Unsurprisingly, every Oversight Democrat voted against it.
“Congressional apportionment and electoral votes should be based solely on the needs of American citizens. Heritage Action is proud to have helped push this bill past the 100 cosponsor mark and will keep working with conservatives across the country to finish the job,” Walker said.
The Heritage Action announcement comes the same day House Speaker Mike Johnson was set to join former President Donald Trump for a press conference on election integrity Friday, The Hill reported.
Reps. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, introduced the House version and Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., introduced the Senate version. The goal is to protect Americans’ electoral power and congressional representation.
“Members of Congress represent U.S. citizens, not foreigners,” Davidson said in a statement. “Under the Democrats’ open border policies, sanctuary cities and states inflate their population with illegal aliens. Then they’re rewarded with more congressional representation by a Census that counts illegals. The inflated count is then used to draw congressional maps, undermining fair representation for our citizens.”
Edwards stressed only American citizens can legally vote, “so only American citizens should be counted when determining federal representation.”
“In the 2008 Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, the justices defined ‘the people’ to mean all members of the political community. To be a member of a political community, you must be an eligible voter,” Edwards said in a statement. “The Equal Representation Act addresses one of the many consequences of our open border—illegal immigrant influence in America’s electoral process. America is waking up to this insidious threat to our democracy.”
New York City politicians are pushing for revised laws after a crew of squatters punctuated a months-long terror campaign against their neighbors by burning a house to the ground last November.
“It was a very quiet neighborhood before and then suddenly when it happened, those people break into the house,” Ming Zhu, who lives two houses down from the razed Brooklyn home, said at a Thursday press conference.
Residents say the cadre of squatters took up residence in the Dyker Heights neighborhood over the summer and quickly made themselves known by stealing security cameras and other goods from surrounding houses – and directly threatening neighbors.
Cheng Chen, 46, was charged with arson and criminal mischief after the Nov. 29 fire at 1237 67th Street last year – he was saddled with a six-month prison sentence after pleading guilty, according to court records.
Squatters set fire to a home in Brooklyn’s Dyker Heights on Nov. 29 last year after a months-long campaign of terror against their neighbors, according to local politicians who said loopholes enabling squatters need to be closed. (LLN NYC)
“The fire was caused by candles,” Chen told police, according to a criminal complaint. “I was smoking a cigarette, lit a candle. While I had the stove on to heat up the water and to keep myself warm, [I] went downstairs to take a shower. When I came back, I saw flames and smoke everywhere.”
But the New York City Police Department told Fox News Digital that Chen started the fire “intentionally” and “recklessly.”
The inferno caused $900,000 in damage, the New York Post reported, and took dozens of firefighters an hour to extinguish, according to ABC 7.
A spokesperson for NYC Councilwoman Susan Zhuang’s office told Fox News Digital that the rest of those squatters are living in the home’s backyard to this day.
Dozens of firefighters took an hour to put out the blaze, which reportedly caused $900,000 in damage. One squatter, Cheng Chen, was arrested on arson and criminal mischief charges. The other occupants of the home have taken up residence in the razed property’s backyard, neighbors say. (LLN NYC)
In light of the arson and a spate of similar incidents, Zhuang called for revisions to the squatter’s rights laws at a Thursday press conference as fed-up residents held up photos of the burning Brooklyn home.
“In our neighborhood, we don’t have the Hamptons houses,” she told reporters in Gravesend. “We the people have the small houses. We work hard, check by check.
“They are hardworking families that pay their mortgages from paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, squatters enter their home while they are on vacation. People’s lives are turned upside down.”
Zhuang said she has heard an increasing number of stories of homes and businesses being taken over by squatters in the last several months. Neighbor Zhu called upon politicians to clarify tenancy laws at the Thursday event:
“This is New York City, the greatest city in the world – we have to make the city better,” he said. “Why does the city and the state make laws to make those people… to make an easier life for them?… We pay for everything. Those people don’t do nothing and they get it better than us… this is completely out of control.”
Zhu said the squatters at the home broke his $5,000 security camera. Another person living on the block said the squatters regularly stole water from surrounding houses using barrels.
The Dyker Heights home before it burned to the ground in November. Squatter Cheng Chen, who was arrested for arson and criminal mischief, told police a candle started the inferno. (Google Maps)
The incident is just one of the latest squatter nightmares to plague New Yorkers – last month, eight Venezuelan migrants were hauled out of a Bronx home filled with guns and drugs. Many were previously arrested at the southern border and released back into the U.S. and one had a previous rap on a murder charge.
Also last month, a Manhattan woman was murdered after she surprised two squatters who had taken up residence in her new apartment, police said – her family members found her stuffed inside a duffel bag.
Lawmakers also called for police and courts to report and track squatting incidents so that it’s possible to know how often they are happening, ABC 7 reported.
The outlet reported that Thursday’s press conference was one of several rallies centered on the squatting problem, with several held in Queens.
Councilwoman Susan Zhuang, wearing pink, is surrounded by residents holding up photos of the Brooklyn house fire at an April 4 press conference on the city’s squatter problem. (Provided by Councilwoman Susan Zhuang)
Council members on both sides of the aisle have advocated for closing loopholes that favor occupants refusing to leave residences over landlords, the outlet reported.
Under New York City law, anyone who beds down in a home or apartment for at least 30 days can claim squatter’s rights, even if they broke into the property – it would be up to state legislators to change that.
Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz has written a bill that would make it easier for police to intervene, clarifying the definition of tenant to exclude squatters.
“We have an affordability crisis, a migrant crisis and a cost of living crisis in New York,” Blumencranz told Fox 5. “People know they can come to New York as a safe harbor, they can receive all kinds of free benefits, and now they know they can use our laws against the residents of New York to their advantage.”
Blumencranz’s proposed bill would allow police to intervene when residents don’t have a lease or proof that they’ve paid rent to live in a home, he said. “All we’re trying to do… is provide the people of New York reassurances that if someone moves into your home and they don’t have proper documentation, they cannot stay there.”
Christina Coulter is a U.S. and World reporter for Fox News Digital. Email story tips to christina.coulter@fox.com.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott joined “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday to explain how President Biden’s approach at the border increases national security risks for his state and the country as a whole.
GOV. GREG ABBOTT: Well, let’s be clear. The administration is doing nothing to stop terrorists from coming across the border. They are knowingly allowing them in. And there’s two categories here. There are the terrorists who were actually apprehended. The terrorists apprehended are an all-time record. Many multiples of those who came across the border under the Trump administration…
Second… the terrorist will pay extra not to be caught. What that means is the number that we’ve caught — which is extraordinary — there’s far more than that have gotten across the border. Also last month, the FBI director talked about a potential 9/11-type terrorist attack because of the terrorists who are coming across our border. The chief job of the President of the United States is national security. President Biden is failing at national security. We are extraordinarily concerned about a terrorist attack occurring in Texas or elsewhere in the United States because the terrorists who are crossing our border at will go unstopped by the bottom.
Texas on Wednesday defended its anti-illegal immigration law in oral arguments before a federal appeals court panel as the law remains on hold due to a legal challenge from the Biden administration. Abbott signed the legislation, SB 4, in December, which allows local police to arrest illegal immigrants and for judges to order them deported. However, the law has been on hold due to a challenge from the Biden administration, which says the law is unconstitutional, hurts international relations and impedes the federal government’s enforcement of immigration law.
Texas has argued that the law is necessary due to the Biden administration’s alleged failure to secure the southern border and enforce immigration law, and on Wednesday it argued before the three-judge panel that the ongoing crisis at the border is unprecedented.
The court had previously blocked the law from going into effect, but it was then briefly allowed to go into effect by the U.S. Supreme Court before being kicked back down and blocked again by the Fifth Circuit.
It is one of a number of such measures being passed or moved forward by states across the U.S. Louisiana, Iowa and Tennessee are all states that have bills under consideration that would do either the same or similar to what Texas is seeking to do.
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
A large gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall is seen in Otay Mesa, a community in San Diego County, California, on Friday. (Photo: Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal)
A man made his way along a dirt path in Tijuana, Mexico, toward the large gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall Friday morning. He carried a backpack and walked with ease through the more than 100-yard opening into Otay Mesa, a community in San Diego County,California. No Border Patrol agents were in sight. A source working alongside agents in the San Diego Sector told The Daily Signal on Friday that Border Patrol was short-staffed, only having a fraction of the agents needed to cover California’s border with Mexico.
The man who entered through the gap Friday did not appear concerned about whether he was seen entering the country illegally, but also appeared hesitant to encounters strangers, maintaining a significant distance between himself and The Daily Signal reporting team.
🚨WATCH: An individual crosses through the gap in the border wall from Tijuana, Mexico into Otay Mesa in San Diego County. pic.twitter.com/OIVBzXHOsY
If the wall had been completed in Otay Mesa, would the man with the backpack still have found another way to enter the country illegally? In other words, do walls alone stop illegal immigration?
Trump vs. Biden on Border Walls
Construction was underway to extend the border fence 3 miles through the Otay Mountain Wilderness under President Donald Trump, The San Diego Union-Tribune previously reported. And the materials to finish the project, according to local landowners who recently spoke with The Daily Signal, were ready to be used to complete the barrier between Otay Mesa and Tijuana.
But under the Biden administration, construction was halted, and the wall materials were removed from the area. Today, a large gap in the wall remains in the mountainous region.
This is the gap in the border wall in Otay Mesa.
The materials to fill the gap were ready to go, but locals tell me those materials were hauled away under the Biden administration. pic.twitter.com/YQiWzfewKz
On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order declaring that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”
Case Study of the San Diego Sector
The San Diego Sector, one of nine sectors along the southern border, presents an interesting case study on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of border walls and policy related to U.S. border security.
(Photo: Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, generated based on Customs and Border Protection data)
Illegal crossings into the San Diego Sector are not new.
“San Diego Sector’s primary operational area of responsibility consists of 7,000 square miles, including 60 linear miles of international boundary with Mexico and 114 coastal border miles along the Pacific Ocean,” according to Customs and Border Protection.
Throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and into the ’90s, the San Diego Sector consistently experience more illegal crossings than any other southern border sector. In fiscal year 1980, for example, Border Patrol encountered 285,984 illegal aliens in the San Diego Sector. The El Paso Sector, which includes all of New Mexico and a portion of western Texas, had the second-highest number of encounters that same year at 127,488.
In an effort to stem the vast number of illegal crossings into the sector, in 1994, “Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector introduced a new border control plan at Imperial Beach Station,” according to an archived Justice Department document. The plan was called Operation Gatekeeper. Imperial Beach Station is one of eight Border Patrol stations in the San Diego Sector.
According to the Justice Department, Operation Gatekeeper focused on deterring and preventing illegal crossings, and shifted away from an emphasis on apprehensions. Following Operation Gatekeeper’s implantation in the Imperial Beach Station, the plan was rolled out at the other seven stations in the sector.
In 1993, fencing was constructed out of steel landing mats along long stretches of the San Diego Sector border with Mexico starting at the Pacific Ocean, according to the Justice Department report. The report notes that people were still able to climb over the barrier, but “the fencing serves two important functions: It provides a barrier to vehicles crossing the border with aliens and/or drugs, and it defines a clear line of demarcation between the two countries.” Those initial efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the San Diego Sector saw little result.
Border Patrol encountered 565,581 illegal aliens in 1992 before the implementation of Operation Gatekeeper or the building of long stretches of barrier. By 1996, the San Diego Sector was seeing slightly lower encounter numbers, ending the fiscal year with a total of 483,815—still the highest among all nine southern border sectors.
It was not until 2010 that the San Diego Sector began to see a large and sustained decrease in illegal border crossings, following Congress authorizing the building of 700 miles of border wall under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 during the Bush administration.
The construction of the border wall that began under then-President George W. Bush continued under President Barack Obama, including in the in the Otay Mountain Wilderness in California, where a gap remains today. In 2007, total illegal Southwest border crossings between ports of entry began to decline and did not see significant increase again until fiscal year 2019, at which time then-President Donald Trump began implementing new policies to reduce the flow of illegal immigration, such as the Remain in Mexico policy. More fencing was also built under Trump.
Results
Between factors such as changes to Border Patrol policies and the building of border wall during the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, Border Patrol encounters between ports of entry on the southern border fell to 400,651 in fiscal year 2020, the final full fiscal year of Trump’s presidency. In the San Diego Sector, Border Patrol encountered 53,282 illegal aliens during the same year. In fiscal year 2021, most of it under President Joe Biden’s administration, encounters in the San Diego Sector climbed back up to over 142,000, and across the southern border, encounters were more than 1.6 million, levels the Border Patrol had not come close to since before the building of the tall border wall in 2000.
Biden ended Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy and stopped all wall construction, but did not remove sections of previously built wall, yet has seen record high encounter numbers under his presidency. In fiscal year 2022 and 2023, Border Patrol encountered more than 2 million illegal aliens in each 12-month period between ports of entry along the southern border.
Border Patrol data indicates illegal crossings have only declined significantly with both construction of border wall and during times when policies were in place to discourage entering the country illegally.
By Brian Freeman | Monday, 11 March 2024 12:49 PM EDT
The illegal immigration problem can’t be solved without defining it, making it frustrating that President Joe Biden retracted the “illegal” label of the man who was charged in the murder of nursing student Laken Riley, Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Newsmax on Monday.
“Its ridiculous that President Biden is not willing to define this problem, and by not defining it, he is not going to come up with solutions,” Judd said on “Wake Up America,” adding that is “what really frustrates every single one of us.”
Judd reiterated that Biden “is not going to come up with a solution to the problem by watering down what this problem actually is.”
Instead, by walking back his comments, Biden is “inviting so many people to cross our borders illegally,” Judd said.
Judd, who has endorsed former President Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election, said that when Biden came into office, he reversed 97 of Trump’s policies on the border, explaining that is why the nation has had a surge in illegal crossings.
Still, Judd said his organization backed a recent bipartisan Senate immigration bill that Trump and Republicans sabotaged.
Judd said that the compromise proposal would have been “absolutely better than what we currently have” by, for example, removing the backed-up judiciary from the process and raising the credible fear standard, which would have severely reduced the number of migrants able to use that argument to stay in the country.
He stressed that his organization wanted to see it to go to the floor for debate and amendment in order to get rid of the bad items that were in the proposal.
Judd, however, blamed Biden for “weaponizing” his group’s backing for the bill by failing to give the “proper context for our support at the time.”
He stressed that this is one of the reasons that the public should have “zero confidence” in the Biden administration.
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
Should individuals who immigrate here in pursuit of economic prosperity gain the right to vote? Eventually, but only after they go through the lengthy process to become legally naturalized citizens and do so without jumping the line. (Photo: Shironosov/iStock/Getty Images)
The New York City Legislature, following in the footsteps of Washington, D.C., passed a groundbreaking bill into law in 2022. The law would have allowed any lawful permanent resident or green card holder to vote in a New York City election. That law was met with legal challenges as quickly as it was passed, which was to be expected, given that it flagrantly infringed upon the state’s constitution.
The Constitution of New York states unequivocally, “every citizen shall be entitled to vote … .” This provision’s meaning is so obvious that it has been painful to see the far-left liberal New York City Council pass a law that violates it. It is evident that the New York City Legislature misplaced its reading glasses, as it would not have enacted a law that contradicts the New York Constitution in such a bizarre way.
The majority opinion, authored by appellate Judge Paul Wooten, stated, “The plain language of this provision provides that the right to vote in ‘every election for all officers elected by the people’ is available exclusively to citizens.”
Unsurprisingly, pro-immigrant organizations denounced the decision, calling it “shameful” and saying it “disenfranchise[s] residents.” Disenfranchises? Really? This remark is as illogical as it is absurd. The only people disenfranchised by this law are United States citizens.
Voter disenfranchisement entails impeding an individual’s ability to exercise his or her right to vote or diminishing the value of his or her vote. The reason the Electoral College is reviled by the Left is because, according to its worldview, it confers greater value on specific votes than others, especially in smaller states.
The right to vote is sacred. However, the Left has forgotten that it must be earned, not given. Not earned in the conventional sense of passing a test to acquire, like the racist literacy tests of the past; rather, acquired through enduring the complexities and challenges associated with being a citizen. Becoming a citizen is not a simple task. Individuals must either be so lucky as to be born in the United States or endure a laborious and sometimes yearslong application process. There are discernible indicators in both processes that demonstrate an individual is prepared and deserving of the right to vote.
A person born in the United States has lived and grown in that country. He or she has gone through the government-mandated educational system and complied with the laws of this country for his or her entire lives. They have fulfilled their responsibilities through compliance and, in the case of some, hardship brought upon by our laws.
Individuals who obtain citizenship have demonstrated their readiness to undertake substantial obligations and sacrifices to integrate into a foreign nation. They have sworn allegiance to a new nation after navigating a complex legal system, and many have become proficient in a foreign language.
Nothing of the sort applies to noncitizens. There are undoubtedly many noncitizens loyal to this country, but they, like everyone else, must undergo the same process to demonstrate that they have earned the right to vote. It is inequitable to accord equal weight to the votes of transient individuals who enter the country for economic purposes, return their funds to their country of origin, or who are mere public charges, in comparison to those who have sworn allegiance to the United States and who have gone through the process to become a citizen.
Through the news, we tragically witness the disloyal individuals who come here and commit heinous acts daily. Migrants assaulting police officers, MS-13 gangs wreaking havoc on the population, migrants stabbing innocent people in Georgia. These tragedies have become routine occurrences. Should these individuals, whose sole intention is to cause harm or act selfishly, be permitted to vote? Undoubtedly not.
Should individuals who immigrate in pursuit of economic prosperity gain the right to vote? Eventually, but only after enduring the same trials and tribulations that each and every American has also endured.
