“I Think We’re Headed to a Shutdown” – Vance SLAMS Schumer, Democrats For Trying to Hold Americans Hostage to Fund Healthcare for Illegal Aliens (VIDEO)
By Cristina Laila – The Gateway Pundit – Sept 29, 2025
Top Democrat and Republican lawmakers met with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance to discuss a stopgap bill that will avert a government shutdown. Two stopgap bills have stalled in the Senate over the last two weeks because Democrats are blocking President Trump’s agenda. The government will shut down on Wednesday because the Democrats are seeking $1.5 trillion in spending that will fund healthcare for illegal aliens and sex reassignment surgery for children. Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer came out of the meeting on Monday claiming he tried to guilt-trip President Trump by bringing up a child with cancer. “I told him how I met a mother who was crying because her daughter has cancer…and what has happened with healthcare with what they have done, she’s gonna watch her daughter suffer and maybe die. And he seemed to understand the magnitude of this crisis,” Schumer said… 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, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Democrats keep being their own worst enemy, standing on the wrong side of every important issue to the American people, coupled with Trump Derangement syndrome. We say keep on flushing.
Mark Halperin: What We’re Seeing in California is a Classic Manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome (VIDEO)
By Mike LaChance – The Gateway Pundit – June 11, 2025
Mark Halperin is one of the few mainstream journalists who is willing to admit that Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. In a recent video, Halperin talked about the condition and suggested that it is the driving force behind the lunacy we are seeing unfold in California right now. He points out that there are not many cities with the kind of law enforcement infrastructure to deal with such large mobs and that calling in the National Guard was a perfectly sensible thing for Trump to do, but that crazed leftists can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to Trump. 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, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Lawless rebel, Governor Newsom, is fighting against President Trump’s Law and Order America First policies and continues to coddle criminal illegal aliens invading our country.
Victor Davis Hanson on LA: Gavin Newsom Has ‘Ruined His Chances Ever to be a Serious National Candidate’ (VIDEO)
By Mike LaChance – The Gateway Pundit – June 9, 2025
Conservative scholar and historian Victor Davis Hanson has released a new video in which he talks about the situation in Los Angeles. Right out of the gate, Hanson suggests that California Governor Gavin Newsom has ‘ruined’ whatever chance he had to be taken seriously as a national candidate. If that wasn’t true after the way he handled the wildfires, it certainly is now. Speaking more broadly, Hanson notes the optics of the situation and says it’s going to end badly for Democrats. Partial transcript from The Daily Signal: Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. This weekend we saw rioting in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement for its efforts to apprehend illegal aliens and employers who were hiring illegal aliens… 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, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
On Sunday it was revealed to the public that President Joe Biden had been diagnosed with a “more aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone. Dr. Zeke Emanuel said Monday on MSNBC that it’s more likely Biden “had it while he was president.” That means that on top of the obvious cognitive impairment, Biden may have also been suffering from an aggressive cancer, further calling into question who was actually making key decisions during his administration.
Here are five of the most consequential decisions of the Biden presidency that, in light of this diagnosis, have many Americans asking whether Biden was truly the one behind them.
Appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant after Justice Stephen Breyer stepped down in 2022. Prior to taking office, Biden made nominating a black woman to the Supreme Court a top priority, as pointed out by The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd. Jackson had notable shortcomings — including the inability to define what a woman is because she is “not a biologist.”
Pardons And Commutations, Oh My!
Biden gave preemptive pardons to former Rep. Liz Cheney, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, Adam Schiff and others who sat on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol as well as to the “police officers from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department or the U.S. Capitol Police who testified before” the committee, according to The Lawfare Institute.
Biden also issued pardons to his brother, James Biden, James’ wife Sara, his other brother Francis T. Biden, and his sister Valerie T. Owens along with her husband John T. Owens.
As noted by The Federalist’s Beth Brelje, “To be pardoned for a crime, there must be a crime. None of the people on this list have been charged for the awful ways they harmed people in their official capacities.”
Biden also announced in December that he was granting 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations in what his administration described as the “largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history.”
Weeks before that set of pardons and commutations, Biden quietly commuted the sentences of two Chinese spies. In one case, Yanjun Xu was convicted in 2022 for “conspiracy to commit economic espionage; conspiracy to commit trade secret theft; attempted economic espionage by theft or fraud; attempted theft of trade secrets by taking or deception.”
But Biden’s commutation said “it is in the national interest that the term of imprisonment related to the aforesaid conviction not be served in its entirety.”
The Deadly Afghanistan Withdrawal
On August 26,2021, thirteen U.S. service members were killed during what has now become known as the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. The same withdrawal also left thousands of Americans, U.S. allies and their families stranded. A report from the State Department later confirmed that Biden’s execution of the withdrawal “posed significant challenges for the Department.”
Biden rushed the withdrawal which “compounded the difficulties the Department faced in mitigating the loss of the military’s key enablers,” the report found. Biden’s lack of planning “had serious consequences for the viability of the Afghan government and its security.”
Notably, Biden also left billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment behind for U.S. enemies to use while allowing hundreds of Afghans on the Pentagon’s watchlist to enter the U.S. without proper vetting.
Open Borders
Biden allowed millions of illegal aliens to flood the country — and made it easier for them to do so. As explained by Tristan Justice in these pages, Biden stopped construction of the border wall, “expanded the ‘illegal’ Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program,” reversed “Trump-era executive orders that enforced immigration law,” issued a deportation moratorium, lost track of thousands of children illegally in the country, resurrected an Obama-era parole program for illegals and more.
Despite the urgent need for border security, Biden falsely claimed he lacked the authority to secure the border and said he had “done all I can do.”
As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson pointed out, “A secure border was always within reach” during the Biden years but “Biden and the Democrats sold out their fellow Americans, threw open the borders, and then pretended they had no choice in the matter.”
COVID
Biden issued an announcement about a purported vaccine mandate for private companies employing 100 people or more just months after taking office. Biden also, as reported by Boyd, encouraged businesses “to adopt vaccine mandated and plotted a vaccine passport program that would deny Americans work or access to society based on their Covid-19 vaccination status.” The Biden administration also required all federal employees and contractors to get the vaccine or lose their jobs.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Many in Texas have significant concerns over Sharia Law enveloping their state. A planned Islamic-compliant only mega community (Epic City) is being planned in Texas near Dallas that is Sharia Law compliant. The only laws all Americans should follow are the Constitution and U.S. Law.
BRANCO TOON STORE
By Mike LaChance – The Gateway Pundit – April 8, 2025
Conservative talk radio legend Mark Levin recently discussed the Islamic, Sharia Law compliant city being planned near Dallas in Texas and cited this report from the Gateway Pundit. In the report, a retired police lieutenant describes his findings after looking into the matter and raises some major concerns. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has also spoken out about this and is investigating. The entire concept of this planned community is un-American. We do not need or want countries to be formed within our country. READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Walz claimed he was Kamala’s code talker for white rural males, watching Football and fixing their trucks in order to put them at ease so they’d vote for the ticket.