The foundation of the United States is immigration. Each of us is an immigrant in some capacity. Our right to vote has been acquired through either our unwavering allegiance to the United States or our successful completion of the trials and systems established by the country. If an individual claims your vote lacks significance, you should explain the arduous journey you undertook to earn that privilege and the actions you undertook as a citizen. It just might persuade someone to reconsider their position.
MSNBC host Joy Reid— seen here in a May 19, 2021, screenshot speaking to a virtual version of the 33rd “Gloria Awards: A Salute to Women of Vision” in New York City—is what she accuses others of being; namely, a spreader of wild conspiracy theories. (Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
In case you just can’t get enough of Joy Reid with an hour each weeknight on MSNBC, you can catch her sharing her wild and loose opinions on TikTok. Recently, she pounced on remarks by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., supporting the Alabama court decision that frozen embryos are children, because “we need more kids.”
Our fertility rate in America is now at a record low, but Reid just wants to use Alabama’s football coach-turned-senator as a punching bag. “Why does the state of Alabama need more kids? More kids for what?”
Reid wants to make this about immigration. “Your party, Sen. Tuberville, is the one screaming that 10 million immigrants … have streamed into the country since Joe Biden has been president. And you’re claiming that’s too many people.”
Most critics of the border crisis aren’t arguing that America is overpopulated. They’re arguing the massive influx of humanity is too much for our government systems to handle, which is the same critique emanating from Democratic big city mayors, who have been swamped with migrants who expect free food, housing and maybe a monthly gift card.
But Reid was primed to uncork a racial conspiracy theory, which MSNBC always encourages against Republicans. Antebellum references seem mandatory.
“There was a time when the state of Alabama absolutely needed more kids, because Alabama was a slave state,” Reid proclaimed, “and the mandate of the planter class in Alabama was for black women to produce more kids because those kids were property, and they could work more kids and make more money on their plantation.”
But what does 1854 have to do with 2024? Reid suggested there was a master plan: “Are you saying the state of Alabama needs more kids because you think that those populations will include people who may be destitute and desperate enough that when you kick out the immigrants … you can make them do the work that the migrants are doing now? ‘Cause that kind of sounds slavery-ish.”
Wait. If the immigrants flooding into America are doing “slavery-ish” work, shouldn’t Reid oppose more immigration? Reid needs to imply the immigrants pouring in are “people of color,” even if that’s not true. For the Left, appeals to limit illegal immigration must always be painted as motivated by racism.
To its credit, The New York Times has published a series of investigative reports on migrant child labor in America. One was headlined “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.”
No one imagines that led to a scathing TikTok tirade by Reid. She closed out by asking Tuberville in absentia if, since he’s a “white guy,” he’s suggesting “we need more kids” means “whites need more kids,” a “Great Replacement thing,” because if he thinks white women need to make more babies, “that’s a little creepy. A little ‘Handmaid’s Tale,’ don’t you think?”
Back in 2021, Reid took to TikTok to mock Kyle Rittenhouse for tearing up when he testified about shooting rioters dead in self-defense. Reid compared him to Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, mocking their “male white tears,” and proclaiming these guys “Karen-out, and as soon as they get caught, they bring waterworks.”
Reid wouldn’t use this white-Karens-waterworks mockery for Hillary Clinton’s public tears when she ran for president. These videos aren’t for everyone. They’re for the hard-core MSNBC watchers who want to “own the cons,” but especially those stale, pale males. Conservatives just want to check what chemicals she might have put in her vape pen to explain that overactive imagination.
Why did President Joe Biden reverse former President Donald Trump’s order excluding noncitizens from being counted in the census, while simultaneously issuing a slew of executive orders decimating the integrity of our southern border? While illegal immigrants cannot vote in elections (despite Democrats’ best efforts), the left is using their illegal presence to rig elections by shifting the political landscape through apportionment.
Both congressional and electoral college apportionment is derived from the number of residents in a particular area. Trump signed a memo in July of 2020 that barred illegal immigrants from being counted in the census, which is used to apportion representation in Washington. Biden, however, reversed the policy and ordered the census to include illegal immigrants and other noncitizens.
This means that American citizens aren’t receiving balanced representation in their government.
States can pick up — or lose — a congressional seat depending on the size of their population, despite the fact that some of that population may not even be allowed to vote. Millions of illegal immigrants, many of whom are in large, left-leaning cities, dilute the voting power of American citizens who may live in a mildly populated area composed of legal residents.
Democrat New York Rep. Yvette Clark said during a 2021 hearing that her district “can absorb a significant number of these migrants” because “I need more people in my district, just for redistricting purposes.”
NY Congresswoman Clarke (D) saying the quiet part out loud about the border:
Clark’s resurfaced clip prompted Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, and others to introduce the “Equal Representation Act” which would mandate only legal citizens are counted for congressional districts and the Electoral College map.
Sanctuary Cities
So-called “sanctuary cities,” which promise not to enforce immigration laws and often guarantee lodging to illegal residents, have long blurred the lines of law, bucking federal immigration policy and then begging taxpayers to foot the bill. But despite the drain on government resources — and sometimes violence — these policies invite, these cities and left-leaning states have reason to incentivize illegal immigrants because it helps them adjust for apportionment.
As residents flee blue states like California and New York for more family-friendly and taxpayer-friendly states like Florida and Texas, Democrats need to recoup their population losses. Illegal immigrants inflate the census data, which in turn could help Democrats retain their power.
Constitutionally Suspect
The framers likely would not support Biden’s position that illegal immigrants deserve to be counted in apportionment to determine representation.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
Following the Civil War, the 14th Amendment stipulated that “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State.”
But “whole number of persons” was likely not intended to encompass those illegally residing in the states.
Prior to the ratification of the Constitution, most northern states advocated for no slaves to be counted in the apportionment proceedings so that slaveholding states, some of which had slave populations as high as 43 percent of their total residents, would not have an unfair amount of representation compared to their actual voting weight.
The three-fifths compromise also lessened the incentive for slaveholding states to import more slaves in order to expand their population and increase their representation.
No ‘Colorable Constitutional Claim’
Lower courts had blocked Trump’s memorandum from taking effect after 23 states challenged the memo, saying it violated the Constitution and federal census statutes. The Supreme Court has never weighed in on the question nor answered whether the word “persons” encompasses illegal immigrants for the purpose of apportionment. But the high court has previously ruled in Mathews v. Diaz, a case regarding the Social Security Act, that while illegal immigrants are entitled to due process protections under the Fifth and 14th Amendments, they are not entitled to the benefits of citizenship. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the unanimous court:
Neither the overnight visitor, the unfriendly agent of a hostile foreign power, the resident diplomat, nor the illegal entrant, can advance even a colorable constitutional claim to a share in the bounty that a conscientious sovereign makes available to its own citizens and some of its guests.
If voting, which is a benefit exclusively for citizens, is off-limits to illegal immigrants, it would be hard to imagine that illegal immigrants should be empowered to dilute the weight of a vote by artificially expanding the population and increasing the representational advantage of one area while taking it away from another area that is populated by legal residents. And yet, thanks to Democrats, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.
Arizona removed nearly 200 residents from its voter rolls after discovering they were foreign nationals, and therefore ineligible to vote, a new report revealed.
Published on Tuesday, the analysis by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) found that 186 noncitizens residing in Pima County have been “involuntarily purged” from the Grand Canyon State’s voter registration lists since 2021. According to the report, seven of these 186 foreigners appear to have cast ballots “across two federal and local elections.”
Records reviewed by PILF included more detailed information, such as the party affiliation of the aforementioned noncitizens. The analysis indicated 108 did not have a party affiliation, while 46 were registered as Democrats and 28 as Republicans. Three were registered independents and one was a Libertarian.
“Roughly 65 percent of records came from ‘political parties and group drives,’” the report reads. “Although conclusions in other studies established that organizers of voter registration drives can be left leaning, the party affiliations of the registrants within the Pima disclosure are more varied.”
A separate report released by PILF last year found that Arizona had also removed 222 Maricopa County residents who were identified as foreign nationals since 2015. Of those 222 noncitizens, nine purportedly cast “12 ballots across 4 federal elections.”
PILF’s analysis comes amid concerns over whether Arizona’s voter registration processes could lead to registering foreign nationals to vote. While Arizona requires residents to show proof of citizenship to vote in state elections, a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision forbade the state from implementing such a requirement for federal elections. As PILF noted, individuals who cannot provide Arizona with documents to prove citizenship “may participate only in federal elections” using a federal-only ballot.
“State officials also query government databases to backfill these credentials for existing registrants where they can,” the report says. “If officials become aware of a registrant’s documented foreign nationality from reliable government data, however, they are ‘involuntarily purged’ from the roll if they cannot prove subsequent naturalization has occurred.”
These registration procedures highlight the problems with policies such as automatic voter registration and permitting illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses, which, PILF noted, “exacerbate the problem” of foreign nationals being registered to vote in U.S. elections.
In a statement, PILF President J. Christian Adams blasted federal law for “hamper[ing] states’ abilities to validate citizenship during the voter registration process” and called on lawmakers to change it so states can verify registrants’ citizenship.
“Arizona is limited to building imperfect systems to address the problem of foreign nationals voting,” Adams said.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Venezulean illegal immigrants wait to get paperwork to be admitted to shelters at a processing center on May 9 in Denver. (Photo: Helen H. Richardson/Media News Group/The Denver Post/Getty Images)
Denver is buckling under a financial crisis caused by illegal immigration. But the fault lies not in the stars, but with the city itself.
“Denver will cut hours at recreation centers, end in-person vehicle-registration renewals and eliminate spring flower beds to save $5 million this year, a response to the migrant crisis that is expected to cost the city $180 million,” the Colorado Sun reported.
But the city isn’t just cutting corners on niche city services.
According to KUSA-TV, the local NBC News affiliate, the city is asking nearly every city department—from animal shelters to the police department—to make budget cuts so they can meet the cost of the new arrivals.
City officials are also asking for the department that oversees elections to cut nearly a million dollars in an election year. The District Attorney’s Office has been asked to make a 5% cut, despite the fact that the city has been racked by violent crime.
Since Biden has been in office, we see what it’s like when local and federal authorities are equally lawless: Unchecked catastrophic chaos and financial implosion. Denver’s current mayor, Democrat Mike Johnston, perhaps not surprisingly, is pointing the finger at former President Donald Trump and Republicans for the mess his city is in. He blamed them because they refused to support the so-called Senate border bill—probably better described as a massive foreign aid and nonprofit organization slush fund bill—that would have helped codify illegal immigration and bogus asylum-seeking, rather than stop them.
“The choice by Republicans in Congress to purposefully kill a historic, bipartisan border deal … will have a devastating impact in Denver,” Johnston said after Republicans blocked the deal, Fox News reported.
Of course, Johnston insisted that the problem is in no way caused by the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have come to the Colorado city. In one sense, I agree: If he’s looking for blame, he should look in the mirror and at his friends running the White House. Democrats and left-wing activists have no desire to halt the unprecedented spike in illegal immigration. They just want it to look less chaotic so voters won’t be quite as angry about the disaster. And sanctuary city and sanctuary state leaders want a big federal bailout funded by the American taxpayer to deal with the massive holes in their budgets. They want you to pay for their mess. We borrow and spend so much money these days, nobody will know the difference, they must think.
Denver has tried to shunt their problem onto other Colorado communities. This testimony from a Lakewood, Colorado, resident on Tuesday sums up the dynamic. It was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, by LibsofTikTok.
Residents of Lakewood, CO unloaded on the city council last night after Denver suggested sending more illegals to their city and sheltering them on the taxpayer dime.
Illegals have brought crime, pr*stitut*on, and drugs to their quiet town.
If we, the people, want any control over this situation, then we have to make sure that the Denver, New York City, and other besieged blue cities pay for their own self-inflicted problems. Don’t let them shift the burden, financial and otherwise, elsewhere.
I’ll add that the sheer cost of the border crisis isn’t even the worst part of this whole disaster. They want you to pay while they hack away at the foundation of our free society. The complete evaporation of border enforcement portends something much worse than just the immediate effects of bloated budgets, cut services, dysfunctional cities and increased crime, as bad as all those things are. What it signals is a demolition of even the concept of citizenship.
Denver gives us another glimpse into the next stage of this farce. While Colorado has a law on the books preventing noncitizens from voting, Denver is potentially throwing open the door for noncitizens to become police officers and firefighters. I wish I were joking. According to Axios, two City Council members proposed on Monday “striking language from the city charter preventing the city’s police and fire departments from hiring noncitizens.”
Keep in mind, this is the same City Council that has tried several times to defund the police as crime spun out of control. Yet, the Left wants to make it so people who have broken our laws and who have demonstrated no loyalty to the United States can be the police officers of the future. This police and fire proposal is nearly as perverse as a proposal from Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to allow illegal immigrants join the military. They really just want troops and members of our protective services to be loyal to their regime, don’t they?
This is end-stage Roman Empire stuff, brought to you by the Democratic Party. For people who obsess over the destruction of “our democracy,” the Left sure seems to have little regard for, well, democracy.
The Biden-caused border crisis isn’t just an economic or law enforcement problem; it’s a direct attack on self-government. It’s an effective tool to water down and obliterate the meaning of citizenship. It’s an attempt to transform the United States from a free republic based on deliberation and consent of the governed into a vast economic zone of farcical ballot-harvesting and technocratic rule from on high.
Denver sowed the seeds for this illegal immigration crisis years ago, just as many other big, blue cities have done. Federal policies exposed the reality of the problem. They are now paying a price for their decisions—as they must, if we as a nation have any hope of pulling out of this catastrophe.
In his appearance Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” embattled U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did what any failed political leader possessing little integrity and less self-awareness would do: He blamed others for his mistakes. Asked whether he bears any responsibility for the nightmare the Biden administration has wrought at the U.S. southern border and beyond, Mayorkas effectively said, don’t look at us.
“It certainly is a crisis and we don’t bear responsibility for a broken system, and we’re dealing a tremendous amount within that broken system,”he told moderator Kristen Welker.
Maybe the secretary should talk to the people living in and around the border towns, local law enforcement, and his own U.S. Border Patrol agents.
“Ask the people at the border in Texas. They think the blame belongs squarely with [the Biden administration],” the FAIR media director told me Monday morning on “Need to Know With Jeff Angelo” on NewsRadio 1040 in Des Moines.
Earlier this month, Mehlman and his traveling companions saw the illegal immigration crisis firsthand at Eagle Pass, a south Texas city of about 28,000 people bordering Piedras Negras, Mexico, across the Rio Grande. As the Dallas Morning News explained, “Eagle Pass, with two small international bridges, features relatively gentle Rio Grande currents that invite migrant crossings. It became a focal point of Texas action in December when the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants over multiple weeks overwhelmed Border Patrol agents and city resources.”
The border town has become a hive of humanity, as its population swells from a wave of illegal aliens pouring over the border on promises of easy entry from President Joe Biden and his nearly impeached Homeland Security chief. U.S. Customs and Border Protection still has yet to post numbers for January apprehensions at the Southwest border, but December saw a new all-time monthly record with more than 300,000 migrant apprehensions. Eagle Pass and its Del Rio sector alone have recorded a whopping 152,252 encounters in the first three months of the federal fiscal year, beginning in October, according to the agency.
Eagle Pass is now ground zero in a standoff between the state of Texas and the Biden administration, just as it is Exhibit A in the administration’s chaotic immigration policy. Gov. Greg Abbott, backed by several states, ordered state National Guard troops to stand guard at Eagle Pass’s gates and erect razor wire to check the invasion. A divided 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court order gave the administration the go-ahead to cut the wire, but Abbott is holding firm, arguing his state is under attack and the president is doing nothing to stop it. Abbott stands on his constitutional obligation to defend and protect his state, and the United States at large, from invasion.
“The message from the Biden administration is: Not only don’t we want to enforce immigration laws, we don’t want anyone else to do it,” Mehlman said.
The immigration reform activist says, from what he saw on his latest trip to Eagle Pass, Abbott’s strategy is working. And, from what’s he’s heard from law enforcement officials, there have been few attempts from federal authorities to remove the deterrents Texas has put in place. Abbott has said his Operation Lone Star has reduced illegal immigration numbers, a claim backed by a new Washington Examiner analysis.
“The numbers show how the percentage of arrests in Texas versus other border states has shifted. In 2021, 69% of illegal immigrant arrests across the southern border occurred in Texas,” the publication reported on Monday.
“As Abbott stepped up security at the start of the Biden administration in 2021, arrests of illegal crossers began to fall and dropped to just 34% last month.”
“This is a manageable problem, as Gov. Abbott has now demonstrated. If you deter people from coming across you will see the results almost immediately,” Mehlman said.
Mehlman does acknowledge, however, that the migrants are simply rerouting to Arizona and California, border states led by leftist governors committed to Biden’s open border policies.
Shifting blame, Mayorkas insists Congress is the “only one who can fix” the five-alarm border fire that he and Biden have dumped gasoline on. The secretary conveniently omits the many Trump-era policies the president has reversed and the orders he could sign to turn the tide of the illegal immigration flood. My colleague Tristan Justice last week detailed the dozens of times Biden has gutted border security since he took the oath of office.
The U.S. Senate’s bad joke of a border deal that died an ignominious death last week would have essentially codified the Biden administration’s awful policy to date. Mehlman and other critics say it would have exacerbated the crisis. He said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his top negotiator, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., “sold out” the House’s “good” version of the bill, creating a “lose-lose situation” for lawmakers serious about border security.
Meanwhile, last week’s failed effort by House Republicans to impeach Mayorkas is regrouping. Speaker Mike Johnson appears to believe his fellow Republicans will have the numbers —narrowly — this time around as Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., is back to political business after undergoing cancer treatment during last week’s vote.
Mehlman said Mayorkas deserves to be impeached.
“He has undermined the enforcement of our immigration laws, he has violated his oath of office and he’s been derelict in his duty as secretary of Homeland Security,” the Federation for American Immigration Reform official said.
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stuck to the narrative — not the facts — the Biden administration parroted after three migrants drowned last Friday while attempting to cross the Rio Grande.