Walz said that he was the “permission structure” for white males in rural areas to vote for the Democratic ticket. (Daily Caller News Foundation) — Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Monday that former Vice President Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate to “code talk to white guys.” Walz said during a Harvard Kennedy School forum that he was the “permission structure” for white males in rural areas to vote for the Democratic ticket. He admitted that his role on the campaign failed to procure the necessary male votes, who cast their ballots for President Donald Trump in record numbers… READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Democrats are only interested in saving that one life if it fits their Marxist anti-gun agenda, but not when it comes to deporting illegal alien criminals.
MUST SEE: Stephen Miller GOES OFF in Explosive Five-Minute-Long Rebuke of the Fake News Media for Shilling for Terrorists and Failing Death and Destruction Caused by Biden’s Illegals (VIDEO)
Miller joined Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in the briefing room this morning to discuss the Trump administration’s return to common sense in the first 100 days. One reporter foolishly asked about rumors that the Trump Administration is in talks with El Salvador to inquire about returning deported MS-13 terrorist Kilmar Garcia Abrego, and Miller let it rip. As The Gateway Pundit reported, a reporter asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio a similar question during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Rubio leveled her with his response, saying, “I would never tell you that, and you know who else I would never tell? A judge.” 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, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
HUGE: Barack Obama Was Using USAID to Pretend to Send ‘Aid’ Overseas But Was Laundering It to Train ‘Rent-a-Riots’ Instead
By Jim Hoft – The Gateway Pundit – March 23, 2025
Mike Benz, the founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online, recently joined Joe Rogan on his very popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience with over 19 million subscribers. The podcast was filmed several weeks ago but a clip from this discussion is making the rounds this week on social media. During their conversation, Mike Benz shared how Barack Obama was using money to USAID to pretend to send “aid” overseas. In actuality, Obama was laundering the taxpayer dollars and using it to train “rent-a-mobs” instead! This is a huge development but maybe not so surprising considering how Democrats believe they can do anything they please. With other people’s money. READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – The last face you want to see if you are an illegal alien gang member is Tom Homan, while the legacy media and radical left-wing judges run defensive maneuvers for them.
BOOM! “Get Your Affairs in Order” – Border Czar Tom Homan Closes Press Briefing with Stern Warning for Illegal Aliens to Self Deport: “You Cannot Hide from ICE. We’re Actively Looking for You” (VIDEO)
Border Czar Tom Homan joined Karoline Leavitt in the White House Press briefing room on Monday and put illegal aliens on notice that they will be found, prosecuted, deported, and never allowed to return if they don’t follow the law and leave immediately. “If you’re an illegal alien in the United States, this message is for you,” he said. “You cannot hide from ICE. We’re actively looking for you.” He continued, “Make no mistake, if you’re in the country legally and you fail to do what the law requires, we will prosecute you, you will go to jail, then we’ll deport you. ” This comes as the White House ramps up efforts to encourage self-deportation amid radical left judges blocking the Trump administration from executing mass deportations. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reminded illegal aliens that they must register with the federal government under the “long-ignored” Alien Registration Act and leave the country or be arrested. 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, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
Stephen Miller, the fearless Trump advisor and architect of America First immigration policies, dismantled a left-wing reporter’s attempt to smear the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. The reporter, clearly pushing a biased narrative, tried to frame the administration as cruel for deporting illegal alien mothers—ignoring the fact that these individuals broke U.S. law and that many, like the Honduran mother in question, requested deportation for themselves and their children.
The reporter smugly asked, “Is it the best use of the administration’s resources to be going after moms of young kids, basically?”—a classic leftist gotcha question designed to paint Trump’s enforcement policies as heartless. But Miller, refusing to play along, flipped the script and exposed the absurdity of the media’s open-borders agenda.
Miller’s Devastating Response: “Do you yourself have an opinion on this subject? What percentage of the, let’s just pick an even number of say, 10 million illegal aliens. Let’s say that Biden released, I think it’s close to 20 million. Let’s say he released 10 million illegal aliens into the country over the last four years. What percentage do you think we should let stay here of those 10 million?”
The reporter, flustered, shouted back, “I’m not trying to do a game!”—proving that the liberal media can’t handle it when their own emotional arguments are turned against them. Miller pressed further: “Is it your view that if a Democrat president releases 10, 15, 20 million illegals into the country, they all then should get to stay forever and for all of life?”
The reporter, unable to defend the disastrous Biden border crisis, deflected: “Stephen, I don’t have a view about what Democratic presidents do. I’m asking what the Republican president…”
Miller, unrelenting, shut it down: “Okay, so you don’t want to answer the question because you know the answer is obvious. Everyone that Biden let in has to go home. Of course. It’s a crazy thing to even ask. You think we should give administrative amnesty to some subset of the illegals that Biden [let in]?”
He then delivered the knockout blow, reaffirming Trump’s commitment to law and order: “ICE is going to continue to focus on raids against high-threat criminal aliens. We’re going to use the entire force and power of the federal government to get them all home. Many will choose also to leave voluntarily and take advantage of the CBP Home app. But we are not going to ask taxpayers to subsidize the presence of a single illegal alien in this country.”
🚨 MAJOR SMACKDOWN ALERT: Stephen Miller does it again. Fake news reporter in utter shambles.
REPORTER: "Is it the best use of the administration's resources to be going after moms of young kids, basically?"
This exchange perfectly encapsulates the media’s hypocrisy. They feign concern for illegal aliens while ignoring the catastrophic consequences of open borders—soaring crime, drained resources, and the erosion of American sovereignty. Meanwhile, President Trump and his administration are the only ones serious about protecting American citizens and enforcing the law.
The Supreme Court’s continuing failure to define lower courts’ authority is wreaking havoc on the reputation of the courts — and our constitutional order.
The Supreme Court has interceded six times in less than three months to rein in federal judges who improperly exceeded their Article III authority and infringed on the Article II authority of President Donald Trump. Yet the high court continues to issue mealy-mouthed opinions which serve only to exacerbate the ongoing battle between the Executive and Judicial branches of government. And now there is a constitutional crisis primed to explode this week in a federal court in Maryland over the removal of an El Salvadoran — courtesy of the justices’ latest baby-splitting foray on Thursday.
On Thursday last, in Noem v. Garcia, the Supreme Court issued a short two-page order on President Trump’s application asking the justices to vacate an injunction issued by Maryland federal judge Paula Xinis. That injunction, issued on April 4, 2025, ordered the Trump Administration “to facilitate and effectuate the return of Plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States by no later than 11:59 PM on Monday, April 7, 2025.” The lower court further held that the “preliminary relief is issued to restore the status quo and to preserve Abrego Garcia’s access to due process in accordance with the Constitution and governing immigration statutes.”