After the tragedy, the Biden administration rushed to blame Texas for the incident. Homeland Security, for example, accused Texas National Guard soldiers of having “physically barred” Border Patrol agents from responding to migrants in distress. The White House, on the other hand, suggested the migrants could have been saved had Texas soldiers not “blocked U.S. Border Patrol from attempting to provide emergency assistance.”
But the Justice Department admitted in a filing to the Supreme Court on Monday that the migrants — two children and an adult woman — had already drowned when Mexican officials alerted Border Patrol agents of the tragic deaths. In fact, they had been dead for at least one hour.
On Wednesday, Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich confronted Jean-Pierre over the White House’s dishonest narrative. She asked, “Will the administration amend its separate statement that implied that Texas officials were responsible for the deaths of those three migrants when, in fact, they had nothing to do with it?”
“They had already been dead for an hour by the time Mexico told anyone in the U.S. about it, and the administration admitted as much in their court filing,” Heinrich noted. “But the statement from the White House implies that Texas was responsible, and a number of outlets were forced to issue corrections and editor’s notes because of that White House statement.”
The falsehood exposed, Jean-Pierre responded by urging Heinrich to be “sensitive” because of the “devastating situation.” But then she refused to acknowledge the truth after repeatedly stumbling over her thoughts.
“Our statement is consistent with DOJ’s filing. As the DOJ filing said, there was an ongoing emergency situation that Border Patrol was blocked from accessing. There were other migrants in the water as well,” she responded.
“That was separate, though. The ongoing emergency situation was separate,” Heinrich fact-checked.
TENSE: Karine Jean-Pierre starts to sweat when @JacquiHeinrich holds her feet to the fire over the administration's lies about Texas officials who — contrary to the White House's claims — were not responsible for the deaths of three illegal immigrants. pic.twitter.com/Yp4TZRCHMQ
The Fox News reporter then read Jean-Pierre the White House statement — which said that “Texas officials blocked U.S. Border Patrol from attempting to provide emergency assistance” — but the press secretary simply restated her earlier point.
“There were other migrants in the water as well,” she said.
“Then why wasn’t that included in the statement?” Heinrich shot back.
And when Heinrich asked if the statement was referring to those “other migrants” — which it clearly was not because it was released in direct response to the drownings — Jean-Pierre shut down questioning and referred additional questions to the DOJ.
More than a dozen Democrats in the House of Representatives formally rebuked President Biden over his border and immigration policies on Wednesday.
Lawmakers passed a Republican-led resolution “denouncing the Biden administration’s open-borders policies, condemning the national security and public safety crisis along the southwest border, and urging President Biden to end his administration’s open-borders policies.”
Fourteen Democratic lawmakers voted with the GOP, including Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas; Jared Golden, D-Maine; Mary Peltola, D-Alaska; Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.; and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.
It’s a largely symbolic move, but a pointed message from the House GOP Conference as talks are underway between the Senate and White House on a border security compromise in exchange for Republican support for sending Ukraine more aid.
Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, who spearheaded the resolution in the House, told Fox News Digital that it sent a clear message of unity to those negotiators.
President Biden’s border policies were targeted in a House GOP-led resolution of disapproval (Photo by Katie McTiernan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images | Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images )
“It shows that we’re in lockstep together to make sure that the president has a clear, unified message from the House Republicans and the Senate has a clear, unified message from the House Republicans, that says border security is of utmost consequence for this nation and its national security,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital.
The vote comes just after the top four Congressional leaders — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — met with Biden at the White House to discuss the status of supplemental aid talks.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., met with Biden on Wednesday (Getty Images)
Democrats are trying to pass a mammoth $110 billion supplemental aid bill that includes money for Ukraine, Israel, and humanitarian causes like aid to Gaza.
Johnson has fixed the House GOP’s position on H.R.2, the comprehensive border security and immigration bill his conference passed back in May. Democratic leaders have called H.R.2 a nonstarter.
“Last May, we passed H.R.2, which provides a lot of the substantive solution that’s necessary to close our borders,” Moran told Fox News Digital. “What we’ve seen since then though, is stonewalling from the Democrats.”
Immigrants from Venezuela walk towards a U.S. Border Patrol transit center after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States on January 08, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
“This resolution is trying to re-sound that alarm to the Democrats and the American public to say we really do have a crisis.”
More than 300,000 migrants were encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border in December, an all-time record.
Elizabeth Elkind is a reporter for Fox News Digital focused on Congress as well as the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and politics. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
More than 300,000 illegal immigrants were encountered by U.S. border officials in December, marking a record for the highest number recorded for a single month.
REPORT: Migrants are camping in people's yards in San Diego, California as the Biden migrant crisis continues to spin out of control.
It didn't have to be this way.
Migrants are now chopping down San Diego residents' trees and using them for firewood. One land owner says the… pic.twitter.com/z9uW5VfOgy
According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources who spoke with Fox News, “more than 302,000 migrants were documented attempting to cross the U.S. southern border” between Dec. 1-31. Totaling more than 785,000 illegal encounters in the first quarter alone, December’s numbers signify the first time CBP has engaged more than 300,000 illegals in a single month.
While the former figure is larger than the population of Seattle, Washington — which, as of July 2022, hosts roughly 749,000 people — the latter is enough to fill America’s largest football stadium “almost three times,” according to The Daily Signal.
In fiscal year 2023, CBP encountered “more than 2.47 million” illegals, marking an increase from the roughly 2.38 million recorded in 2022 and 1.73 million in 2021. An October report published by House Republicans estimates there have been more than 1.7 million “gotaways” since President Biden took office.
Contrary to the White House’s claims, Biden and his administration have done nothing to stymie the ongoing invasion at America’s southern border. In fact, the administration has actively sought to prevent border states such as Texas from enacting measures designed to halt foreign nationals’ infringement upon their sovereignty.
Last year, for example, Biden’s Department of Justice sued Texas for placing barriers in the Rio Grande River to prevent illegals from streaming onto their land. More recently, the DOJ threatened to file a lawsuit against the Lone Star State if it enacts legislation that would authorize state and local law enforcement to “arrest, jail and prosecute [individuals] suspected of entering the U.S. unlawfully.”
I’m so damn sick and tired of seeing these videos with NOTHING being done.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have failed to use their majority to enact significant border policy changes in spending bills or hold Biden and officials such as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas accountable for their intentional destruction of America’s southern border. In November, for instance, eight GOP representatives voted with Democrats to block a resolution introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to impeach Mayorkas for his allowance of the disaster to continue unaddressed.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Fetterman breaks with his party sounding more like Trump on the border crisis, saying we need to restrict the flow of migration coming through the south.
John Fetterman Stuns Supporters on Left by Declaring “I’m Not a Progressive”
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) stunned supporters on the left with a pronouncement made in an interview with NBC News published Friday that “I’m not a progressive.”
Since being treated (apparently successfully) for clinical depression earlier this year following last year’s debilitating stroke, Fetterman has emerged as an articulate, moderate Democrat on issues like securing the border, supporting Israel in its war with Hamas and calling on corrupt Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ) to resign.“I’m not a progressive,” Fetterman told NBC News. “I just think I’m a Democrat that is very committed to choice and other things. But with Israel, I’m going to be on the right side of that. And immigration is something near and dear to me, and I think we do have to effectively address it as well.” Fetterman insisted he can be pro-immigration while also favoring policies to restrict the flow of migration to manageable levels, disagreeing with… READ MORE…
According to the Minneapolis crime dashboard, the City of Minneapolis has seen a significant spike in homicides in the month of December.
Since Dec. 1, 10 people have been murdered in Minneapolis. On Dec. 20 alone, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) announced that one man was killed in a shooting, another man passed away from injuries sustained in a Dec. 16 shooting, and a suspicious death on Dec. 18 has now been ruled a homicide.The homicide rate has risen significantly in Minneapolis since 2019 when the city reported 48 homicides. In 2023, 70 homicides have occurred in the city so far. Last year, Minneapolis reported 77 homicides with the previous… READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
This article is part one of Crisis in New York, a series examining the effects public policies have on the city’s already strained housing, law enforcement and drug services.
NEW YORK CITY — Frank Tammaro, a 94-year-old Army veteran, loved the senior center he’d called home for five years until he was told to find somewhere new to live.
“I felt horrible,” Tammaro told Fox News. “It’s no joke getting thrown out of a house.”
Months later, after two moves and an injury that put him in the hospital, the senior was living with his daughter when he learned migrants were moving into his old residence, free of charge.
A lifelong New Yorker, Tammaro says he grew up in the “slums” of the Lower East Side during the ‘30s and ’40s. “I do get upset when I see them handing out all this money and all these things, and I’m paying taxes and getting kicked out,” he said. “I’ve never got anything from the city. Or the state.”
Tammaro planned to live out his years at the Island Shores Senior Residence when notices went up in September 2022 informing residents the facility was shutting down and they needed to pack up and leave by March. Many of the 53 seniors living there, including Tammaro, ignored the letters for months until it was brought to their attention that they only had weeks to find somewhere else to live.
“It was scary,” Tammaro recalled. “Very scary. Especially when I don’t get around like I used to. I didn’t know where I was going.”
The facility’s owner, a New York City nonprofit called Homes for the Homeless, said in a statement that it intended to sell Island Shores “to focus on its core mission of serving homeless families” and the preferred buyer “would be another senior operator.”
Staff assured the upset seniors that Island Shores would likely be sold and reopened. However, Tammaro’s daughter, Barbara Annunziata, was skeptical of the claim and reached out to the building’s management for answers.
Frank Tammaro lived in Island Shores Senior Residence for five years before he was told he and all the other residents needed to move out by March 1. (Fox News/Megan Myers)
“We knew something was going to go in there,” Annunziata said. “They kept saying, ‘oh, they’re going to sell it. They’re going to sell it.’ That’s what they kept telling me.”
During the Korean War, Tammaro served stateside for two years in the U.S. Army Signal Corps fixing telephone lines and improving communication between military camps. He was one of eight veterans who lived in Island Shores before it shut down.
“I was not in combat,” Tammaro said. “But these boys that went over and went into combat — and now they’re all settled in there with their lives and everything else — and they’re all disrupted, it isn’t fair.”
When he was evicted from Island Shores, the 94-year-old had difficulty finding a new assisted living facility that suited his needs.
“I was pretty slow getting out,” Tammaro said. “I figured they were gonna have my luggage on the curb.”
The 94-year-old veteran was living with his daughter just a few minutes from Island Shores when he learned the senior center was being converted into a temporary shelter for migrants. (Fox News/Teny Sahakian/Megan Myers )
Shortly after moving to another senior residence, Tammaro had a fall that landed him in the hospital. He told his daughter he didn’t want to return to the new facility.
“He hated it there,” Annunziata said. “And for somebody his age, why should he live the rest of his life someplace he didn’t like?”
In the end, Annunziata moved her father into her home in Midland Beach, New York, where she cares for him around the clock.
“I can’t leave him home alone. … I raised my kids already. They’re all grown up,” she said. “I mean, he’s a piece of cake, but still he’s 94 years old.”
In August, Tammaro found out along with the rest of the community that Homes for the Homeless had made an arrangement with city hall to move migrants into Island Shores.
The facility was one of 200 buildings converted into emergency shelters to house some of the 130,000 migrants that landed in New York City after crossing the southern border since October 2022. The influx of asylum seekers has stretched the city’s budget and many of its services to their limits, with Mayor Eric Adams saying they are in “a desperate environment” during his trip to Mexico in October. And with 10,000 new refugees entering the city each month, he said there is “no end” in sight.
In September, 15 asylum-seeking families moved into the Island Shores. As the news spread, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the facility, and 10 people were arrested for trying to block a bus with migrants from reaching the building, according to law enforcement.
Tammaro’s daughter, Barbara Annunziata, is still angry that her father was kicked out of his home and said the situation is “not fair to anybody.” (Fox News/Teny Sahakian/Megan Myers)
“I don’t understand it at all. It’s not fair to anybody,” Annunziata said. “These migrants, they’re getting everything. They’re getting everything and I can’t get nothing for [Tammaro]. It angers me.”
She said she’s struggled to get help for her father. His insurance rejected any long-term request for care.
“I can’t even get him an aide. I only could get him an aide for 30 days and then they cancel it,” Annunziata told Fox News. “So what, he has to pay for it then?”
“Meanwhile, [migrants] get everything. And he’s not entitled to anything,” she added
After the “horrible experience,” Tammaro has settled in with his daughter, only a few minutes away from his old home, which is now called the Midland Beach Migrant Center.
“I felt bitter at the beginning,” Tammaro told Fox News. “But I’m satisfied where I am now.”
“I was satisfied where I was until they threw me out,” he added. “But making the best of a bad situation, that’s what we’re doing.”
Annunziata remains angry about how her father was treated.
“They’re worried about the migrants more than they’re worried about the U.S. citizens,” she said.
Homes for the Homeless declined to comment.
Megan Myers is an associate producer/writer with Fox News Digital Originals.
The Biden administration is deporting a Christian family from Germany who legitimately fears persecution and should qualify for asylum, while allowing 99 percent of illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S., most of whom likely do not qualify for asylum.
Uwe and Hannelore Romeike reportedly fled Germany in 2008 because they were threatened with prosecution and $9,000 fines for homeschooling their five children. The couple and their family have lived in Tennessee and filed for asylum. The family has thrived in the U.S., including having two children who are American citizens and two other children who married American citizens. Unfortunately, the U.S. authorities denied their asylum claim in 2013. After the Obama administration intervened, the family had been able to stay in the U.S. under an “indefinite deferred action status.”
But last month the Biden administration told the family they must return to Germany. Since Germany hasn’t changed its law regarding homeschooling, the family has legitimate concerns that if they go back to Germany, they will face the same prosecution that drove them away in the first place.
While the Biden administration is determined to deport this Christian family, it has done next to nothing to remove millions of illegal immigrants who came into the U.S. through our nation’s southern border, according to a new report from House Republicans.
The Biden administration and its Democrat allies have insisted for more than two years that the U.S.-Mexico border wasn’t open, there is no border crisis, and the administration has enforced immigration laws. But the data gathered by the House Judiciary Committee paints a very different picture: that the Biden administration has failed to deport, through immigration court proceedings, more than 99 percent of illegal immigrants between Jan. 20, 2021, and March 31, 2023.
After pressure from the committee to release basic statistics, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported more than 5 million illegal immigrant encounters in that same period (not including unknown numbers of illegal “getaways”). Most of them sought to claim asylum but were disqualified under asylum’s legal definition. Yet fewer than 6,000 illegal immigrants were placed in removal proceedings before an immigration judge and actually removed from the United States during this time.
Meanwhile, nearly half of the 5 million illegal immigrants “had no confirmed departure from the United States.” DHS “released at least 2,148,738 illegal aliens into the United States” during the same period, and only 6 percent of them “were even screened for fear of prosecution for the purpose of asylum.”
An Impeachable Offense?
According to Jeffrey H. Anderson, president of the American Main Street Initiative think tank, U.S. immigration law “requires that those entering the U.S. without proper documentation be continuously detained until their claim can be adjudicated.” The Biden administration has obviously failed to comply with U.S. immigration law, a failure that Anderson regards as President Biden having committed an impeachable offense.
Despite complaints from Democratic mayors, such as New York City’s Eric Adams, about their cities being overwhelmed with illegal immigrants, the Biden administration recently doubled down on its open border policy by granting work permits to close to half a million illegal immigrants from Venezuela without congressional authorization.
The Biden administration’s reluctance to enforce existing laws and its willingness to offer amnesty have created an incentive for even more illegal border crossings. The GOP report estimates 1.2 million illegal migrant encounters between April and September this year. Last month, within 24 hours, more than 10,000 illegal migrants were “encountered” at the U.S.-Mexico border. Unsurprisingly, most came from Venezuela because they regard Biden’s amnesty to Venezuelans as an open invitation to the United States.
Additionally, our nation’s southern border has become a gate for the illicit drug trade, directly contributing to America’s opioid epidemic. The United Nations calls the U.S.-Mexico border “the deadliest land route” for human trafficking, especially the trafficking of children, many of whom have become enslaved workers in the U.S. What’s even more outrageous is that citizen journalists caught U.S. government officials facilitating child trafficking at taxpayers’ expense.
About-Face on Border Wall
In an about-face move, the Biden administration recently announced it would expedite the construction of a border wall, despite calling the wall construction under the Trump administration “just one example of the prior administration’s misplaced priorities and failure to manage migration in a safe, orderly, and humane way.” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to justify the administration’s embarrassing policy reversal by insisting Biden hasn’t changed his opposition to a border wall. Still, his DHS “is complying by the law” to build a border wall because “that appropriation came from fiscal year 2019 under the last administration, Republican leadership.”
The Biden administration’s claim of “complying with the law” is rich. The alarming statistics from the House GOP’s report demonstrate that the Biden administration, starting with President Biden, has surrendered one of the government’s most fundamental responsibilities: to enforce laws and keep America safe. Not to mention that the Biden administration’s approach to immigration laws is so upside down and illogical that it insists on deporting a Christian family facing persecution in their home country while welcoming with open arms illegal migrants who are disqualified for asylum.
President Biden certainly believes he deserves another term. American voters, however, should remember the disastrous results of Biden’s policies and never again elect as president someone who refuses to enforce the laws of the United States.
An estimated 2.8 million illegal aliens either have been released officially into the U.S. or successfully evaded the Border Patrol to enter the country since Joe Biden became president. Pictured: Illegal aliens cross the Rio Grande from Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Sept. 30. (Photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
The number of illegal aliens who have entered the interior of the U.S. under the Biden administration now is greater than the population of at least 22 states as well as the District of Columbia. Data released Monday by the House Judiciary Committee reveals that at least 3.8 million illegal aliens either have been released into the nation’s interior or successfully evaded the Border Patrol to enter the country since President Joe Biden took office Jan. 20, 2021. The new data and other information reveal that the Biden administration has “failed to remove, through immigration court removal proceedings, over 99% of those illegal aliens who have been released into the country” since Biden became president, the committee’s interim staff report concludes.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Rep. Tom McClintock, chairman of Judiciary’s immigration subcommittee, said they obtained nonpublic data from the Department of Homeland Security that provides previously unknown official numbers. Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, part of DHS, reports that over 5 million illegal aliens were encountered at America’s southern border between the start of the Biden administration and this past March 31. Of those 5 million illegal aliens, at least 2.46 million “had no confirmed departure from the United States,” the report found.
During the first 26 months of Biden’s presidency, DHS released “at least 2,148,738 illegal aliens into the United States,” according to the Judiciary Committee’s report. The committee found that only 5,993 of those encountered at the southern border were placed in removal proceedings.
“In other words, of the at least 2.1 million aliens released into the United States since January 20, 2021, the Biden administration has failed to remove, through immigration court removal proceedings, roughly 99.7% of those illegal aliens,” the report says.
The report notes that an additional 1.7 million “known ‘gotaways’” successfully evaded Border Patrol agents and entered the United States, bringing the total estimated number of illegal aliens who arrived and stayed under the Biden administration to 3.8 million. That population exceeds the number of residents of 22 different states and the District of Columbia.
These states all have a population below 3.8 million:
Connecticut: 3,626,205
Utah: 3,380,800
Iowa: 3,200,517
Nevada: 3,177,772
Arkansas: 3,045,637
Mississippi: 2,940,057
Kansas: 2,937,150
New Mexico: 2,113,344
Nebraska: 1,967,923
Idaho: 1,939,033
West Virginia: 1,775,156
Hawaii: 1,440,196
New Hampshire : 1,395,231
Maine: 1,385,340
Montana: 1,122,867
Rhode Island: 1,093,734
Delaware: 1,018,396
South Dakota: 909,824
North Dakota: 779,261
Alaska: 733,583
District of Columbia: 671,803
Vermont: 647,064
Wyoming: 581,381
The Judiciary Committee’s report doesn’t include illegal aliens paroled into the U.S. since April 1, meaning that the total number likely exceeds 3.8 million.
Since the start of the Biden administration, over 7 million illegal aliens have been encountered on America’s borders, both at official ports of entry and between them. An unknown number of illegal aliens successfully evaded Border Patrol to enter the interior of the country. CBP said it encountered more illegal aliens at the borders, including ports of entry, in August than in any other single month on record. Initial reporting indicates that September’s official numbers, when released, will exceed those from August. CBP reported encountering 304,162 illegal aliens,in August, surpassing the previous record high in December 2022 by nearly 2,000.
Amid the record number of border crossings, news broke Thursday that the Biden administration will resume building 17 miles of border wall in South Texas, a move that drew support from both the political Left and Right. Upon his inauguration, Biden had stopped predecessor Donald Trump’s construction of a wall.
“For years, they were adamant that walls do not work and are antiquated and not worth another dollar,” Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., told The Daily Signal, referring to Biden administration officials. “Finally, to see them coming around to the fact that border walls do work is showing the difference that Republicans are making. Biden is slowly realizing the negative impact an open border has had across our country.”
Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, told The Hill on Friday that he supports the administration’s action resuming wall construction.
“This is a necessary step to help Texas’ overwhelmed border communities deal with this current surge of migrants,” Allred said, adding that “physical barriers have a role to play in securing our border at high traffic areas, but this is only a partial solution.”
Biden maintained Thursday that walls don’t work, also telling reporters that he sought to have Congress redirect funds appropriated for the wall under the Trump administration, but “they wouldn’t.”
“And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that,” Biden said.
The Biden administration also announced Thursday that it would begin deporting illegal border crossers from Venezuela. In August, more than 37,000 Venezuelans were encountered on America’s borders, according to CBP.
A Biden administration official said that resuming deportations of Venezuelans will “show how we are committed to imposing consequences on those who cross the border unlawfully,” NPR reported.
From 8 million illegal immigrants to the fall of Afghanistan to the failure of Bidenomics, we’re told everything is just fine, nothing to see here. Pictured: From left, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Vice President Kamala Harris laugh in a meeting. President Joe Biden is on a screen behind them. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
One common denominator that explains why previously successful societies implode is their descent into fantasies. A collective denial prevents even discussion of existential threats and their solutions. Something like that is happening in the United States. Eight million illegal immigrants have entered the United States by the deliberate erasure of the southern border. Apparently, the Biden administration sees some unstated advantage in destroying U.S. immigration law and welcoming in would-be new constituents.
NEW: Denver Colorado, which is a proud 'Sanctuary City,' is now begging Texas to not send migrants to their city by urging border towns to hand out flyers to migrants, encouraging them to stay away.
Yet, the more the millions arrive, the more President Joe Biden and his Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, flat out lie that “the border is secure.” They both live in a world of make-believe, passed off to the American people as reality. And the more the Americans are lied to that the border is secure, the more they poll—currently 77%—that it is not.
Biden apparently has reversed course and begun using the former pejorative “Bidenomics” as a term of pride. He now praises this three-year effort to borrow $6-7 trillion, and spike interest rates threefold to 7% on home mortgages—even as prices on essentials like food and fuel have spiked 25-30% since he entered office. The more that Biden brags about what he did to the economy, the more people poll—over 60%—dissatisfaction with his alternate reality of “Bidenomics.”
Do we remember the humiliation in August 2021 in Afghanistan? The more retired Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Biden assured that the American military presence was stable, the more swiftly it crumbled and descended into the worst mass flight of an American army since Vietnam.
Consider natural gas and oil. The Biden administration waged war on both by canceling pipelines, drilling on federal lands, and entire oil fields. When the price soared and the 2022 midterms neared, Biden suddenly begged formerly shunned illiberal regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela to pump all the hated oil they could to lower the price. A desperate Biden drained much of the strategic petroleum reserve—he has yet to refill it—simply to lower the price of gasoline and thus win voters back to the Democratic Party. When the midterms passed, Biden resumed his attack on once bad, then good, and now bad again fossil fuels—at least until the 2024 election.
Stranger still is the denial of the current crime wave in our major cities. Predators and thugs have turned once iconic downtowns into either war zones or ghost towns or both. Smash-and-grab swarming of stores and matter-of-fact shoplifting are destroying commerce in our major cities. Unsustainable stores either leave or shut down. Communities that vote for politicians who defund the police blame the stores for leaving—but not the criminals whose brazen thefts made it impossible to do business in the inner city.
Now modern-day pirates with impunity storm, sink, and rob boats of all kinds in the Oakland, California, marina and estuary. Left-wing journalists and activists, and even Democratic politicians, who all supported defunding the police, now cannot escape the resulting street violence and unleashed murderous predations. Everyone knows the culprit is the post-George Floyd effort—with Biden administration complicity—to defund the police, end cash bail, institutionalize catch-and-release of criminals, and show more sympathy toward victimizers than victims. Yet neither state nor local officials nor Biden himself even admits to a crime wave. The more the public is attacked and avoids major downtowns, the more it polls furor over the crime wave.
The more our officials, in gaslighting style, claim such alarm is all in our collective heads, the more they themselves are attacked by the very criminals their policies empowered.
Sometimes the fantasies extend to the trivial. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., for months has dressed like an utter slob while on the Senate floor. As a gesture of approval, Democrats junked the dress code so he could wear his sloppy cut-offs and hoodie. Americans were to assume his slovenly costume was normal apparel—and they were hypercritical for thinking otherwise.
Recently, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., pulled a fire alarm to disrupt and delay a vote on continuing
the funding of the government. But he got caught on a Capitol surveillance video committing the crime. Bowman whined that he got confused. He preposterously claimed that by pulling the alarm, he thought he was opening a door to go vote. All of that was pure fantasy. The alarm was clearly marked. A sign in front of the door warned not to enter. And the door itself was placarded with cautions that any attempt to open it would set off emergency alarms. No matter. Bowman assumed by calling his critics “Nazis” and using the race card, he could invent a virtual reality.
Despite our epidemic of fantasy, there remains reality. And we will soon rediscover it all too soon.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
Democrat Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is facing opposition from local leaders after he asked that “all 50 city council members” find space in their wards to help house “more than 200 migrants” in tents, according to a new report. But some aldermen are pushing back on Johnson’s plans.
“I’ve looked in my ward. I just don’t have any available space. I have one of the most dense wards in the city,” Alderman Brian Hopkins said, according to ABC7 Chicago.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is facing opposition from local leaders after he asked that “all 50 city council members” find space in their wards to help house “more than 200 migrants” in tents, according to ABC7 Chicago. (AP Photo / Charles Rex Arbogast)
Alderman David Moore of the 17th Ward called on Chicago to help its own community first.
“I’m a believer in help your people first, help yourselves first, help your community first. Then reach out and help others,” Moore said.
But some aldermen have also voiced support for Johnson’s plan to house migrants.
“I think what should be made clear is because of the scale we are looking at, everyone needs to share in the responsibility,” Immigrant and Refugee Rights Committee Chair Alderman Andre Vasquez said.
Some aldermen have also voiced support for Johnson’s plan to house migrants. (AP Photo / John O’Connor)
Vasquez argued that Johnson’s tent plan would help the entire city.
“If you can make that case, then you can say this isn’t just for one population. It’s something that helps the whole city out,” Vasquez said.
Johnson has announced that he wants to relocate the city’s nearly 1,600 asylum-seeking migrants, currently living in police stations, to winterized camps with big tents before cold weather hits. Each of the massive tents will be able to hold up to 1,000 migrants, the mayor said, and under his plan the camps will provide meals as well as recreational and educational programming. Currently, 16 shelters in the city house 13,500 migrants, and more arrive every day.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported the cost to shelter the 13,500 migrants costs the city about $30 million per month. Johnson and his administration are working with the state of Illinois and Cook County to establish more shelters to take some of the pressure off Chicago, the mayor said.
“These families are coming to the city of Chicago,” Johnson said. “If we do not create an infrastructure where we’re able to support and, quite frankly, contain these individuals who have experienced a great deal of harm, individuals who are desperate … that type of desperation will lead to chaos.”
Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For more Culture, Media, Education, Opinion, and channel coverage, visit foxnews.com/media.
Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Jeffrey Clark is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. He has previously served as a speechwriter for a cabinet secretary and as a Fulbright teacher in South Korea. Jeffrey graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a degree in English and History.
Two women react to the scene as they pass illegal immigrants gathered outside the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City on Aug. 2. (Photo: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
The meltdown in blue cities over the busing of illegal immigrants continues, and it’s causing Democrats serious problems. That’s good, because it’s their fault this is happening. What the media inaccurately call the “migrant crisis” (these are people who have unlawfully crossed the U.S. border, not migrants) is battering so-called sanctuary cities, such as New York and Los Angeles.
Texas sent a 12th bus full of illegal immigrants to Los Angeles on Monday. According to KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, the bus carried “23 men, 20 women, [and] 21 children.”
“The migrants were from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia, and Venezuela,” it said.
Fox News reported that the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to consider the possibility of a lawsuit and “criminal probe” against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Wait a minute. Why are they suing and not celebrating? I thought all are welcome, no exceptions? Surely, they can find some houses in their city with signs declaring that they believe “no human is illegal” and all that.
Just a few months ago, this same City Council declared Los Angeles a sanctuary city and prohibited city resources from being used in immigration enforcement. One of the City Council members, Hugo Soto-Martínez, said that there’s been a great deal of “hateful rhetoric” coming out of places like Texas.
“What this [motion] means is a clear message to the community that we’re not like them, that the city should be looked [at] as an entity that you can trust, that you can come to and that you can look to for help,” he said when Los Angeles became a sanctuary city.
Be careful what you wish for. Texas just gave them what they said they wanted.
Monday’s busload might just be the beginning for Los Angeles. So far, Abbott has sent just 480 illegal immigrants there. But given that there have been millions who have come to America since this crisis began at the start of President Joe Biden’s administration, there’s likely more to come.
Texas has bused over 35,000 migrants to self-declared sanctuary cities.
Over 11,300 to DC Over 13,300 to NYC Over 6,700 to Chicago Over 2,600 to Philadelphia Over 1,000 to Denver Over 480 to LA
The left-wing radicals on the Los Angeles City Council, who insist on giving no aid for border enforcement, will almost undoubtedly be begging the federal government for aid now that they are seriously dealing with the consequences.
I can’t stress enough that the busing isn’t a victory. The problem remains: Our southern border is effectively open, millions of people are violating our laws, evil drug cartels are empowered, and America more and more becomes an economic zone rather than a self-governing country.
But putting the border chaos ball more firmly in the Democratic Party’s court remains one of the bigger successes for the GOP in recent years. Typically, Democrats can marshal their considerable media, cultural, and institutional power to deflect blame away from their failures. When one of their policies has immediate and predictable catastrophic results—such as defunding the police—they first attach the predictable chaos to one of their favorite narratives: “Systemic racism, inequality!”
When all else fails, they attribute the obviously terrible idea to Republicans and conservatives: “Republicans are defunding the police!” The busing solution has made this strategy nearly impossible, as residents are seeing firsthand the consequences of left-wing virtue-signaling.
“I realize it’s a sanctuary city, but there has to be a limit to our compassion,” said Michele Rubin on Tuesday, who was protesting on Staten Island, WNYW-TV Channel 5 in New York reported. “We don’t have the infrastructure. We are not vetting anybody. We don’t know if anybody has a criminal background or what they did in their country of origin.”
Of the more than 100,000 illegal immigrants who have arrived in the city since the crisis exploded a few years ago, 59,000 are being housed on Staten Island. Residents are starting to get testy, and so are politicians, who are looking for someone to blame.
“Tensions between the Biden administration and local Democrats are coming to a head as shelters around the country overflow and thousands of immigrants arrive in major cities,” Axios reported, noting that the Biden administration has offered few answers.
Many Democrats have concluded that the issue is that work permits haven’t been distributed fast enough, which is both amusing and infuriating. It’s amusing to think that handing out more work permits will make the crisis go away, rather than exacerbate it. It’s infuriating, because they are basically saying that the law should specifically cater to people who have intentionally broken the law.
As Nicole Galinas wrote for The New York Post, the work permits “solution” will make the problem worse beyond just the increased incentive to break the law.
“Another problem with issuing work permits to new migrants is: What about the old migrants? If you’ve been toiling for years as a dishwasher or housekeeper, shouldn’t you get a work permit, too?” Galinas asked, rhetorically. “Claims of asylum notwithstanding, most people who came here 10 or 20 years ago came for the same reason people came a month ago: job opportunities.”
It’s easy to see why there’s been increased local unrest. And deservedly so.
The answer to the problem is straightforward. It’s on the Biden administration to get control of the border, prioritize enforcement over appeasement, and stop signaling to the world that America’s borders are merely a suggestion.
Until now, Democrat politicians mostly haven’t been willing to criticize the Biden White House on the border security issue, or even suggest that the Biden administration originated the crisis. Pictured: Protesters rally in opposition to a proposed tent shelter for asylum-seekers July 29 on the campus of the state-owned Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in New York City’s Queens borough. (Photo: Leonardo Munoz/AFP/Getty Images)
Republican border-state strategy to send illegal immigrants to Democrat-run cities and states is paying off. On Thursday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul sent a letter to President Joe Biden begging for federal aid. Importantly, she finally acknowledged where the problem is coming from.
“This is a financial burden the city and state are shouldering on behalf of the federal government,” Hochul, a fellow Democrat, said of the illegal immigrants pouring into New York.
“I cannot ask New Yorkers to pay for what is fundamentally a federal responsibility,” the governor wrote. “And I urge the federal government to take prompt and significant action today to meet its obligation to New York State.”
In a press conference following release of the letter, Hochul further complained about illegal immigrants released into the country by the Biden administration.
NY Gov. Hochul complains the state has "shouldered the burden" of processed and released migrants coming from the southern border for "far too long," pointing to the billions of dollars they have spent to take care of the daily arrivals. pic.twitter.com/KUBSHwtKtM
This is an interesting pivot from the New York governor. Until now, Democrat politicians mostly have been unwilling to criticize the White House in any way on the border security issue, or even suggest that the Biden administration is where the problem originates. If you want to know the reason for the sudden pivot, a new poll sheds light. The Siena College poll released Tuesday shows that New Yorkers are deeply discontented about the surge of illegal immigrants in their state and mostly blame Democrat leaders.
“New Yorkers—including huge majorities of Democrats, Republicans, independents, upstaters and downstaters—overwhelmingly say that the recent influx of migrants to New York is a serious problem for the state,” Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said.
Now, this may seem meaningless in the sense that New York is unlikely to become a red state any time soon. But keep in mind that the crime issue didn’t just swing seats from Democrat to Republican in the 2022 midterm elections, it likely also gave the GOP overall control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Discontent over lawless Democrat policies is much worse now, and New York voters are heaping the blame on Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and, most of all, Biden.
Open borders and the idea that all immigration—whether legal or illegal—is a positive good is a matter of faith for Democrat Party activists. That’s less likely to be true with rank-and-file voters and independents.
“There is no question in my mind that the politics of this is a disaster to Democrats,” said Howard Wolfson, a former deputy and political adviser to former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in an interview with The New York Times.
“This issue alone has the potential to cost Democrats the House, because it is such a huge issue in New York City and the coverage of it is clearly heard and seen by voters in all of these swing districts in the suburbs,” Wolfson said.
He described the issue as a “ticking time bomb” for Democrats.
Since Biden entered the White House in January 2021, a historic stream of illegal immigrants has poured across the U.S. southern border. This has had catastrophic consequences for many swamped communities in Texas and Arizona especially. They’ve shouldered the burden of the border crisis for years, so it’s a little rich for New York to be throwing a pity party.