After the Fourth Circuit refused to stay Judge Xinis’ order, the Trump Administration filed an application with the Supreme Court seeking an immediate stay followed by vacatur of the injunction. In its application, the Trump Administration acknowledged that Garcia had been wrongly removed to El Salvador, agreeing that there was an order barring Garcia’s return to his native homeland. However, the Trump Administration stressed that the order also concluded Garcia, as an alien illegally present in the United States, was subject to removal under federal law — just not to El Salvador. The immigration judge also rejected Garcia’s petition for asylum and for withholding of removal under CAT, or the Convention Against Torture. The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld those decisions.
Further, while Garcia had been wrongly removed to El Salvador, the Trump Administration argued that Judge Xinis lacked the authority to order him to “facilitate and effectuate” Garcia’s return. First, it was not for a federal judge to tell the Executive branch how to engage in diplomatic relations. And second, the president lacks the ability to control a foreign sovereign, making it impossible for him to “effectuate” Garcia’s return to the United States. Finally, Judge Xinis’ order improperly directs the Trump Administration to admit Garcia even though he is a member of MS-13, which has been designated a terrorist organization.
Chief Judge John Roberts granted the Trump Administration an administrative stay, thereby nixing the April 7, 2025 deadline for the president to have “effectuated” Garcia’s return to the United States. Then on April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court entered an order stating the Trump Administration’s “application is granted in part and denied in part, subject to the direction of this order.”
But what precisely were those directions? Well, first, there was the deadline, which had already come and gone, and so the Court stated: “[T]he deadline imposed by the District Court has now passed. To that extent, the Government’s emergency application is effectively granted in part and the deadline in the challenged order is no longer effective.”
The Supreme Court then said that “[t]he rest of the District Court’s order remains in effect but requires clarification on remand.” Here, the high court explained what parts of the lower court order it believed proper, namely to “require the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” However, “[t]he intended scope of the term ‘effectuate,” the Supreme Court explained, is “unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority.” The Supreme Court ended by stating “[t]he District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” But “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the Supreme Court added.
What exactly does any of that mean?
To Judge Xinis it meant she merely needed to clarify what “effectuate” means. But rather than do that, the Barack Obama appointee just dropped that directive from her injunction, amending her order “to DIRECT that Defendants take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible.”
She further directed the Trump Administration to file “a supplemental declaration from an individual with personal knowledge, addressing the following: (1) the current physical location and custodial status of Abrego Garcia; (2) what steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s immediate return to the United States; and (3) what additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate his return.”
Late Thursday, Judge Xinis ordered the Trump administration to file that declaration by 9:30 a.m. on Friday, even though the Supreme Court’s order only dropped Thursday evening around 7:00 p.m. The Maryland-based federal judge then denied the government’s motion for extension of time until Tuesday to file the declaration, but she gave them an additional two hours.
Unsurprisingly, 11:30 a.m. came and went without the declaration being filed. Soon after, the Trump Administration filed a response to the court’s amended injunction, noting it was “unable to provide the information requested by the Court on the impracticable deadline set by the Court hours after the Supreme Court issued its order.” The government’s response continued:
“Defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the Court. That is the reality. Defendants received the order late in the evening last night. They are reviewing the order and actively evaluating next steps. It is unreasonable and impracticable for Defendants to reveal potential steps before those steps are reviewed, agreed upon, and vetted. Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review.”
Rather than re-evaluate her position, Judge Xinis doubled down, finding “Defendants have failed to comply with this Court’s Order,” and stating, “Defendants made no meaningful effort to comply.” She then entered a further order requiring the Trump Administration to file daily, on or before 5:00 p.m., “a declaration made by an individual with personal knowledge as to any information regarding: (1) the current physical location and custodial status of Abrego Garcia; (2) what steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate his immediate return to the United States; (3) what additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate his return.”
Judge Xinis added that if plaintiffs wanted any additional relief, they should file a motion by Saturday at 5:00 p.m. Garcia’s attorneys filed the suggested Motion on Saturday, asking the court to grant “three additional types of relief.”
First, the El Salvadoran’s lawyers asked the Court to order the government to, by end of day on Monday: (a) request “its agents and contractors release Abrego Garcia from custody in El Salvador pursuant to the contract or arrangement providing for his detention there at the Government’s direction; (b) dispatch personnel to accompany Abrego Garcia upon his release from [the El Salvadoran prison] to ensure his safe passage to the aircraft that will return him to the United States; (c) [p]rovide air transportation for Abrego Garcia to return to Maryland, because he may not be in current possession of sufficient identification to board a commercial flight; and (d) “[g]rant Abrego Garcia parole” and “prepare all paperwork and forms required to allow him to reenter the United States.”
Second, Garcia’s attorneys asked for the Court to grant their client discovery including production of the Trump Administration’s contract with El Salvador concerning detentions at the prison. The illegal alien’s attorneys further requested the court direct the Trump Administration to produce witnesses for the hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Specifically, Garcia’s attorneys wanted to question representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State, concerning: “(i) Abrego Garcia’s current physical location and custodial status; (ii) what steps, if any, the Government has taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States; (iii) whether the Government has informed officials at CECOT that it wishes Abrego Garcia to be released into U.S. custody; and (iv) what, if any, additional steps the Government intends to take, and when, to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.”
Finally, the plaintiff’s attorneys requested the court order the government to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for violating the Court’s command that they file a declaration by Friday at 11:30 a.m.
Shortly after Garcia’s motion hit the docket, the Trump Administration filed its first required daily declaration. That declaration attested that, based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador, “Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador.” “He is alive and secure in that facility,” the declaration continued, adding: “He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.” The second daily declaration, filed yesterday, stated the government’s declarant had nothing to add to those facts.
Judge Xinis has not yet ruled on the plaintiff’s motion, but given her refusal to respond reasonably to the Trump Administration’s request for an extension of time to file the declaration, her utter failure to show any deference to the Trump Administration’s handling of foreign affairs, and that the declarations said nothing of efforts by the Trump Administration to obtain Garcia’s release from prison, it seems likely she will grant Garcia much of what he requests.
Yet, those requests, as the Trump Administration pointed out yesterday in its response brief, directly infringe on the president’s Article II authority. “The federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” the Trump Administration wrote. Rather, “[t]hat is the ‘exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.’”
While the Supreme Court has declared that “[s]uch power is ‘conclusive and preclusive,’ and beyond the reach of the federal courts’ equitable authority,” given her orders to date, Judge Xinis is unlikely to stand down. Rather, expect the Obama appointee to enter another scathing order demanding details and actions. But with its core executive powers at stake, the Trump Administration cannot comply.