It obviously would be better if the federal government was doing its job and enforcing our laws, but until that time there’s little border states can do to “fix” the situation. All they can do is mitigate the damage. The Biden administration has done all it can to make sure that the border remains nice and open, er, “secure.”
The administration’s actions have made it clear that Biden and his top officials want to flood the country with illegal immigrants.
This is completely insane.
Biden's DOJ is suing @elonmusk's SpaceX because they only hired American citizens instead of refugees and asylum seekers and wants to force them to give full back pay to non-citizens that they choose to not hire. pic.twitter.com/IzB3GVj252
Instead of carrying the entire burden of the Biden-led border disaster, Republican governors such as Greg Abbott in Texas, Ron DeSantis in Florida, and Doug Ducey in Arizona decided to ship illegal immigrants to places such as Chicago, New York, the District of Columbia, and, most amusingly, Martha’s Vineyard. This is hardly ideal. But if the federal government is going to foist open borders on the country, why not at least force the people who voted for this nonsense to pay more of the price for it?
Of course, Democrats in those destinations pointed fingers at the Republican governors for their newfound troubles, and some left-wing political commentators tried to say that shipping illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard—a posh, liberal vacation destination—was akin to Nazism.
Biden’s trusty allies in the legacy media have done all they can to “contextualize” the immigration issue to protect the president from criticism. However, much like with the crime surge, it’s hard to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people forever when they literally see the consequences of bad policies in their neighborhoods. Thanks to Biden, the bill for once low-cost, sanctuary-city virtue signaling has come due.
I suggest that if Democrat politicians want federal aid to care for illegal immigrants, they should demand that the White House work to restore the policies of the previous administration and actually attempt to get control of the border. The excuses have run out, the border crisis has become a national crisis, and blame for this mess falls on the “big guy” in the Oval Office.
Democrats’ demands for more money should be met with a resounding “no” until the actual problem is fixed at its source.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in the liberal state over a surge of migrants that she says has left social services overwhelmed, and she called for more funding and help from the federal government.
Healey, a Democrat, announced that a state of emergency exists “due to rapid and unabating increases in the number of families with children and pregnant people — many of them newly arriving migrants and refugees — living within the state but without the means to secure safe shelter in our communities.”
The state said there are nearly 5,600 families or more than 20,000 people in the state shelter system. Healey said there are numerous contributing factors, including “federal policies on immigration and work authorization” as well as a lack of affordable housing and the end of COVID-era programs.
Venezuelan migrants gather at the Vineyard Haven ferry terminal on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts on Sept. 16, 2022. The group was moved to Joint Base Cape Cod in Buzzards Bay. (Boston Globe)
Massachusetts is the latest liberal jurisdiction to call for help from the federal government due to a surge of migrants, despite not being anywhere near the besieged southern border. New York City, Chicago and the state of New York have all made emergency declarations this year and called for help in response to a migrant wave.
While the numbers have been only a small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of migrants that hit the border each month, those areas have declared themselves overwhelmed and at capacity as migrants arrive. Healey said that in July there were 100 families a day seeking emergency shelter while the numbers leaving shelter has declined by two-thirds since 2019 — and costs are hitting $45 million a month on programs.
“Many of these families are migrants to Massachusetts, drawn here because we are and proudly have been a beacon to those in need,” she wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
She also blamed “a confusing tangle of immigration laws, an inability for migrants to obtain work authorization from the federal government, an increase in the number of people coming to Massachusetts, and the lack of an affordable housing supply in our state.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey delivers her inaugural address moments after being sworn into office during inauguration ceremonies, Jan. 5, 2023, in Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
Healey called for Mayorkas to press Congress and use executive action to remove barriers for work permits for migrants, “address our outdated and punitive immigration laws” and to provide additional financial assistance to the state.
Mayorkas has echoed many of these calls himself, with the administration as a whole repeatedly calling on Congress to provide additional funding as requested at the border. The administration has urged passage of an immigration reform bill that was introduced on President Biden’s first day in office. But such calls for funding and immigration reform have met with opposition from Republicans and others. Republicans have balked at the inclusion of a mass amnesty for millions of illegal migrants included in the 2021 proposal. Instead, they want to see asylum loopholes closed and more border security, with House Republicans introducing and passing sweeping legislation earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., said last week she was “livid” that New York City was receiving federal funding to deal with migrants instead of states at the border.
“What we’re experiencing here in Arizona is matched only by what folks are experiencing in southern Texas,” Sinema said. “Those are the two communities that are experiencing this crisis. The rest of the country is experiencing some elements of it, but we are experiencing the brunt.”
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
YUMA, Ariz. — GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee met with the leadership of the Yuma Regional Medical Center on Thursday to hear how medical services have been impacted over the significant influx of illegal immigrants into the region.
Dr. Robert Trenschel, president and CEO of the medical center, told the delegation that his hospital has around $26 million in unpaid bills for services rendered to illegal immigrants. Trenschel said the priority of who gets seen depends on how severe their illness or injuries are, no matter what their legal status is. This has caused medical services to be prioritized towards the illegal immigrants, as their illnesses and injuries are significant following their journey across the border.
Yuma’s population is just under 100,000, with several nearby towns adding roughly 38,000 people. The medical center was built up to accommodate that population size. Since the surge of illegal immigration that started in their area in December of 2021, over 300,000 people have illegally crossed into the region.
“We have to see them. Any one of those that needs a hospital visit and we’ve done that. We do it with pride…But what we need is a payer source for those individuals because we have nobody to bill. They have no resources and they’ve just continued to come in,” Trenschel explained.
“We’ve had people in our ICUs for over 60 days…They’ve needed dialysis, heart surgery, cardiac catheterization, I mean, they’re sick when they come over. Not all of them but many and some come in with minor bumps and bruises, things like that…and we have no payer source for that care and that’s our biggest issue. For a hospital like us, it prevents us from doing other things we normally do for our community,” he continued.
Though it is not on the brink of collapse, Trenschel said the hospital system losing out on $26 million in a such a short amount of time has made a severe impact on its operations.
“Really, the community is the one that suffers,” he added.
One of the biggest examples of their services being strained is the hospital’s maternity ward having to care for the mothers and newborn babies for much longer than U.S. citizens because the staff has to ensure they are healthy enough to be discharged since most of the time it was unknown when the next time they would see a doctor.
Trenschel said the hospital has had to postpone planned inductions for mothers who were U.S. citizens “and we had to say, ‘Sorry, we’re just full in our maternity unit.'”
Dorie Rush, the director of women and children services, told GOP lawmakers that the hospital staff has plenty of Spanish speakers. But, many of the illegal immigrants coming in for treatment do not speak Spanish, as they came from other countries, like Haiti. Due to this, the hospital system has purchased multiple translation tablets in order to communicate with the patients.
“We had our walls lined with Border Patrol and Customs agents because when they first were bringing the patients in, they would stay with the patients…There was one day when we had five agents from five different locations bring five different patients at the same time into our triage area, and it’s only seven beds,” Rush recalled.
“So as you can imagine, our general population of patients that were here sitting in the waiting room, lined up, backed up, not being able to get everybody, obviously at the same time, caused a lot of
frustration with our communities,” she added.
Rush said even after people were technically discharged, they still had to keep them there because the hospital is required to ensure they have access to follow up care, which many of the patients had no such guarantee, and to ensure they are able to get to their next location.
“We became a hotel. We did. Up on our pediatric unit, we have a set amount of rooms that we set aside for these patients when they are discharged so that we could keep them here until they could get to the appropriate location,” she said, noting staff still had to check up on the patients in the “hotel” since they were still in the hospital’s care. Rush also had to go out into town to buy every single carseat for babies in order to give to the migrant mothers once they were discharged since they are required by law to not allow babies to leave their care unless there is a carseat.
“Weird question, did they seem grateful? Did they seem overwhelmed from where the world they came from?” Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) asked.
“I would say a lot of them were grateful. Some of them expected us, I had one tell me, ‘You will help me get to Florida. You will pay for this.’ I explained nicely that we will work with your family, but that will come from your family, not from us,” a hospital staff answered.
Rush revealed actual hotels in the area stopped accepting the illegal immigrants because of “issues” pertaining to their behavior while staying at their locations.
Google reviews left on Yuma Regional Medical Center’s page within the past few months frequently say the long wait times are a major factor for giving the low ratings.
None of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee were in Yuma to take part of the tours or the hearing that later took place at city hall. Border Patrol agents in the Yuma Sector voiced their displeasure to Townhall over Democrats not bothering to show up to an official hearing.
Peter Doocy reports on growing crisis with Title 42 expected to end. Video footage obtained by Fox News shows a Border Patrol facility in El Paso, Texas, overwhelmed with migrant arrivals. State Rep. Tony Gonzales shot the video at the Border Patrol Central Processing Center on Friday. At that time, around 4,600 migrants were in federal custody despite capacity being only 1,040.
In a video taken Friday from Rep. Tony Gonalez, R-Tex., a Border Patrol Central Processing Center is seen at over four times its capacity with migrants. (Representative Tony Gonzalez)
The footage shows migrants crammed into the processing facility, many of them sprawled out on mattresses on the floor.
Migrants crammed into a processing facility. (Representative Tony Gonzalez)
A voice of the intercom can be heard calling out names while the migrants wait.
El Paso, like many towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, continues to witness an influx of migrants into its community. The city is also expecting a surge of migrants when Title 42, a Trump-era immigration policy that reduced the number of asylum seekers the U.S. would allow under the COVID pandemic, expires on Dec. 21.
Fox News’ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
Bradford Betz is a Fox News Digital breaking reporter covering crime, political issues, and much more.
Despite a general lack of concern among Democrats and corporate media, the U.S.-Mexico border continues to spiral out of control, setting new records for illegal border crossings nearly every month now. In October, more than 230,000 illegal immigrants were arrested along the southwest border, the third-highest monthly total in U.S. history, according to new data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Only May and April of this year have been worse than October, with 235,785 and 241,136 arrests, respectively.
Prior to the Biden administration, monthly arrests at the border rarely exceeded 100,000. In October 2020, for example, roughly 45,000 illegal border-crossers were arrested by CBP. But now it has become commonplace. Every month since March, arrests have surpassed 200,000.
For some historical perspective on the October 2022 numbers, consider that in all of 2017 there were only about 303,000 border arrests, total. And just 46,000 in October of that year.
Since President Joe Biden has taken office, more than 5 million illegal immigrants, including so-called “gotaways” whom Border Patrol wasn’t able to arrest, have crossed the southern border. And unlike previous years, there is no sign of a seasonal ebb and flow at the border. At a time of year when crossings are typically slow, we are now seeing a massive surge.
Apologists for President Biden’s border crisis in the corporate press tend to dismiss these shocking figures and attempt to explain them away by claiming the high monthly totals represent the same people crossing illegally, being expelled under Title 42, and attempting to cross again.
What they don’t mention is that border data has always reflected this phenomenon. Of the 230,000 arrests last month, about 19 percent “had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months,” according to CBP. This is only a 5 percent rise compared to the average 14 percent reencounter rate from 2014 to 2019.
Despite these outrageous statistics, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has doubled down on his claim that the border is “secure.”
Asked recently whether he “continue[s] to maintain that the border is secure” by Rep. Dan Bishop, R- North Carolina, Mayorkas responded, “Yes, and we are working day in and day out to enhance its security.”
Sophia is an intern at The Federalist and a student at Le Moyne College. She majors in English and intends to pursue a career in journalism.
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said that the Biden administration’s announcement of its decision to end Title 42, which never came to fruition, unleashed a wave of migrants bound for the U.S., in a sit-down interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation in his presidential palace.
Guatemala has recently seen large waves of illegal migrants because of Biden administration policies in the U.S., including its announcement to scrap Title 42, the public health order used to expel certain migrants to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Giammattei told the DCNF. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on April 1 that Title 42 would end on May 23, but the move was blocked in a lawsuit led by Republican states. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Guatemalan President Says Biden Admin Refused To Help Him Deport Illegal Migrants Bound For The US Border)
“We have recently seen a very serious increase in the number of migrants seeking to cross our border,” Giammattei said. “When Title 42 was eliminated, we see an even greater increase in the crossings through Guatemala, illegal crossings through Guatemala to reach the United States illegally as well.”
WATCH:
The Biden administration also instituted a new rule to expel illegal migrants from Venezuela, while granting legal entry to 24,000 other Venezuelans that meet certain qualifications. Giammattei said that the program is also leading to problems for his country as Venezuelans continue to pass through with a new uncertain fate.
“And now that the Venezuelans we understand that have the possibility of obtaining a visa, that means another problem for Guatemala. We have no relationships with Venezuela, we do not have diplomatic exchanges, we don’t have an embassy here or there,” Giammattei said.
“Therefore, we cannot issue passports or any kind of identification for Venezuelan nationals here in Guatemala and that means a huge amount of a floating population that is going to become a serious problem for this country. While we remain stopping them here,” he added.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Steven Senne, File
News reports about the hardships endured by the Venezuelan illegal immigrants sent by Gov. Ron DeSantis to Martha’s Vineyard are hard to hear.
One “migrant” told The New York Times that he felt “betrayed” because he didn’t know … the Florida government had paid for his flight! “If I had known, I would not have gotten involved.”
It’s one thing for the Venezuelans to accept a free flight from federal taxpayers, but quite another to have Floridians paying for their transportation!
Another illegal immigrant was crying “uncontrollably” into the phone with his wife, saying “My love, we were tricked. This woman lied to us. She lied.”
I was really hoping for Honolulu. Plus, The Black Dog was out of avocado toast. THEY LIED!!!
But this preposterous article apparently took MSNBC by storm.
MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace: “sadistic politicians.”
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill: How can “someone who professes to be a Christian … treat these people this way”?
MSNBC “Republican” Charlie Sykes: Will DeSantis “wake up in the middle of the night and ask, ‘What was I thinking? What did I do?'”
I have to assume Times reporters are toying with MSNBC:
I bet I can get MSNBC to somberly report this story.
Nah, no one’s going to believe anyone was emotionally scarred from spending a day on Martha’s Vineyard.
Alan Dershowitz has a place there.
You’re right — send it to Nicole Wallace.
Massachusetts Democrat Dylan Fernandes tried to goose the illegals’ martyrdom, saying, “When [the Venezuelans] opened up their phones and put on Google Maps to see where they were and found out that they were surrounded entirely by water — that was terrifying.”
This remark was earnestly reported by the Times.
Hello? Between 70% and 85% of Venezuelans live on the coast. Water terrifies them?
One fact to bear in mind when listening to the illegals’ tales of woe is that asylum-seekers are the biggest liars on Earth. You, hardworking taxpayer, may not know this, but journalists do.
The asylum scam has been extensively documented in places like The New Yorker and the Times. (This was back when “journalism” consisted of something more than hourly Trump updates.)
In a 2011 article, “The Asylum Seeker,” The New Yorker described the dramatic performance of one central African asylum-seeker, “Caroline,” who’d flown to America for a wedding and decided to stay.
The following next paragraph contains graphic content about a story an asylum-seeker told an immigration official about rape:
Weeping — just like the Venezuelans in Martha’s Vineyard — Caroline told a U.S. immigration official: “[Government soldiers] took me by the head and they put my head against their penis. … They spat on us. They wanted us to do things. … They beat us up and did horrible things to us … They forced us to do fellatio and they put objects in our genitals. They stamped on us, they trampled us for three days. I suffered many infections because of the rape. My kidneys got infected.”
Earlier, Caroline had laughingly admitted to the reporter, “I have never been raped.” But as she performed for the immigration officer, “[t]he tears were flowing now, and she asked [for] tissues.”
Asylum-seekers like the Venezuelans learn their lines by memorizing scripts given to them by immigration activists and lawyers (all paid for by you, taxpayer). A former immigration lawyer told The New Yorker that there are persecution scripts for each country. “There’s the Colombian rape story” he said. “They all say they were raped by the FARC. There’s the Rwandan rape story, the Tibetan refugee story. The details for each are the same.”
It is beyond certain that the Venezuelans are spouting lines being fed to them by activists. (Though, to be fair, a fake violent gang rape does not remotely compare to the fake tragedy of being flown to Martha’s Vineyard.)
A law clerk (again: paid for by you) working for Caroline had proposed, “Why don’t you say you were circumcised?” A Russian woman claiming she was persecuted in Russia for being gay openly told her immigration attorney, “I’m not gay at all. I don’t even like gay people.” That last one was quoted in a 2011 Times article on the gigantic scam of asylum cases, “Asylum Ploys Play Off News To Open Door.”
From top to bottom, the entire asylum process is staffed by known liars who hate our country — the third-world invaders, their lawyers, the activists, as well as the government officials overseeing the “Wreck America” program.
Displayed prominently in the immigration office visited by Caroline was a poster for Cuba’s Communist Party. Why go to Latin America to fight for communism and risk ending up in a Peruvian prison for 15 years, like Lori Berenson? You can fight for communism right here at home, approving asylum applications!
In fact, the asylum officer and Caroline could have shared a good laugh about how much America sucks. While applying to stay in the U.S. permanently (with full welfare benefits), she carped, “I don’t know why I didn’t just go back. They are racists and xenophobes here.”
We ought to make all immigrants sign a form upon entering our country: I hereby acknowledge I am not descended from American slaves and am not allowed to complain about “racism.”
The good news is that, at this rate, soon there will be no difference in our country and the second-rate countries these people are fleeing. No point to applying for asylum after that! We’ll all be exactly the same. The bad news is, there will be no country left where Americans can seek asylum.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos
The massive news coverage of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “political stunt” of sending 50 illegal aliens to Martha’s Vineyard reminds me of the media’s “political stunt” of referring to illegals as “legal asylum-seekers.”
Number one: They broke into our country. They’re illegal aliens. Number two: All asylum claims are frauds. Every single one.
Asylum is nothing but a conveyer belt to bring the worst people on Earth to our shores. You say you turned your own country into a hellhole? Fantastic! Come right in!
No one gets asylum from a well-run country. Why would we want to admit people who have demonstrated the wisdom, foresight and diligence to produce a functioning society? Rewards await only those who’ve participated in the creation of complete disaster zones. (Just think of what these great thinkers could do for our country!)
Take the Venezuelan illegal aliens whom DeSantis sent to Martha’s Vineyard. Biden’s press secretary and human kewpie doll, Karine Jean-Pierre, repeatedly referred to the briefly loved illegals as “people who are fleeing communism, who are fleeing hardship … desperate people — people who are trying to come here because they’re fleeing communism themselves.”
How did Venezuela become communist again?
As The Martha’s Vineyard Times explained (once the illegals were safely expelled and the island fumigated), Venezuela’s “humanitarian crisis” resulted from that country’s “complicated political and socioeconomic history.”
Actually, it’s not that complicated. Poor people in Venezuela voted for it. Oh boy, did they vote for it.
The ridiculous peasant Hugo Chavez promised Venezuela’s poor that he would take vengeance on the rich — “the squalid ones” — and give their stuff to the poor. Millions of poor people responded: YESSSSS!!!
Beginning in 1998, and five times after that, the poor came out in droves to support this clown. Fist pumping! Dancing in the streets! Red shirts as far as the eye could see!
As The New York Times described it, “To the adoring, impoverished masses who catapulted him to power, Hugo Chavez Frias is El Comandante, their protector and benefactor, the bold leader who will wipe out 40 years of inequality and corruption and redirect this country’s enormous oil wealth to better their lives.”
Chavez basically promised to deliver the Ta-Nehisi Coates “equity” agenda that’s so popular with the Democratic Party right now. The poor believed the rich were rich because they had stolen from the poor. Chavez vowed to take it back. It was sort of a 1619 Project for Venezuela.
As promised, Chavez proceeded to seize private businesses, farms (by 2011, he’d expropriated 6 million acres of farmland) and golf resorts, telling poor people to move onto the club greens.
Anybody want asylum yet? Nope!
Between 1998 and Chavez’s death in 2013 — whereupon he was promptly replaced with his handpicked successor, President Nicolas Maduro — Venezuela’s poor voted for him over and over and over again: in 1998 (80% public approval rating his first year in office), in 2000 (winning 60% of the vote), in 2004 (59% against recalling him), in 2006 (winning 63% of the vote), in 2009 (54% voted to make him president for life) and finally in 2012 (winning 55% of the vote).
Never has any public been polled more often and returned the same resounding answer.
Well, they’re not fist-pumping anymore. Instead, Venezuela’s poor are claiming they “deserve” to access America’s generous welfare state.
Twenty years of Chavez’s Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE!) produced this: “a country whose economy has collapsed … malnutrition and disease are soaring [and m]illions have emigrated to escape the grind of finding enough to eat, of living without reliable electricity or tap water,” as Bloomberg News put it in 2019.
Venezuela is sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, and the communists still couldn’t get it to work.
Who could have seen that coming??? Oh, anyone with two functioning brain cells. There were little hints, like Chavez promising his very first year in office “to follow the path of Fidel,” and describing Cuba as “a sea of happiness, social justice and true peace.”
Millions of Venezuela’s poor thought that sounded just peachy, and the rest did nothing. They act as if this 100% predictable catastrophe was a natural disaster for which they bear no responsibility.
Yeah, I definitely want these people as my fellow citizens. They’ve shown solid judgment.
Now that their own choices have wrecked their country, they demand free admission into ours. Unless they’re professional baseball players, I’m not seeing what’s in it for us.
In the kewpie doll’s press conference proclaiming that these innocent little lambs “deserve better” (than being sent to a fabulous beach resort), she cheerfully listed the great heaping portions of welfare being ladled out to Hispanics:
“[O]ur administration has delivered billions of dollars in loans to Hispanic small businesses, expanded the child tax credit to provide help to millions of families and reduce Hispanic child poverty by more than 40%, expanded access to quality healthcare to thousands of Latino families … And thanks to President Biden’s student loan debt relief program, almost half of Latino students with federal loans will see their debts forgiven.”
The Democratic Party is cribbing Chavez’s lines. And it will work, because the same people who fell for it last time will be voting for it here.
To be sure, the Venezuelan “asylum-seekers” aren’t any worse than other members of that illustrious group. If (when) they are granted asylum, these poor decision-makers will join:
— Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombers (sometimes, they’re persecuted for a reason);
— Ibragim Todashev, who, along with Tamerlan, slit the throats of three Jewish men in Boston;
— Beatrice Munyenyezi, a genocidal Rwandan, who won asylum by lying about being a victim of the genocide, rather than a perpetrator.
Those are just a few of our standout asylum grantees. To be fair, the illegal Venezuelans haven’t killed anybody yet, as far as we know. They’re more like a homeless guy who shows up on your doorstep after a lifetime of bad choices and demands that you give him your house.
Perhaps, just this once, we should defer to the wisdom of our moral betters on Martha’s Vineyard and tell the Venezuelans: We love you! Now get the hell out.
On “The Rubin Report,” BlazeTV host Dave Rubin and guests Viva Frei, Libby Emmons, and Sara Gonzales react to a video clip showing an angry Vice President Kamala Harris refusing to address a reporter’s question about the busload of illegal immigrants who arrived near her Washington, D.C., residence just days after insisting the U.S.-Mexico border is “secure” during an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bused approximately 100 migrants from the border town of Eagle Pass to a location near the official residence of the vice president at the Naval Observatory in D.C. last week. Originally from Venezuela, Uruguay, Colombia, and Mexico, the migrants were reportedly heading to a local church to receive further assistance getting to their final destinations.
Harris recently went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and insisted that “the border is secure” even after Todd pointed out that nearly “2 million people [have] cross[ed] this border for the first time ever.” But when she was asked about the 100 illegal immigrants who were dropped off at her doorstep, Harris had nothing to say.
“She’s better when she’s not talking,” Rubin said in response to the video.
“They can’t keep up with their own rubbish,” Frei commented. “They can’t keep up with their own lies. They can’t keep up with the falsehoods that people are seeing in real-time … they don’t think two steps ahead in terms of consequences of policies, and I’m saying the political left here. [They want] open borders but they’re not migrant towns, so long as it stays in someone else’s backyard.”
Watch the video clip below to catch more of the conversation. Can’t watch? Download the podcast here.
Democrats are accusing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of human trafficking and demanding that the Justice Department take action against him.
The accusations came on the same day that dozens of migrants arrived in Martha’s Vineyard. GOP governors have been sending migrants to “sanctuary” localities in recent months because President Joe Biden has failed to address the border crisis in which millions of migrants have overwhelmed the southern U.S. border.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D)wrote the Justice Department demanding that “kidnapping” charges be considered against DeSantis. Without evidence, Newsom claimed migrants were lured onto the plane that eventually went to Martha’s Vineyard, thus accusing DeSantis of operating a “fraudulent scheme.”
Several of the individuals who were transported to Martha’s Vineyard have alleged that a recruiter induced them to accept the offer of travel based on false representations that they would be transported to Boston and would receive expedited access to work authorization. The interstate travel at issue provides a basis for federal jurisdiction over this matter.
Accordingly, I strongly urge the U.S. Department of Justice (US DOJ) to open an investigation into possible criminal or civil violations of federal law based on this alleged fraudulent scheme.
Specifically, Newsom suggested DeSantis is guilty of kidnapping and violating the civil rights of migrants and suggested he violated a law typically reserved for prosecuting organized crime.
Democrat Nikki Fried, who campaigned against DeSantis for governor, also wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting an investigation, claiming that DeSantis is “trafficking” migrants.
I am writing to urge your office launch an immediate investigation into the actions of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the transportation of 50 migrants by plane to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The use of human beings to score political points is first and foremost detestable. Additionally, this maneuver raises serious legal questions and will have untold repercussions on the individuals caught up in the Governor’s political stunt. An investigation is necessary to understand who these immigrants are, how they were transported across state lines, and if their rights were violated.
Shockingly, U.S. attorney for Massachusetts Rachael Rollins said Thursday that she will speak to the Justice Department about “next steps.”
“We are looking into that case, and we’ll be speaking with members of the Department of Justice. Massachusetts isn’t the only place where this has happened,” she said, Politico reported. “We have several other sister communities — whether it’s D.C., New York, California — where we’ve seen things like this, and we’re hoping to get some input from the Department of Justice about what our next steps might be, if any at all.”
Under Biden’s leadership, migrants have been transported to cities all across the U.S. because immigration facilities near the border have been overwhelmed by the number of migrants entering the U.S.
Although left-leaning PolitiFact tried to downplay the truthfulness of this, the outlet clearly explained, “The federal government flies adult detainees in its custody from one facility to another, or from one U.S. city to another during deportation proceedings. The U.S. government in some cases also flies unaccompanied children who are being released from its custody to a family member or sponsor.”
The Washington Post also explained, “Both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) fly undocumented immigrants to different locations in the United States.”
To be fair, the same type of migrant transportation happened in the Trump administration. The pace of transportation, however, has significantly increased because of the border crisis.
NBC News even reported on the Biden administration’s plan to send migrants to cities across the U.S. as they await their turn in immigration court.
One thus wonders what the difference is between the federal government transporting migrants via bus or airplane and Republican governors doing it. Apparently nothing, because administration officials referred to their plan as the “Abbott plan.”
A spokesman for the governor reiterated that “sanctuary” localities are best suited to care for migrants.
“States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies,”said DeSantis communications director Taryn Fenske.
While Democrats continue to make hysteric complaints about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) sending 50 or so illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, new footage shows many more migrants crossing into the United States in towns near the southwest border.
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin is in Eagle Pass, Texas, where he reports “large groups of several hundred migrants” are crossing illegally into the country at numerous locations Friday morning.
\u201cNEW: Good morning from Eagle Pass, TX, where we have groups of several hundred migrants crossing illegally in multiple locations right now, including part of this group which started walking along a local highway. We have seen large groups in 3 locations so far today. @FoxNews\u201d
Melugin shared nighttime drone footage taken early this morning that used thermal imaging to film a group of more than 100 illegal immigrants crossing the border illegally into Eagle Pass.
\u201cNEW: For the very first time this AM while it was still dark, we used our brand new night time drone w/ thermal imaging as a large group of migrants crossed illegally into Eagle Pass. As you\u2019ll see, the group was 100+ in size. Grateful to @FoxNews for getting us this new tool!\u201d
The video shows migrants crossing the Rio Grande river from the Mexican side to enter the United States. A large group can be seen walking in single-file formation.
\u201cMore video from our brand new @FoxNews night flying drone with thermal imaging from early this morning. Within just 2 hours in Eagle Pass, TX this AM, we saw 3 large groups totaling 500+ crossing illegally in three spots.\n450,000+ illegal crossings in this sector so far this year\u201d
Immigration authorities are now reporting the highest-ever daily number of migrants entering the U.S. illegally, according to the Washington Free Beacon. Internal communications from the Department of Homeland Security reportedly show Border Patrol officers are documenting about 8,000 migrant encounters per day.
A CBP spokeswoman told the Free Beacon that “the traffic we are seeing this year is similar to the pattern we saw at this time last year.” Last September, CBP reported an average of about 7,700 migrant encounters per day nationwide.
In an interview last weekend, Vice President Kamala Harris insisted that the U.S. border is secure while stating that the U.S. immigration system is broken. Her comments led to backlash from Republicans, who accused the Biden administration of incentivizing illegal immigration with lax border policies and of failing to provide adequate resources for overwhelmed border towns. GOP governors in Arizona, Florida, and Texas have sought to call attention to the chaos in their states by giving illegal immigrants voluntary transport to sanctuary cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. This week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took credit for sending two planes full of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a popular getaway destination for rich, white liberals.
The left had an apoplectic reaction to what DeSantis did. Democratic local officials said the presence of 50 illegal immigrants on the island was a “humanitarian crisis” and slammed DeSantis for not warning they were coming. The White House accused GOP officials of using migrants as “political pawns” and said it was “cruel” to give them a free plane ticket to Martha’s Vineyard. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) accused DeSantis of “kidnapping” these migrants by misleading them with “false representations that they would be transported to Boston and would receive expedited access to work authorization.”
But none of the migrants were taken to Martha’s Vineyard against their will. And the Biden administration has also flown migrants across the U.S. as they await asylum proceedings because immigration facilities at the southwest border have been overwhelmed by the volume of people entering the country illegally.
The real humanitarian crisis remains at the southwest border, where local morgues are reportedly running out of space as they struggle to keep up with the number of people who drown crossing the Rio Grande river. As the Fox News video shows, the migrant crossings are not stopping, which means more buses and planes are sure to carry illegal immigrants to sanctuary city jurisdictions.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has announced that a group of migrants was bused from the Lone Star State to Chicago, Illinois. The governor had already been busing migrants from Texas to Washington, D.C., and New York City, though the trips are undertaken voluntarily. Now, the Windy City will be another destination for migrants who opt for such a trip.
“President Biden’s inaction at our southern border continues putting the lives of Texans—and Americans—at risk and is overwhelming our communities,” Abbott said, according to a press release. “To continue providing much-needed relief to our small, overrun border towns, Chicago will join fellow sanctuary cities Washington, D.C. and New York City as an additional drop-off location. Mayor [Lori] Lightfoot loves to tout the responsibility of her city to welcome all regardless of legal status, and I look forward to seeing this responsibility in action as these migrants receive resources from a sanctuary city with the capacity to serve them.”
The first bus of migrants transported from Texas to the nation’s capital arrived in April, and earlier this month, the first bus arrived in the Big Apple. Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has twice requested the deployment of the D.C. National Guard to assist amid the migrant influx, but both times the Pentagon has rebuffed the mayor’s requests.
“As a city, we are doing everything we can to ensure these immigrants and their families can receive shelter, food, and most importantly protection. This is not new; Chicago welcomes hundreds of migrants every year to our city and provides much-needed assistance,” a spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is without any shame or humanity. But ever since he put these racist practices of expulsion in place, we have been working with our community partners to ready the city to receive these individuals.”
NEWS: Today, the City of Chicago received confirmation that approximately 60 migrants were traveling to Chicago by way of Texas. Chicago is a welcoming city and as such has collaborated across various departments and agencies to ensure we greeted them with dignity and respect. pic.twitter.com/wJWEDtXLgZ
But while the FBI and DOJ have busied themselves with targeting Trump and his aides, colluding with the National School Boards Association to silence concerned parents, concocting entrapment schemes masquerading as plots to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and chasing down election integrity supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, plenty of real criminals and security threats have gotten away scot-free. That’s no accident.
Here is everyone who Democrats and their bureaucrat buddies have deemed “above the law” and unworthy of proper investigation and prosecution.
The president’s son isn’t just a walking liability for the Biden family name, he’s a glaring national security threat with a long, infamous history of using illicit drugs, engaging in possibly criminal sexual escapades with foreign women, and selling access to his dad under the guise of doing business with foreign oligarchs.
Hillary Clinton and her staff mishandled highly classified information, which resulted in at least 91 security violations. The FBI, of course, never raided Clinton’s house over her rogue server despite the crimes committed to cover it up. Instead, as Sen. Chuck Grassley put it, the FBI “inexplicably agreed to destroy [Clinton staffers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson’s] laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters.”
4. Everyone Involved in Benghazi
Speaking of Clinton, why wasn’t she or any other Obama-era bureaucrat who was responsible for abandoning four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, where they were murdered by terrorists, punished for trying to cover up the fatal scandal?
5. Illegal Border Crossers
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has apprehended roughly 3.5 million illegal border crossers since Biden assumed office, but those migrants are rarely punished for violating the law.
Instead of addressing how the compromised border is fostering an environment ripe for trafficking and other crimes, the Biden administration along with the FBI and DOJ have brushed off concerns about illegal immigration. Apparently, it is more important to go after American citizens than prosecute potentially dangerous foreign ones.
6. Gavin Newsom and Every Other Dem Who Partied While Americans Suffered Lockdowns
Dozens of Democrats including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pelosi, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio were caught violating their own Covid-19 lockdown rules. If Democrats cared about rule of law so much, why did these politicians escape accountability?
7. Summer of Rage Rioters
During the summer of 2020, rioters looted, burned, and destroyed more than $2 billion worth of private and federal property. Some of those who were caught were bailed out by Kamala Harris and her allies and let off the hook by the federal government. The rioters who weren’t caught can live comfortably knowing that the DOJ is too busy trying to track down potential J6 offenders to prosecute them.
It took 44 days after attacks on dozens of pregnancy centers, churches, and pro-life organizations began for the FBI to tell The Federalist that it would investigate the firebombings. Two months after the agency reportedly started its search into the criminal activity, neither the FBI nor DOJ has announced charges against the vandals, including a mysterious anarchist-connected group called Jane’s Revenge, which took responsibility for some of the destruction.
10. Everyone Else Who Threatened SCOTUS over Dobbs
Shortly after a leak revealed that the Supreme Court planned to strike down Roe v. Wade, leftists called for violence against the Republican-nominated justices. While the Biden administration and DOJ stood idly by, some even said the court should burn to the ground. It took until a man was caught attempting to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of Garland’s former colleagues, for the DOJ to respond to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s questions about whether the agency planned to prosecute anyone touting the “ongoing, coordinated campaign of intimidation against the majority of the justices on the Supreme Court.” Even then, nothing came of the DOJ’s words.
11. The Pelosi Family
Suspected insider trading deserves at least a second glance by federal investigators, but it looks like, so far, Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul have gotten away with conveniently timing their stock purchases and sales to massively grow their wealth.
12. Almost Everyone on Jeffrey Epstein’s Client List
Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell were both convicted of trafficking children for sex, but the list of their clients is still reportedly harbored by the DOJ, something lamented by many including Elon Musk. Of those names that have surfaced from Epstein’s “little black book,” few have been prosecuted and convicted for their involvement in the sex-trafficking ring.