The justices should have foreseen this standoff and defused the situation last week by clearly defining the limits of the lower court’s authority. The Supreme Court’s continuing failure to do so is wreaking havoc on the reputation of the courts — and our constitutional order.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – A bunch of left-wing activist judges are committing judicial insurrection to stop the will of the people. These radical judges are trying to block the executive branch to prevent Trump from dismantling their beloved Marxist-style deep state.
BREAKING: Article III Project, War Room and Rep. Brandon Gill Move to Impeach Obama Judge Boasberg Who Ordered Trump to Transport 100’s of Thousands of Violent Gang Bangers Back into US – HERE’S HOW YOU CAN JOIN IN
Representative Brandon Gill (R-TX) announced plans to file articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. This action comes in response to Judge Boasberg’s recent decision to temporarily block President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, aimed at expediting the deportation of members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, an Obama-appointed radical judge, has single-handedly derailed President Trump’s efforts to remove violent Venezuelan gang members from American soil. On Saturday, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a seldom-used wartime law, to address the pressing threat posed by Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. 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, Elon Musk, and President Trump.
For years, the mantra on the left was “reimagining” everything from policing to free speech to defense. Reimagining often was a synonym for defunding or limiting the subject matter. Now, Georgetown Law Professor Sherally Munshi and others are attacking border enforcement as “ethically indefensible.” Munshi calls it “defamiliarizing” the whole concept of borders, which she and others in higher education now find morally reprehensible.
Munshi’s talk, “Unsettling the Border,” is an example of how radical many law faculties have become. She is by no means a standout in such theories. While schools have purged their ranks of conservative, libertarian, and dissenting faculty, there is no limit to faculty writing on the far left.
Munshi insists that “there is nothing natural or inevitable about the United States’ contemporary borders.” She mocked the whole notion of “the so-called border crisis.” Millions of unvetted people just walking over the border is not a crisis… at least not for the country. It is failure in ourselves; “a crisis of imagination.” Accordingly, she is calling for reimagining or defamiliarizing borders:
“Our task, as I put it, is to unsettle the border, to defamiliarize, disenchant, and recontextualize it by critically evaluating the historical processes, the legal developments, the discursive formations that naturalize and legitimate the border.”
It is, of course, racist to want to have secure borders:
“Rather than redress the fact that the international border regime is practically unsustainable [and] ethically indefensible, majorities in the whitest and wealthiest nations are embracing an increasingly authoritarian form of nationalism and exclusion.”
Borders, according to Professor Munshi, are just a construct “within the American imaginary, the southern border divides white from indigenous, purity from heterogeneity, civilization from savagery, settler from Indian.”
Of course, this reimagining of borders will have to extend back a tad further than the American founders. The concept of the nation-state with sovereign borders was recognized in documents like the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. It was credited with maintaining a Westphalian peace with nations able to maintain their own territory and governing systems. That, in turn, allowed nation-states to form international bodies and further stabilize global relations.
I have heard other faculty present papers along these same lines, dismissing the very concept of border enforcement as racist, privileged, or archaic. It is far rarer to hear conservatives on campuses arguing for border enforcement and deportations. It is even less common to find such advocates on both faculties.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Minneapolis Mayor Frey is throwing a big baby fit and refusing to cooperate with Trump’s Immigration enforcement, as are many other Democrat mayors and Governors across the country.
Minneapolis mayor says city won’t cooperate with immigration enforcement
By Anthony Gockowski – AlphaNews.org – Jan 29, 2025
Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said during a press conference Tuesday that his city will not cooperate with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. “I want to speak directly to people who are undocumented. We love you. We care about you. In the city of Minneapolis, we will stand up for you and we will do anything in our power to help. Because you’re not an alien in our city; you’re a neighbor,” Frey said. He then explained that the city’s “separation ordinance” states clearly that Minneapolis officials, including police officers, “will not be gathering information showing who is and who is not documented.” READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Trump ordered the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Homeland Security to “abolish every DEI office within the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security with regard to the USCG, respectively, including any vestiges of DEI offices, such as sub-offices, programs, elements, or initiatives.
President Trump Signs Two Executive Orders Banning DEI and Transgender Indoctrination in Military
Jordan Conradson – The Gateway Pundit – 01/28/2025
President Trump has signed executive orders to root leftist ideology out of the military and prioritize lethality. The President signed four executive orders last night, including “Reinstating Service Members Discharged Under the Military’s COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate,” which reinstates all members of the military who were fired for refusing the COVID vaccine and entitles them to “receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.” Additionally, Trump signed the “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” executive order and the “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” executive orders, which direct every element of the U.S. military to “operate free from any preference based on race or sex” and root out gender insanity and made up pronoun usage, respectively. READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Illegal aliens protest being deported by waving Mexican flags in America and shutting down traffic in LA. Is their allegiance to Mexico or the U.S.?
Lawlessness – Anti-ICE Protestors Block Major Portions of Los Angeles Freeway (VIDEO)
It is no surprise when the border was open for four years under Joe Biden that people in support of those policies would react this way once President Trump actually started enforcing border security and deportation. Trump’s immigration raids have already arrested and removed some of the most vicious illegal alien criminals living in the US. President Trump’s DOJ has directed all 93 US Attorneys Offices to prosecute state or local officials who obstruct immigration raids. In a memo, Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, has instructed federal prosecutors across the country to investigate and potentially prosecute any local officials who obstruct efforts to block Trump’s immigration enforcement raids and deportation operations. 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.
An immigrant from El Salvador, seven months pregnant, she said, stands next to a U.S. Border Patrol truck after turning herself into border agents on Dec. 7, 2015, near Rio Grande City, Texas. (John Moore via Getty Images)
That order prohibits federal agencies from issuing or accepting citizenship documents for children born in the U.S. when neither parent is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth.
Critics paint it as flagrantly unconstitutional, including a misinformed federal judge in Seattle who issued a temporary injunction against it last week. But the new policy fits squarely within the text and original meaning of the 14th Amendment.
For the first century following the 14th Amendment’s ratification, few legal scholars would have batted an eye at a directive like Trump’s. If anything, they’d have been more confused as to why the federal government started issuing passports to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, tourists, and “temporary sojourners” in the first place.
Contrary to popular belief, the law doesn’t say that all people born in the U.S. are citizens. It says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. That second, critical, conditional phrase is conveniently ignored or misinterpreted by advocates of “universal” birthright citizenship.
This was intended to constitutionalize the protections of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which provided that “all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power” would be considered citizens.
The change in language didn’t reflect a desire on Congress’ part to abrogate the statutory definition or adopt universal birthright citizenship. In fact, the Civil Rights Act remained valid law for another 70 years, with courts and legal scholars alike assuming that it was perfectly consistent with the citizenship clause.
That’s because the sponsors of the 14th Amendment made it clear that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. means owing your political allegiance to the U.S., and not to another country. Children born to aliens are citizens of their parents’ native land, and thus owe their allegiance to, and are subject to the jurisdiction of, that native land.