13. Marc Elias and Election Law-Breakers
Marc Elias has repeatedly tried to undermine U.S. elections, something the FBI loves to spy on Americans for. Elias has such a reputation for meddling and manipulating elections that even a federal judge reprimanded him for it. Unlike Douglass Mackey, who was charged by the DOJ for posting a meme encouraging Hillary voters to “text” their votes, however, Elias has not faced any charges or unannounced raids.
14. Mark Milley
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, undermined Trump by having secret conversations with known U.S. enemy communist China. In those covert calls, Milley promised to warn China if the U.S. ever decided to attack. Talk about a national security threat that deserves some attention from federal law enforcement.
15. Eric Swalwell
Speaking of communist China, Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell canoodling with a known spy for the nation’s No. 1 enemy seems like a pretty serious offense. Instead of a member of the House Intelligence Committee facing consequences for giving foreign spies access to key U.S. government offices and information, Swalwell is still comfortably rage-tweeting about Trump and MAGA supporters and appearing as a guest on corrupt corporate media programs.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress during its investigation of the Obama-era “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal, which used taxpayer dollars to put guns into the hands of Mexican drug lords. Holder was held in contempt, but that’s pretty much the only punishment he received for intentionally dodging subpoenas and hiding documents from congressional oversight.
18. Susan Rice
President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice unmasked members of the Trump transition team and then lied about it. Unmasking may be a legitimate and legal process for those with the authority, but covering up an attempt to target the political enemies of the regime is an abuse of power that deserves examination.
Instead, it was yet another action U.S. intelligence agencies exploited to justify spying on American citizens.
19. All the Russia Hoaxers
There were plenty of people in the DOJ and FBI who broke the law when they lied on official documents and to other officials to advance the Russia-collusion hoax. Yet, FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in early August that so far, none of the FBI agents involved in the SpyGate scandal against Trump have faced serious consequences.
Similarly, despite lying about why he was supplying information about a supposed link between Trump and the Russia-based Alfa Bank to the FBI, former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann was acquitted and let go without consequence.
20. Themselves
The same people who control the enforcement of the law, who love lording “no one is above the law” over Americans, are the ones who think they are above any semblance of oversight or law or constitutionality.
That’s why the FBI has skirted any of Congress’s attempts at oversight even though it has a long history of botched and politicized investigations, sometimes authorized on falsified information.
Instead of investigating and prosecuting real crimes, the FBI and DOJ have chosen to shame Americans who have called out the corruption and politicization that clearly drives their agencies’ actions. That’s a deliberate decision, but also a disastrous one.
Rule of law is one thing that sets the United States apart as a bastion of freedom, but when the government fails to uphold it properly, as the list details, the nation is in crisis and on the verge of falling apart.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened this week to bus illegal immigrants to President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware should the administration continue to pay for “clandestine” flights carrying migrants into the Sunshine State.
“If they’re going to come here, you know, we’ll provide buses and … I will send them to Delaware,”DeSantis warned during a press conference on Wednesday.
The governor’s tough remarks came amid a lengthy polemic against the president over his handling of the ongoing immigration crisis at the U.S southern border, during which he described the secretive process that the Biden administration has reportedly used to send some 70 flights carrying illegal aliens into his state and elsewhere around the country. One of those flights carried an illegal immigrant who allegedly went on to murder a father of four in Florida, DeSantis declared earlier this week.
“There’s no notification to the state of Florida,” DeSantis complained, noting, “These are done mostly in the middle of the night, and it’s clandestine. And we really have no say into it.”
“I know when we initially got wind of this, it wasn’t through normal channels, it’s people in the federal government who are effectively leaking this to us so that we have a heads-up on it,” he continued.
The governor then argued that if the president is unwilling to secure the country’s border with Mexico, then he should open up his home state to house the illegal immigrants rather than shipping them to other places around the country.
“If he’s not going to support the border being secured, then he should be able to have everyone there. So, we will do whatever we can in that regard. And we are absolutely going to do everything we can,” DeSantis insisted.
DeSantis also took issue with separate reporting that amid rapidly rising inflation in the country, Biden is considering handing out payments to some illegal immigrant families who were separated at the border under the previous administration.
“The president has said that basically, they want to even pay reparations to people who came illegally, just think about that,” the governor said. “You as an American, you get higher gas prices, you get higher grocery bills, you get told, basically, to just grin and bear it.”
“But someone breaks the law, comes illegally, and they’re going to cut him a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he continued. “That is just unbelievable. But that’s what we’re dealing with.”
The Biden gang claims climate change caused the immigration crisis leading illegal immigrants to sneak into the US. (It has nothing to do with liberal manipulation or policies.)
The Biden gang came out with its latest report on climate change. This report claims climate change led to immigration.
In the ‘Introduction’ to the manuscript, Biden’s gang claims the climate is changing more than ever before (something that is impossible to measure) and it is intensifying more than ever before (also can’t be measured). And to top it all off, Biden’s gang reports that climate change has led to immigration.
In addition, the report claims that anti-immigration political actors are using real and perceived challenges with ‘climate changed immigration’ to contribute to xenophobia and political tensions.
Summary Recent Posts ContactJoe Hoft is the twin brother of TGP’s founder, Jim Hoft, and a contributing editor at TGP. Joe’s reporting is often months ahead of the Mainstream media as was observed in his reporting on the Mueller sham investigation, the origins of the China coronavirus, and 2020 Election fraud. Joe was a corporate executive in Hong Kong for a decade and has years of experience in finance, IT, operations and auditing around the world. The knowledge gained in his career provide him with a unique perspective of current events in the US and globally. He has ten degrees or designations and is the author of three books. Joe is currently co-host of the morning radio show in St. Louis at 93.3 “Tomorrow’s News Today”. His new book: ‘In God We Trust: Not in Lying Liberal Lunatics’ is out now – please take a look and buy a copy.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has ordered several points of entry at the border shut down after thousands of illegal aliens encamped under a bridge while awaiting refugee processing.
“The sheer negligence of the Biden administration to do their job and secure the border is appalling,” read the emergency statement from Abbott.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that the shaded area under the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas, was being used a temporary staging site in order to “prevent injuries from heat-related illness.” Some estimates of the encampment put the number of migrants at about 4,000 on Wednesday, but officials told Fox News the group could have swelled to as many as 8,200 on Thursday.
“I have directed the Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to surge personnel and vehicles to shut down six points of entry along the southern border to stop these caravans from overrunning our state,” Abbott continued.
“The border crisis is so dire that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection is requesting our help as their agents are overwhelmed by the chaos,” Abbott added. “Unlike President Biden, the State of Texas remains committed to securing our border and protecting Americans.”
Drone video from Fox News showed border agents trying to attend to the thousands of migrants.
Law enforcement source on the ground at the bridge this morning just sent me this video showing the situation there. I’m told a large majority of the migrants are Haitians and more are crossing into the US and arriving at the bridge by the minute. BP w/ limited manpower @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/dHWCrhFikq
Telemundo reported that many of the migrants were from Haiti and that they said they were trying to escape violence, poverty and natural disasters in their home countries. Some reported being abused and extorted for money by Mexican law enforcement officials.
Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano said in a video on Facebook that there were as many as 20,000 other migrants on the way to the city.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) told Fox News the situation in Del Rio was “gut-wrenching” and dangerous.
“The sheer amount of people, it’s like getting hit by a 2×4,” he said. “You think you’re in a third-world country, and this is the United States, this is Del Rio Texas, and there is literally no border at all — it’s just been muddied over.”
Gonzales blamed the Biden administration for removing restrictions on applications for refugee status set by the former Trump administration. He said that Haitian migrants took this as a sign to go to the U.S. to seek entry. And he warned that it would not stop at Texas.
“These folks, they’re not staying in Texas,” said Gonzalez, “they’re literally going to every city, they’re going to Miami, they’re going to Chicago, they’re going to New York City, San Francisco, they’re going to a neighborhood near you and it impacts everybody.”
(Photo by DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
A major surge in coronavirus infections is being recorded at crowded U.S. immigration detention centers, according to The New York Times.
As apprehensions at the border spiked in recent months, the number of migrants being held in detention centers has almost doubled, with more than 26,000 migrants being detained in facilities last week, compared to about 14,000 in April, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). As a result, more than 7,500 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the centers between April and last week, and account for more than 40% of all reported cases in ICE facilities since the beginning of the pandemic, according to The New York Times.
Reporting from an undisclosed location near the border in McAllen, TX we encountered around 190 migrants. I saw lots of small children and a few babies with this group who came from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Full story and interviews posted soon.@dailycallerpic.twitter.com/VJEOdV0Yym
Public health officials have warned of the threats that increasingly crowded facilities pose during the pandemic, noting how few of the detained migrants received the vaccines, according to CNN. Only around 20% of the detainees coming into the migration centers have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, The New York Times reported.
Dr. Sharon Dolovich, director of the Covid Behind Bars Data Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, expressed her concerns about the low rates of vaccination among migrant detainees, in a statement to The New York Times.
“You have people coming in and out of the facility, into communities where incomplete vaccination allows these variants to flourish, and then you bring them inside the facilities, and that variant will spread,” she said. “What you’re describing is the combination of insufficient vaccination plus the evolution of the virus, and that is really scary.”
ICE has been the subject of criticism over the last year due to its handling of the coronavirus in its detention facilities.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit in November 2020 against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE in an effort to force federal agencies to release information about the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic in immigration detention centers.
“For the better part of this year, public health experts have been sounding the alarm that immigrant detention centers would be hotspots for the spread of COVID-19. Fiscal Year 2020, which ended September 30, was the deadliest year for ICE detention in 15 years,” the ACLU claimed in a statement at the time. “This year has also seen numerous reports about the lack of even basic COVID precautions taken by ICE, as well as evidence that ICE has attempted to silence detainees who tried to speak out for better care.”
Former President Donald Trump has also been a harsh critic of the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis. Last week, the former president accepted Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s invitation to visit the southern border. “We have a sick country in many ways,” Trump said at an event with Texas officials and law enforcement, according to The Hill. “It’s sick in elections, and it’s sick in the border. And if you don’t have good elections, and if you don’t have a strong border, you don’t have a country.”
Jen Psaki takes questions during White House press briefing. Screenshot/NBC News
Newsmax’s Emerald Robinson pushed White House press secretary Jen Psaki to explain why National Guard troops had been allowed to sleep in parking garages while illegal immigrants got hotel rooms. Robinson noted the ongoing issues at the border —particularly the overcrowding of migrant shelters and DHS facilities — and asked about the move to supplement those facilities with hotel rooms when they were unable to accommodate the surge.
Robinson began by sharing a report that $86 million had gone to pay for hotel rooms and food for migrants who could not be housed in the main facilities that were already filled to capacity.
“How do you share that with the National Guard troops who were sleeping in parking garages and, you know, some of them got sick from having contaminated food. That’s a disparity that a lot of people are pointing out — that our National Guard was treated one way and then illegal immigrants are going to be put in hotel rooms,”Robinson continued.
Psaki made no comment about the move to place illegal immigrants in hotel rooms, instead focusing on the National Guard and what President Joe Biden had done at the time to rectify that situation.
“At the time when we became aware of the the conditions the National Guard troops were in, in parking garages as you noted, the president called the head of the National Guard that day and offered his assistance, offered to play any role that he could play,” Psaki replied.
“I know that was some time ago, but that was the reaction he took at the time,” Psaki added, moving on to the next question.
The border crisis that anyone could have seen coming is finally here, thanks largely to the actions of the Biden administration over the past few months. It turns out that promising to roll back Trump-era immigration restrictions, signing a raft of executive orders to that effect, and then introducing a mass amnesty bill sends the message that if you can get across the U.S.-Mexico border, you can stay.
Plenty of families in Mexico and Central America have gotten the message. According to a recent report in the Washington Post, for the past four months U.S. Border Patrol has taken into custody more than 70,000 illegal immigrants a month—the most for this period in a decade.
A growing number of those are children. Since November, the number of minors in federal custody has tripled to 7,000 after the Biden administration decided it would stop expelling minors and teenagers apprehended at the border without their parents. One official from the Department of Health and Human Services told Axios on Thursday, “We’re seeing the highest February numbers than we’ve ever seen in the history of the [Unaccompanied Alien Child] program.”
To cope with the surge, the administration has had to re-open an emergency shelter in Carrizo Springs, Texas, that was last used during the 2019 border crisis. Back then, the Trump administration was condemned by Democrats and the corporate press for keeping “kids in cages.”
The cages are back, but now they’re being called “facilities.”White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tried hard this week to spin the re-opening of the Texas facility as “absolutely not the same”as when the Trump administration used it. The emergency shelter is needed now, she said, because of COVID-19 precautions that require social distancing.
But that line is a dodge. At this rate, the administration is going to need emergency shelters like the one in Carrizo Springs with or without the pandemic, because the numbers are increasing fast. Just this week news broke that Border Patrol alone is holding more than 700 unaccompanied minors in federal custody. On Tuesday alone, more than 400 minors in Border Patrol custody were referred to shelters run by HHS.
Compare that to the 30-day referral average of 294 minors at the peak of the 2019 border crisis. You might recall that in May 2019, federal agents arrested 133,000 people crossing the southwest border illegally. More than 11,000 of these were unaccompanied minors.
Put another way, if Border Patrol continues to pick up unaccompanied minors north of the Rio Grande at this rate, a month from now we’ll have a much worse crisis on the border than we did in 2019.
Meanwhile, the administration seems disconnected from reality.Asked by Peter Doocy of Fox News about the Carrizo Springs facility, Psaki claimed it has been “revamped”and now has “medical facilities,”which is nonsense because it of course had medical facilities when it operated under the Trump administration, as all such shelters are required to have.
When questioned directly about why elsewhere on the border kids were being held in much cruder Border Patrol facilities, which Doocy noted consist of tents and chain-link fences, for longer than is allowed by federal law, in some cases four or five days, Psaki blamed the cold weather and power outages in Texas, and insisted the administration’s “objective”is to move these minors “as quickly as possible” into shelters run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
But that’s always the objective. No federal border official, whether under Trump or Biden, wants to house kids in unsuitable Border Patrol stations designed for short-term detention of adults. Yet that’s what’s going to happen, sooner than the White House seems to realize. The immigration officials in charge of dealing with the coming border surge are more clear-eyed about what’s happening. On Tuesday, The Washington Times reported on internal emails from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Chief of Staff Timothy Perry, telling ICE leadership to “prepare for border surges now.”
Part of that preparation involves plans to transport illegal immigrants away from the border for processing and release in the interior of the country. Anything, it seems, to avoid images of families and children being held in overcrowded facilities. As Perry wrote in one email, “No fences.”
That might be difficult. As Axios reported late Thursday, border officials expect to have 13,000 unaccompanied children cross the border in May, far surpassing the totals at the height of the 2019 crisis.What Biden and the Democrats don’t quite grasp is that if you expect in February to have 13,000 kids crossing the border in May, the crisis is already here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John is the Political Editor at The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
Data from the Department of Homeland Security shows that 328 immigrants from China were caught trying to he border illegally so far this year. Three other people from South Korea were arrested at the border, The Washington Times reported.
The report comes as the coronavirus continues to spread across China, where there are more than 80,000 confirmed cases and 2,902 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. In South Korea, there are more than 6,000 active cases and 35 deaths.
“All told, more than 1,000 migrants a day are caught attempting to sneak in illegally from Mexico, which detected its first case last week, and since has identified five others,” The Times wrote. “And if that many are being caught each day, an unknown but significant number are getting through undetected, Border Patrol agents say.”
“The journey to the U.S. border puts migrants in poor conditions,” a Homeland Security official told The Washington Times. “We don’t know if they have come into contact with someone who has the flu, there is no passport, medical history, or travel manifest.”
President Trump has suggested that he might move to close the southern border, but so far has made no attempt to do so.
Wrote The Times:
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad F. Wolf raised the issue Tuesday with the House Homeland Security Committee, saying that illegal immigration presents a unique threat compared to legal travelers from China, who are being screened on arrival.
“The individuals that are coming in at our 11 airports that are being funneled, we have very good information of their travel history, of their medical history. We’re not going to have that same set of fidelity for the individuals if this continues to grow at the southwest border,” he said.
Mr. Wolf also said the spread of the virus in Mexico creates new complications, after the U.S. has forced tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to wait in that country while their cases are proceeding in American immigration courts.
Late last week a federal court issued a ruling that could result in thousands of them being admitted immediately. The ruling was stayed, but Mr. Wolf said it could be a danger spot should the courts demand their entry.
In a 5-4 decision, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that foreigners who are in America illegally can be prosecuted for the crime of identity theft. While the ruling seems like a no brainer, the court was divided because the case involved the Immigration Control and Reform Act, which says any information provided on an I-9 work form can’t be used by law enforcement in any way — and that includes as evidence in a criminal case.
“The Immigration Control and Reform Act (IRCA) makes it a federal crime to lie on the I-9 work authorization form, while limiting how the false information can be used,”Fox News reported. “Federal law also says information “contained in” the I-9 cannot be used for law enforcement other than specified exceptions — but the Supreme Court ruled that if workers use the same information in tax documents, they can face charges.”
“Although IRCA expressly regulates the use of I–9’s and documents appended to that form, no provision of IRCA directly addresses the use of other documents, such as federal and state tax-withholding forms, that an employee may complete upon beginning a new job,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court’s majority opinion. He was joined by fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh.
The IRCA also forbids state charges or civil cases against “those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens,” but Alito noted that this “makes no mention of state or local laws that impose criminal or civil sanctions on employees or applicants for employment.”
The Kansas Supreme Court had ruled in a case that charges were improper because “[t]he fact that this information was included in the W–4 and K–4 did not alter the fact that it was also part of the I–9.”
Alito said that was a incorrect ruling.