Legislative history shows that Congress intended the 14th Amendment to eliminate permanent race-based barriers to citizenship—not to bestow citizenship on everyone born within the geographical confines of the United States. Congress didn’t intend birthright citizenship to apply to the U.S.-born children of those who owed only a limited allegiance to the United States.
Even modern proponents of “universal birthright citizenship” admit that the children born on U.S. soil to diplomats or tribally affiliated Native Americans don’t obtain birthright citizenship. In fact, they and their children were only made citizens through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924—legislation that wouldn’t have been necessary if the 14th Amendment adopted common law rules of universal birthright citizenship.
While critics of Trump’s order claim that universal birthright citizenship is “the settled law of the land,” the Supreme Court has never definitively addressed this issue. The first time the nation’s highest court opined on the meaning of the citizenship clause—in the famous Slaughter-House cases of 1872—it stated that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excluded “children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.” The court confirmed this understanding in 1884 in Elk v. Wilkins, denying birthright citizenship to an American Indian because he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not the United States.
Most legal arguments for universal birthright citizenship ignore these early cases and point to the 1898 decision U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. However, that decision simply held that U.S.-born children of lawful permanent residents are U.S. citizens.
Further, that decision concerned the constitutionality of acts that created a class of lawful permanent residents who, just like black people under Dred Scott, were perpetually excluded from citizenship based solely on their race—exactly the situation the 14th Amendment was designed to prevent.
Our nation’s current immigration and nationality laws no longer create this type of permanent race-based barrier to citizenship. Today, the federal statute defining citizenship (8 U.S.C. § 1401) simply repeats the language of the 14th Amendment, including the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” That language retains the same meaning today as it had when it was drafted and ratified. It doesn’t evolve to mean something else just because previous administrations erroneously interpreted it more expansively.
As a result, the president has the authority to direct federal agencies to act in accordance with the original meaning of the 14th Amendment, and to issue government documents and benefits only to those individuals who are truly subject to United States jurisdiction.
Far from being an attempt to rewrite the Constitution or “end birthright citizenship,”Trump’s order is a much-needed and long-overdue course correction, reversing a decades-long policy that was never constitutionally mandated in the first place.
New fires have broken out in the San Diego area of California, and these blazes feel symbolic of what’s happening to the Democratic Party.
We already witnessed the aftermath of fires in Los Angeles, which exposed the core nature of Leftism: incompetence. And what does incompetence cost? California homeowners are still on the hook for their mortgages, trapped in a cruel twist of irony—many of them uninsured due to, yes, the incompetence of California’s leaders.
Before outrage takes hold, consider this: they still own the land. Typically, the land is the most valuable part of a property, at least monetarily speaking. But no amount of land value can replace the memories those people lost in the flames. Who needs memories, though, when you can bask in the glow of virtue-signaling? And speaking of glowing embers of mismanagement, let’s turn to the issue of illegal immigration.
The landscape of illegal immigration has shifted dramatically, and the message from President Trump is unmistakable: America’s borders are no longer open for exploitation.
This shift carries lessons not only for those attempting to break U.S. immigration laws but also for the Leftists who have spent years undermining border security. Having cheated Trump out of his rightful second term, Democrats now face the consequences: a Trump unrestrained, with a clear mandate and the wind at his back.
Democrats pushed too far, allowing an invasion that has devastated communities across the country. Even stalwart Democrats like New York City Mayor Eric Adams have been forced to confront the consequences. Adams’ admission—that he was told to “be a good Democrat” and allow illegals to overrun New York—reveals the cynicism of the Left’s policies. His pushback nearly cost him his political career in what appeared to be a coordinated coup. Meanwhile, Trump stands ready to act decisively, knowing that the American people, fed up with the chaos, are now firmly behind him.
Trump’s Plan: Swift and Purposeful Action
When it comes to illegal immigration, Trump doesn’t make threats—he makes plans. His administration has already taken decisive steps to tackle the crisis head-on:
Military Deployment to the Border: Skeptics once mocked Trump for suggesting the military would be involved in border security. Now, 10,000 troops, including 500 Marines, are being deployed to reinforce the southern border. This is no symbolic gesture; it’s a national emergency, and Trump has declared it as such. As one official put it, “Don’t be surprised if you see Marines being dropped off by helicopters.”
Deportation on Demand: The policy is simple: “Deported Same Day.” The Biden administration spent billions facilitating illegal immigration. In stark contrast, Trump is redirecting those resources to expedite deportations. U.S. Transportation Command is preparing military aircraft to assist in migrant deportation flights, underscoring the seriousness of the effort.
Investigating Obstruction: The Trump Justice Department is launching investigations into state and local officials obstructing deportations and preparing to challenge sanctuary laws in court. For Trump, lawlessness—whether at the border or in sanctuary cities—is not an option. Any official standing in the way of lawful deportation orders will face scrutiny and accountability.
Rebranding Border Policy: Under Trump’s leadership, illegal entry has been rebranded. Those who attempt to cross the border illegally can expect to be sent home immediately. Trump Airlines, as the joke goes, is now offering one-way tickets back to reality.
Exposing Leftist Hypocrisy
One of the most startling revelations in Trump’s crackdown is the Biden administration’s use of taxpayer dollars to fly illegals into the country. This brazen misuse of resources has been exposed and halted. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has fired its entire advisory committee, citing the need to refocus on protecting American interests.
Lessons for the Left
The humanitarian argument for open borders has worn thin. While some illegals genuinely seek to escape poverty and violence, the same issues plague America’s minority communities, particularly Black neighborhoods. As Trump understands, we don’t need to go to other countries looking for problems to solve when we have enough of our own.
The Left’s policies have disproportionately harmed the very people they claim to champion. Minority communities have borne the brunt of unchecked illegal immigration, facing increased competition for jobs, strained public services, and rising crime. The message is clear: America’s resources must first be directed to solving its own problems.
The Bigger Picture
Trump’s return to power represents more than just a change in immigration policy; it’s a reckoning. The Democrats’ attempt to undermine Trump has backfired spectacularly, leaving them exposed as architects of chaos. Trump’s decisive actions on immigration signal a return to order, accountability, and national sovereignty.
For those willing to break U.S. laws to enter the country, the lesson is simple: America will no longer tolerate lawlessness. For the Left, the lesson cuts deeper. By pushing their radical agenda to the breaking point, they’ve unleashed the Wrath of Trump—a leader determined to restore America’s greatness by any means necessary.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – A group of thugs sent by Democrat Rep. Leigh Finke today attempted to obstruct House Republicans from conducting a scheduled Public Safety hearing,” Rep. Walter Hudson said.
‘Group of thugs’: Left-wing protesters attempt to shut down House committee meeting
Protesters crashed a Minnesota House committee meeting on Tuesday, following a demonstration they held outside protesting what they called a “power grab” by Minnesota Republicans.
“Quite enough of that bullshit, we’re done with this,” a protester, identified as Amber Muhm with the Aliveness Project, stood up and yelled into a bullhorn during a House Public Safety Committee meeting. The protesters were gaveled down and called out of order. “No, this is an illegitimate committee,” Muhm said. “You don’t have a quorum in the House. You know this is bullshit.” House staff then cut the audio of the stream and the rest of the tirade was not able to be heard from the official video feed. The rant went on for over 20 minutes. READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Democrats were the party of slavery and today are the party of a new type of labor oppression toward illegal immigrants, but not to pick our cotton but to pick our fruit and clean our toilets for subpar wages.
Archbishop Vigano Exposes Globalist Elite’s Hypocrisy: How Religious and Civil Leaders Profit from Illegal Immigration and the LGBTQ+ Agenda
When the servants of the globalist elite placed at the top of the institutions – both civil and religious – talk about welcoming illegal immigrants, they do not tell you that they make huge profits from the management of immigrants. When they talk about the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, they do not tell you that they have a conflict of interest since they themselves are involved. When they talk about going green, they do not tell you about their non-disinterested investments in the alternative energy sector. This betrayal of their institutional role is what unites them: they earn money and increase their social power to the extent that they support the globalist agenda. 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.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Now, after years of allowing fraud and abuse to flourish in Minnesota, Tim Walz vows to crack down on it. It seems as though he noticed his poll numbers dropping, hoping voters will ignore his part to play in these Democrat shenanigans.
After losing hundreds of millions, Walz vows to ‘turn the dial’ on rampant fraud
Speaker-designate Lisa Demuth said Minnesota needs “a process that is truly independent of the leadership that allowed fraud to run rampant over the last five years.” After six years in office and hundreds of millions lost to fraud, Gov. Tim Walz announced a new anti-fraud initiative Friday, raising questions about why it took so long for the governor to act. With just under two years left before the next gubernatorial election, Walz says he wants to “turn the dial” on the state’s approach to combating fraud. “It’s simply unacceptable. It’s maddening, and it makes myself and Minnesotans angry about this,” Walz said. The plan includes creating a centralized fraud investigation unit under the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), expanded use of artificial intelligence for fraud detection, and increased penalties for financial crimes targeting public assistance programs. READ MORE
A.F. Branco Cartoon – H- IB visa program is a Trojan Horse breaching our walls that will hurt Americans’ job opportunities. This goes against the America First policies we were promised.
Steve Bannon Doubles Down, Calls for Elimination of H-1B Visas, Deportations of “ALL H-1B Visa Holders Immediately” and Reparations for Americans who Had Their Jobs Stolen by Foreigners
By Jordan Conradson – The Gateway Pundit – Jan 05, 2024
Steve Bannon is not backing down in the ongoing MAGA civil war over H-1B visas sparked by Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) co-leaders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations requiring specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or higher. These occupational fields often include IT, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. As of September 30, 2019, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)estimated that approximately 583,420 individuals were authorized to work in the United States under the H-1B visa classification. Each fiscal year, there is a congressionally mandated cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, with an additional 20,000 visas available for individuals holding a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. institution, totaling 85,000 new H-1B visas annually. 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.
A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government has the authority to deport illegal immigrants even if local leaders try to impede the process. The case arose after King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order in 2019 that instructed county officials to prohibit “fixed base operators” (FBO) on a county airfield from servicing flights chartered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegal immigrants who are lawfully removable. FBO’s “lease space from the airport and provide flights with essential services, such as fueling and landing stairs,” according to the ruling.
The Trump administration sued because the order impeded ICE from enforcing the law and removing illegal immigrants. The administration argued that the order violated the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and a World War II-era agreement that gave the federal government permission to use the King County airport.
The three-judge panel affirmed both contentions. The panel ruled that the executive order was a violation of the Supremacy Clause’s intergovernmental immunity doctrine because it “improperly regulates the way in which the federal government transports noncitizen detainees by preventing ICE from using private FBO contractors at Boeing Field.” The court also held that the executive order discriminated against the federal government by “regulat[ing] them unfavorably on some basis related to their governmental ‘status.’”
King County said it would not appeal the ruling, according to The Seattle Times.
The incoming Trump administration has vowed to solve the border crisis and deport illegal immigrants who are draining taxpayer resources, while hordes of so-called “sanctuary cities” nationwide oppose enforcement of federal immigration law and go so far as to refuse to comply with ICE authorities.
Tom Homan, dubbed the incoming “border czar,” has already warned sanctuary city officials not to resist or impede the federal government’s deportation activities.
“It is a felony to knowingly harbor or conceal an illegal immigrant from immigration authorities. Don’t test us,” Homan said.
One Democrat, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, has already vowed to mobilize police and residents “stationed at the county line” to “keep” federal immigration authorities “out” of the city. Johnston likened the hypothetical to Tiananmen Square but later tried to walk back the comparison.
Homan responded to Johnston’s open defiance, saying he is “willing to put [Johnston] in jail.”
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
The Democrats have always been tough guys when they’re running the show. Why? Because that’s how cowards operate. They rig the system, cheat openly, and then brag about their so-called “mandates.” But when their policies start crumbling under scrutiny.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston took what he thought would be a bold stance against the Trump administration on illegal immigration. He essentially challenged Team Trump to a fight, “Come get me, Bro!” But look at illegal immigration by the numbers.
The National Picture: An Open Border Free-for-All
Illegal immigration isn’t just a line item on the evening news—it’s a crisis that impacts every corner of American society. At the national level, Biden’s open-border policies have resulted in unprecedented numbers of migrants flooding the U.S. In fiscal year 2023, more than 2.7 million migrants were encountered at the southern border. Add to that the untold number who slipped through, and it’s clear we’re dealing with numbers that rival the population of some states.
The costs? Immense. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), illegal immigration costs American taxpayers $182 billion annually—a 30% increase since Biden took office. These costs hit everything: education, healthcare, law enforcement, and welfare programs meant for citizens.
Colorado’s Burden: A State Straining Under the Weight
Colorado has felt the brunt of this influx. Sanctuary policies, like those proudly championed by Leftist officials in Denver, have turned the state into a magnet for migrants. The result? Overcrowded shelters, skyrocketing costs for social services, and increased pressure on local law enforcement. Denver alone spent over $20 million on migrant services in 2023—and that’s just the official tab.
Colorado voters aren’t thrilled. In 2016, Donald Trump carried much of the rural state precisely because voters were fed up with policies that prioritized illegal immigrants over citizens. Leftists may call these folks “deplorables,” but they’re the ones footing the bill for sanctuary policies they never agreed to.
Denver: Sanctuary City Shenanigans
Denver’s self-inflicted wounds on illegal immigration are a case study in Leftist lunacy. Formerly proud of its sanctuary status, the city is now buckling under the weight of its own policies. Mayor Mike Johnston, who once threatened to use Denver PD as a human shield against federal immigration enforcement, has been forced to confront the harsh reality of his choices.