“Taken at face value, this theory would mean that no information placed on an I–9 — including an employee’s name, residence address, date of birth, telephone number, and e-mail address — could ever be used by any entity or person for any reason,” he wrote.
Our laws were written in the most emphatic terms to ensure that those who entered illegally cannot remain in this country undetected. The purpose of those laws was precisely to detect illegal aliens and ensure that they are promptly removed from the country. Yet lower court judges, violating foundational Supreme Court case law, are flipping those laws upside down and are now making it unlawful to detect and deport illegal aliens. The latest Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling is a great example of why no new laws will solve the problem if the executive branch will passively capitulate to lower courts subverting existing laws. The cycle will just continue.
On Wednesday, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that two Guatemalan illegal aliens could not be deported based on ICE finding out their unlawful status from a traffic stop initiated by a state trooper. In doing so, the judges not only created a Fourth Amendment right to privacy against detecting one’s illegal immigration status – contrary to years of case law – but also ruled that illegal aliens can’t be deported based on obtaining such information! In other words, when the laws say illegal aliens cannot be shielded from detection (8 U.S. Code §1324), they really mean they cannot be detected.
The two plaintiffs, Erick Geovany Yoc-Us and Luis Calel-Espantzay, are Guatemalan nationals who were sleeping in the back of a van when Pennsylvania state trooper Luke Macke pulled over the vehicle for speeding. There were six other people in the van who turned out to be citizens of Mexico, El Salvador, and Ecuador. Any commonsense police officer seeing that circumstance would have reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally.
The trooper smartly asked them for immigration papers or other forms of ID. The trooper called ICE, the people admitted to being here illegally, and they were placed in deportation proceedings. They were ordered deported by an immigration judge, and the ruling was upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the appellate body of immigration court system.
Open and shut, right? Illegal aliens have no right to remain here and no right to remain undetected. As I’ve noted before, illegal aliens could have some constitutional rights if we want to permanently confine them, but if we merely want to remove them from the country, they have no Fourth Amendment rights against that. In fact, the laws are explicitly designed to ensure they are immediately detected.
Section 1324 prevents officials from shielding from detection, harboring, inducing, encouraging, or transporting illegal aliens and enabling them to remain in the country. The Alien Registration Act (8 U.S. Code §1253) downright requires them to register and carry papers on them.
As Dan Cadman, former ICE agent and fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, told CR, “The federal alien smuggling-harboring-transporting statute, 8 U.S.C.1324, gives state and local police the authority to enforce its provisions. Using good police work, these officers developed probable cause to believe that one illegal alien was unlawfully transporting the others in violation of that statute. That ICE chose instead only to pursue civil deportation proceedings against all of them does not invalidate the lawful stop and investigatory actions of the Pennsylvania police and should not form a basis to suppress the evidence that flowed from their actions.”
But two of the illegal aliens appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals claiming that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated because, of course, the trooper asked for papers because of their appearance, in their view. Again, such a lawful stop wouldn’t violate the Fourth Amendment even if they turned out to be Americans, but in this case, they were indeed illegal aliens. As Chris Hajec, director of litigation for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, told CR, “This is a deeply absurd decision. Illegal aliens do not have the right to be in this country. So they do not have the right that citizens have to travel around it freely. No police officer is violating the Fourth Amendment by detaining an illegal alien for a reasonable time.”
The aliens claimed they were detained for too long, longer than a normal traffic stop, and had to sit there without air conditioning. But again, they weren’t detained for the purpose of imprisonment, they were detained for the purpose of handing them over to ICE, which is the purpose of our immigration laws. As the Supreme Court said in Turner v. Williams (1904), “detention or temporary confinement as part of the means necessary to give effect to the exclusion or expulsion was held valid.”
Yet Judge Midge Rendell, wife of former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, went a step further. Not only did she declare the police action a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but she also suggested that it might be subject to the “exclusionary rule,” meaning that evidence obtained through unconstitutional means must be tossed out. “Because petitioners have identified a possible egregious Fourth Amendment violation, we conclude that the [immigration judge] erred in not granting their motion for a hearing to provide them with an opportunity to put forth evidence in support of their claim,” wrote Rendell, joined by another Democrat and a Republican appointee.
To begin with, the exclusionary rule has grown beyond any constitutional parameters over the years. Already in 1980, President Reagan identified it as a lawless practice that needed to be changed. It’s been expanded exponentially since his time. But to apply it to illegal aliens in the context of deportation proceedings is insane. By definition, the laws were designed to ensure that illegal aliens cannot be shielded from detection. It’s not like an American who has the right to be here. Deportation is not criminal punishment and is not subject to those rules.
Incredibly, this same circuit court has now rejected all claims from American citizens in New Jersey being retroactively criminalized for possessing pistol magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, even though they were purchased lawfully. It violates the Second Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, and the Art. I Sec. 10 rule barring states from enacting ex post facto laws. Yet Americans have no real rights while the courts create rights for illegal aliens to invade and remain in the country while they are suing law enforcement for enforcing the law.
If nothing is done about judicial supremacy, there won’t be a country left to fight for during the elections. Illegal aliens can sue our law enforcement, but we can’t sue them or protect our own legitimate rights in court. We are strangers in our own country.
(INDIANAPOLIS, IN.) – October 18, 2018: the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) today alerted local, state, and federal law enforcement to campaign mailers directed at noncitizens in south Texas which encouraged voter registration via altered forms indicating they were U.S. citizens.
Texas Democrat Party mailers circulated around the Rio Grande Valley region of south Texas landed in the hands of lawfully present noncitizens in late September and early October. The envelopes contained voter registration applications where the answers to questions “Are you a United States Citizen?” and “Will you be 18 years of age on or before election day?” were pre-printed “Yes” for each.
“Noncitizens usually register to vote at the prompting of another party—usually a DMV clerk,”PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “Today, we are raising awareness to how the Texas Democrat Party—unintentionally or otherwise—is offering voter registration to noncitizens. Without some form of official intervention, confused noncitizens rather than the Texas Dems will end up paying the consequences of this matter.”
The letters from PILF went to district attorneys in the region, in addition to Texas and federal officers, explains why pre-printing answers about eligibility are problematic:
[W]hen Congress passed the NVRA, it envisioned a registrant making two separate affirmations of citizenship – both the checkbox as well as the signature attestation. This enables prosecutors to easier establish intent and state of mind when noncitizens illegally register to vote.
The Foundation urges the recipients of the referral to “investigate if and how many returned applications arrived in your local county elections office(s) … The Foundation yields to your office in addition to the state and local election officials on how best to protect ineligible registrants from casting ballots during the 2018 Election.”
Attached with the Foundation’s referral is an affidavit from a former employee of the 229th Judicial District Attorney, David. C. Kifuri, Jr., who initially came forward with the documents in question.
Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm dedicated to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections.
The stories of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in this country are not to believed, in many cases. Think of the Kate Steinle case, as one among many.
Now, a chainsaw-wielding illegal immigrant allegedly slashed his own wife at their home in Whittier, California, this week — while their three children, ages 10, eight and five, were inside. The man was arrested Thursday for the horrific attack, and it turns out he had been deported 11 times since 2005, immigration officials said. The wife is recovering at a hospital, officials said, and is expected to survive.
Alejandro Alvarez-Villegas, age 32, is what’s known as a “serial immigration violator.” As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman Lori Haley said in a statement, “Department of Homeland Security databases indicate Mr. Alvarez-Villegas is a serial immigration violator who has been removed from the United States 11 times since 2005.”
Immigration officials have lodged a detainer against him, as several outlets, including Fox News, noted.
The man was arrested in Chula Vista, a suburb of San Diego. It’s notable that in May of this year, the San Diego City Council voted during a closed session to join an amicus brief cities and counties are preparing to support California’s so-called sanctuary state law — in the face of a Trump administration lawsuit against it.
“When officers arrived [at the Whittier, California, home] they found a female adult suffering from traumatic physical injuries, believed to have been inflicted by a chainsaw,” police said on Facebook about the alleged crime Alvarez-Villegas committed.The man fled the scene in a stolen car but was picked up the next day, officials said. Alvarez-Villegas allegedly tried to ram a police car, but officers were able to arrest him without injuries, Chula Vista Police Lt. Kenny Heinz said, as NBC 7 reported.
The suspect is likely to be charged with attempted murder, child endangerment, hit and run, and grand theft auto, police said Thursday. The records on file for this man indicate he had a criminal history prior to this arrest. In 2013, he was charged with one count of unlawful possession of a controlled substance, along with one count of using or being under the influence of a controlled substance.
He pleaded no contest to those charges, the Los Angeles Times reported. He also pleaded no contest to driving under the influence.
“Depending on criminal history, someone in the country illegally who re-enters the U.S. after having been previously removed has committed a felony punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, according to ICE,” the publication noted.
Reports noted that the couple’s three children have been placed in protective custody.
Now that Trump has solved Northeast Asia’s problems, maybe he can get to a problem in our country — in fact, within 10 miles of the White House. For some reason, The Washington Post recently ran an article on something important — the MS-13 gang presence at a public school on the outskirts of our nation’s capital, William Wirt Middle School in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
The media’s usual approach to the diversity being inflicted on us is: Don’t report this! It’s better if no one knows. Maybe the left has decided it’s too late to do anything about the transformation of our country into a Third World hellhole, and Trump couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to.
The Post reported that, like many schools up and down the East Coast, MS-13 has turned Wirt into a battleground. There have been near-daily gang fights, rampant drug dealing, one reported rape, gang signs on the walls, one shooting — more in nearby schools — and teachers afraid to be alone with their students. At least two students are required to have security officers assigned to them, walking them from class to class and watching them during lunch hour, on account of MS-13 threatening to kill them.
How many different categories of immigrants require special law enforcement officers devoted to them? Thanks to mass Muslim immigration, the FBI has terrorist watch lists in ALL 50 STATES. That’s why whenever there’s a terrorist attack, the FBI says, Oh yeah, we were watching that guy.And now we have police bodyguards for kids at schools wherever “unaccompanied minors”have been dumped by our government.
In addition to the free school lunches, transportation, housing and health care to pay for all this wonderful diversity, immigrants are also massively ratcheting up law enforcement costs.
It would be enraging enough if bad things were happening to our country and the immigrants were paying for it. But we’re paying for it. Wait — you are offering to bring gang warfare, drug cartels and terrorism? We’ll go top dollar for that! Put your wallet away! Your money’s no good here!
Having made the odd decision to report factual information about immigration, The Washington Post was careful to include the gigantically irrelevant, painfully idiotic cliché: The “vast majority” of poor Latin Americans pouring into our country “enroll in school and stay out of trouble.”
Yes, and the vast majority of boa constrictors stay out of trouble too. Let’s put them in our schools! In fact, far fewer boa constrictors kill Americans each year than Latin American immigrants do. Less than one a year. And boa constrictors don’t undercut you at the construction site.
We never hear that “vast majority”argument about the policies that liberals like. The “vast majority” of gun owners never shoot up a school. The “vast majority” of smokers will never get lung cancer. The “vast majority”of Americans do not benefit from Wall Street profits.
Why are we subjecting ourselves to mass immigration at all? Hey, everyone, let’s all get an HIV injection! Don’t worry, the vast majority of us won’t get AIDS!
We’re certainly not doing it to be nice to Hispanics. They’ve been polled and polled and polled, and it turns out they DON’T want more people being brought in to take their jobs and drive down wages. Recent immigrants probably don’t want their useless brother-in-law from Chiapas sleeping on the couch either.
In the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama’s Spanish language ads didn’t make a peep about immigration. Instead, he bragged about giving everyone free health care. (Sidebar: Unmentioned were the millions of people who lost their health care, thanks to all that free health care for immigrants.)
Less than two years ago, Republicans watched the most anti-immigrant politician in a century be elected president, with every major institution in America against him. Trump won more of the Hispanic vote than any Republican in a generation.
The Chamber of Commerce knows that Hispanics didn’t come here to have their wages driven down by an unending stream of unskilled workers just like themselves. Republicans and Democrats know it. The only people who don’t know it are Americans who don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by opposing the constant importation of unskilled, poverty-stricken immigrants.
The reason for this transformation of our country, our culture and our politics is to flood the market with low-wage workers and Democratic voters.Obviously, those are losing arguments, so the beneficiaries of mass Third World immigration lie. They claim that anyone who doesn’t want to supply the rich with cheap labor must hate Hispanics.
Trump thought North Korea was hard? With immigration, we have all of the most influential forces in our culture on the same page. Immigration is a great unifier of the rich and powerful.
The rich are like sharks — all appetite, no brain. With their cheap labor voting 7-3 for the Democrats, it won’t be long until Democrats have a lock on government. What do you think they’ll do then, Business Roundtable? Answer: Make it impossible to do business. Google “California.”
With the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the Koch brothers’ incessant lobbying for more and more cheap labor, we see exactly what Lenin said about the capitalists: They will sell us the rope with which to hang them.
The rich don’t care. They can’t think beyond next quarter’s earnings.
This week, we’ll cover one of the little-noticed ways mass Third World immigration is making our country more colorful: elder rape.
Usually the vibrant cultural diversity that immigrants bring runs more along the lines of child rape, drunk driving and food stamp fraud. But our official government policy of importing the Third World also means we’re going to have a lot more elder rape, too.
Thank you, Teddy Kennedy! Something for the seniors.
I was recently reminded of this aspect of diversity because, a few days ago, jury selection began in the trial of illegal alien Victor Aureliano Martinez Ramirez and anchor baby Jose Fernando Villagomez for the rape, torture and murder of 64-year-old Marilyn Pharis.
Pharis was attacked in 2015, just a few weeks after Kate Steinle was killed by an illegal in San Francisco — a wondrous moment in time when Donald Trump wanted to deport illegals, rather than call them “Dreamers” and give them amnesty. Like Steinle’s killer, Martinez Ramirez had a lengthy and impressive arrest record in this country, including felony assault with intent to commit sexual assault. A week before his violent home invasion, he was released from jail on drug and weapons charges.
We don’t know the details of the recent attack because the perps have VIP status, requiring the utmost discretion from our media. But based on what is known, the crime sounds pretty gruesome.
Pharis was attacked at 10 in the morning, at home, sleeping in her own bed, after working a night shift at Vandenberg Air Force Base. According to the dry legal charges and hospital report, she was penetrated with a “foreign object” and beaten with a hammer, leaving her with a broken neck and broken eye sockets.Pharis survived, managed to call the police and was taken to a hospital, where she died eight days later.
While we wait for the trial transcript, here are a few more examples of this multicultural trait we are importing for no good reason.
Sergio Martinez-Perez was the sort of hardworking undocumented immigrant from Mexico we keep hearing so much about from elected Republicans angling for campaign donations from the Koch brothers. He “played by the rules,” working in Omaha, Nebraska, as a roofer. (Roofing is well known to be a job Americans just won’t do.) Only 19 years old, Sergio was a “Dreamer.” They’re “absolutely incredible kids!”
One summer night in 2013, Sergio got drunk and broke into the home of 93-year-old Louise Sollowin, savagely beat her, breaking her nose and orbital bones, then ripped off her adult diaper and raped her.Sollowin’s daughter had put her mother to bed earlier that night. When she returned at 8:30 the following morning, she found Sergio lying naked and passed out on top of her mother’s bloody body. Three days later, Louise Sollowin died.
Sergio would already have been on a bullet train to legal status had Marco Rubio’s amnesty passed. (Just think of all the Sergios a Trump amnesty will get us!)
Mexican illegal immigrant Victor Manuel Batres Martinez raped, sodomized and beat two nuns in their 50s, strangling one to death with her own rosary beads.By the time of his nun-rape in 2002, Martinez had already been arrested multiple times before for kidnapping, robbery and possession of narcotics.Under the rigorous immigration enforcement procedures of the Clinton and Bush administrations, Martinez had been “ordered” deported three times, meaning he signed a note three times promising to leave.
In 2013, Antonio Nieto, a certified nursing assistant, was convicted of sexually assaulting patients in a nursing home.The staff didn’t believe the first victim, a 59-year-old woman, who was considered a complainer for objecting to the facility’s oppressive anti-smoking rules. This allowed two more female patients to be sexually assaulted by Nieto, one 73 years old, and the other 93. (Always believe the smoker!)
Nieto needed a Spanish translator at trial. Don’t say Third World immigrants aren’t creating jobs!
In 2008, a rash of rapes of women older than 60 in Texas finally ended when the police arrested Jose Ayala Nunez, a Honduran illegal immigrant, who later pleaded guilty to the assaults.
Isn’t a wall beginning to sound like a deal at any price?
Twenty-four-year-old Parkpoom Seesangrit, an anchor baby, was a student at the American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts, when he was arrested in May 2014 for raping a 69-year-old dementia patient at the nursing home where he worked.
When caught by a nurse, he said, “I am sorry. I know it looks bad. I am in trouble.” He later claimed he was merely changing the victim’s diaper when he slipped and “digitally penetrated her.”He admitted to slipping on another occasion when he was taking the same patient to the bathroom.
Seesangrit was convicted and sentenced to six to eight years in prison. He needed a Thai interpreter at trial.(Immigration SAVES taxpayers money!)
Last month, 23-year-old Ghanaian immigrant Fode Doukoure pleaded guilty to raping a 74-year-old woman.
The first time, he merely fondled the wheelchair-bound woman. The second time, he doused her in pepper spray, then held an anesthesia-soaked rag over her mouth, knocking her out for about an hour. When the woman awoke, her hands were bound and her underwear was on backward.
(Who wanted Norwegians, anyway?)
Doukoure promised Pennsylvania state court judge Christylee Peck to “stay out of trouble and stay away from people who would put trouble in my way.” Like 74-year-old hussies in wheelchairs— that’s trouble with a capital T!
Melted by his words, Judge Peck sentenced Doukoure to the 16 months he’d already spent in county lockup, awaiting trial, so he was released immediately and is now well on his way to taking Joy Reid’s job at MSNBC.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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