Remember when Johnston compared his city’s commitment to protecting illegal immigrants to the iconic “Tank Man” moment during the Tiananmen Square protests? With zero irony, he boasted about deploying 50,000 angry soccer moms to protect migrants from deportation. “It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right?” he gushed.
This was the same guy who told federal immigration officials, “More than us having DPD stationed at the county line to keep them out, you’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants.” His bravado didn’t last long. President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, responded with a mic drop:
CNN's Kasie Hunt visibly stunned after playing a clip of Tom Homan saying he would gladly throw Denver Mayor Mike Johnston in jail for defying Trump's deportation operation.
“He’s willing to go to jail. I’m willing to put him in jail.”
Now that reality has set in, Johnston is singing a different tune. He’s gone from “Come get me, Bro!” to “Don’t taze me, Bro!”
With Denver’s resources drained and voters increasingly restless, the mayor’s focus has shifted from grandstanding to damage control. Funny how that works.
Now that Tom Homan has threatened to throw Democrat Denver Mayor Mike Johnston in prison, he says he ”regrets” making tough guy comments about having his police force stand against federal forces to stop mass deportations
REPORTER: It sounds like you’re walking back the comments from a couple days ago saying that you would be willing to send Denver police officers. Do you regret making those comments and now getting questions like this?
JOHNSTON: Yeah.
REPORTER: Me asking you about that, and I’m sure Denver police officers are now going home to their families and saying, “Hey, I hear the mayor is telling you that you might be deployed to face off against federal forces.” Do you regret making those comments?
JOHNSTON: Yeah. What I wanted people to understand was the scale of what could be coming if we take the president at his word, which is I don’t think anyone envisioned U.S. military troops being deployed to American streets to gather up women and children.
Talk about backtracking. But Johnston made the right decision.
Because the Trump administration is serious about enforcing the laws. And if it means locking up a few hard asses, then so be it.
Sanctuary cities like Denver operate in open defiance of federal immigration laws. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 expressly prohibits policies that block local officials from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. Despite this, Leftist mayors nationwide have flaunted sanctuary policies, betting that the Biden administration’s Department of Justice would look the other way.
But under Trump, that bet didn’t pay off. His administration cracked down on sanctuary jurisdictions, threatening to withhold federal funding and enforce existing laws. This enforcement resonated with voters who saw sanctuary policies as a betrayal of their safety and sovereignty.
Why Voters Backed Trump—and Why They’ll Do It Again
Trump’s appeal in 2016 and beyond wasn’t just about “building the wall.” It was about rejecting Leftist policies that prioritize illegal immigrants over American citizens. Sanctuary cities like Denver epitomize the broader Democratic Party’s indifference to working-class Americans. When voters in Colorado and across the country see their tax dollars funding migrant shelters while their own communities crumble, it’s no wonder they rally behind someone promising to put America first.
Sanctuary City Spectacle: Comedy, Tragedy, or Both?
The Democrats’ immigration debacle is a tragicomedy of errors. Sanctuary policies like those in Denver don’t just fail—they spectacularly implode, leaving taxpayers holding the bag. Johnston’s flip-flop from “Tiananmen Square defender” to reluctant realist underscores the absurdity of it all.
At the end of the day, Johnston and his ilk are a symptom of a larger problem: a political party more interested in virtue signaling than governance. Illegal immigration is not a crisis of compassion; it’s a crisis of competence. And as long as Leftists continue to prioritize their progressive agenda over the rule of law, cities like Denver will remain stuck cleaning up the mess.
Thankfully for Denverites, Coloradans, and all Americans, this nonsense is about to come to a necessary and hopefully final end.
Alfonso Aguilar is director of Hispanic Engagement at American Principles Project and former chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship in the administration of President George W. Bush. Follow him on X: @amigoaguilar
Hispanic voters are bolting from the Democrats faster than Kamala Harris can say “Latinx.” This is one of the most significant trends in this year’s presidential campaign. The growing discontent is a result of economic frustration as well as a broader cultural clash over values, as many Hispanics reject the Biden-Harris administration’s radical positions on gender ideology and parental rights.
According to the most recent NBC/Telemundo poll, Harris leads former President Donald Trump with Hispanic voters by 14 percentage points. However, that is the smallest margin for a Democrat in over a decade. Every other presidential Democratic candidate since 2012 had an advantage of at least 36 points and, eventually, went on to win the Hispanic vote by similarly significant margins.
The NBC poll is far from an outlier. The latest Quinnipiac University survey shows that Harris’ lead among Hispanics nationally is down to single digits. In the key battleground states of Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, Harris is only slightly ahead. In the border state of Arizona, Trump is actually winning the Hispanic vote. This increased support of Hispanics for Trump and Republicans is driven by several factors.
According to the Pew Research Center, the economy is the top issue for Hispanic voters. Often with larger families and lower median incomes, Hispanics have been disproportionately hurt by crippling inflation and the massive influx of illegal immigrants into their communities. Under Trump, Hispanic unemployment hit a record low of 4% and, contrary to common assumptions, more than half of Hispanic voters support stricter border security measures.
Yet Hispanics are also disgusted by the Biden-Harris administration’s extreme cultural agenda. Two-thirds identify as Catholic or Protestant. And it turns out they aren’t thrilled about the latest “woke” school offerings: teachers chatting about sex with their kids in class and allowing adult men access to girls’ locker rooms.
An American Principles Project survey of Hispanic voters in Arizona and Nevada revealed strong opposition to these progressive positions. Over two-thirds surveyed said schools should stick to teaching the fundamentals and leave “sex and racial issues” to parents. Hispanics are repulsed by the Left’s obsession with “transgender kids” and “transgender girls of color,” and reports that reveal 5,700 minors underwent sex-change surgeries in the United States in the last four years.
Trump is making inroads with Hispanic voters by slamming “transgender insanity” and running ads denouncing Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded sex-change treatments and surgeries.
The blitz against Harris on cultural issues has been so effective that even Democrat strategists had to “concede” to The New York Times that it is “taking a toll in some races.” But wait, the Democrats have an ingenious trick up their sleeve!
The Harris campaign announced the launch of a coalition called “Hombres con Harris”—literally, “Men With Harris.”
The campaign apparently hopes this new group will help stem the party’s losses among Hispanic men. Just like “White Dudes for Harris” has been so helpful for her support among Caucasian males. But in truth, it’s the Democrats’ far-left agenda, not a lack of awkwardly named affinity groups, that is repelling Hispanic voters. Hispanics have historically voted Democrat, but they do believe in common sense and that parents know what is best for their children.
If the Republican Party wants to solidify and expand its gains with Hispanic voters, it must continue to champion commonsense policies that prioritize family values, parental rights, and economic opportunity.
Hispanic voters have had enough of being treated like a checkbox for the Democrats. They’re making their voices heard, and this time, it might just sound like “Adios!”
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
Migrants of different nationalities walk toward the United States on a highway in Tapachula, Chiapas State, Mexico, on Oct. 5, 2024. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
Jason Hopkins is a reporter covering immigration issues for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—A migrant caravan is heading northward toward the United States a few weeks before Election Day, the results of which will almost undoubtedly spell changes for border enforcement policies, according to The Associated Press.
A roughly 2,000-person-strong migrant caravan left southern Mexico on Sunday in hopes of reaching the U.S. in the coming days, according to the AP. The latest caravan is so far the largest since newly elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum entered office in October. Among those in the caravan are individuals who expressed concern that a new administration in Washington, D.C., would lead to the end of a popular app that has allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to schedule appointments with Customs and Border Protection officials in hopes of entering the country.
“That is what makes us fearful,” Joel Zambrano, a Venezuelan national, said to The Associated Press. “They say this could change because they could both close the CBP One appointment and all the services that are helping migrants.”
The CBP One app was first created in October 2020, with the Biden-Harris administration dramatically expanding its use in January 2023. The popular app enables migrants to schedule appointments in order to obtain exemptions at ports of entry and permits them to submit biometric data to federal immigration authorities in order to apply for travel authorization and obtain parole. More than 800,000 noncitizens scheduled appointments through the CBP One app from January 2023 through the end of August 2024, according to CBP. The Biden-Harris administration has additionally flown in more than half a million foreign nationals into the country via an initiative known as CHNV—a program that grants two-year parole to Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.
Roughly 7.4 million migrants have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest data from CBP. While the CBP One app and an election-year crackdown on illegal immigration by the Mexican government have helped keep migrants in southern Mexico, many are reportedly leaving the region due to a delay in asylum appointments and a lack of job opportunities.
“The situation in my country is very bad, the president doesn’t do anything for us. We spent a week by the border, but getting documents takes time,” Honduran Roberto Domínguez said to The Associated Press. “The documents we get are only for us to be in Tapachula and we cannot leave the city.”
Despite an attempt to brand herself as more of a border hawk since launching her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently polled poorly with voters on border enforcement issues following her administration’s oversight of a historical border crisis. Former President Donald Trump, for his part, has pledged to hire 10,000 Border Patrol agents, give them a 10% pay bump, and wage a large-scale deportation effort.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Mayorkas reports FEMA is out of money for victims of Helene after spending it on illegal immigrants. Kamala is offering $750.00 per victim, while individual illegals are getting over 3000 a month and being housed in 5-star hotels.
FEMA, Whose Mission is to Support Citizens, Caught in a Lie: Claims ‘No Money is Being Diverted from Disaster Response’ While Funding Illegal Immigrant Resettlement
By Jim Hoft – Oct. 4, 2024 – The Gateway Pundit
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been caught in a web of deception regarding its spending priorities. As Americans grapple with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene, FEMA insists that no funds are being diverted from disaster relief to support illegal immigrant resettlement. Yet, evidence suggests otherwise. According to the Department of Energy and Environment’s website, FEMA’s “mission is to support the citizens and first responders to promote that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.”… (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.
Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
En route to a recent vacation to New England, I stopped in my old hometown of Princeton, New Jersey, for coffee and picked up a copy of the Town Topics, the local paper where I found my first car and my first job back in the ’80s.
The front-page story was about an attempt on July 10 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations agents to arrest two illegal immigrants from Guatemala. Both men were high risks for hurting someone in future and any sane community would welcome their removal from the streets.
The ICE report was as follows: “ERO arrests twice-removed noncitizen in Princeton while second absconds due to civilian interference.” (Now steeped in Biden-era woke language, ICE calls such men “unlawfully present noncitizens.” Conflating this with another euphemism, I have coined the acronym UNJIP—“Undocumented NoncitizenJustice Involved Person”—for use henceforth. You saw it on the BorderLine first).
One of the Guatemalans, 29, had been deported from the U.S. twice already when he was charged with assault and robbery—in Princeton, so presumably his victims were locals.
What about their safety and their rights? Not surprisingly, the guy didn’t show up for his hearing at municipal court, which issued a warrant for his arrest. So, when ICE picked him up, he not only had entered the U.S. illegally three times (twice after being deported, which is a crime), but he was wanted for a violent crime.
ICE agents spotted the second Guatemalan, a 27-year-old who had been convicted of drunken driving in 2023. But in running after him, they “were blocked by people whose stated goal was to stop the arrest.”
ICE said that the “unfortunate and unacceptable interference from outside actors not only created a dangerous situation for the public and our officers, but also impeded ERO Newark from the performance of our duties.”
ICE is hardly going rogue under the anti-enforcement Biden administration. In its own words, “ERO uses targeted, intelligence-driven leads to prioritize enforcement actions against the most egregious noncitizen criminals who pose the greatest threat to national security, public safety and border security.” They are practically begging to be allowed to do their jobs.
But Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., said, “I was horrified to learn of the ICE raid carried out in Princeton today,” claiming that ICE agents “stopped Hispanic/Latinx residents seemingly at random to interrogate them and demand documentation.”
Coleman said, “This kind of conduct has no place in our community or our country.” Presumably by “this conduct,” she means enforcement of our nation’s laws?
Meanwhile, Princeton Mayor Mark Freda wrote that “ICE activities in Princeton have left our community deeply troubled. We believe that such federal actions, conducted without prior explanation, starkly contradict our core values of respect and dignity for all.”
Really? What about respect for this pair’s next victims? As for “prior explanation,” if ICE had tipped off a town government that opposes everything they do, what are the chances those two guys would still have been there?
And what “core values” is the mayor talking about? Why is it more important to him that no UNJIP ever be subject to the due process of United States immigration law, than that offenders who put their neighbors at risk should have to answer for their actions?
Every other American citizen and legal immigrant charged with assault or drunken driving has to face the music. Why are illegal immigrants allowed to evade responsibility?
This two-tiered justice in “sanctuary” jurisdictions places the ideology of open borders ahead of both local and national interest. It places the shielding of illegal aliens from lawful arrest and due process over the security of the community.
Freda tried to reassure his voters on this point. “We have no involvement with ICE,” he said. “Our police department does not help them. None of our departments help them.”
Well, why not?
Freda was intent on noting “extensive human services and health department programs to help recent immigrants, whether they are documented or undocumented.” This mayor prizes providing services to people here illegally over ensuring safety for everyone (including other illegal immigrants).
“We have to change our mindset about how we deal with ICE,” said Freda at a town meeting on July 16, hinting that not only would town authorities not cooperate with federal agents, but could hinder them.
It is not surprising that one of the Guatemalans had a drunken driving record, which is a common offense among noncitizens. ICE logged more than 43,000 arrests for DUI offenses from 2018 to 2023. Not all caused fatalities, but drunken driving by illegal aliens kills people regularly.
On July 21, a Honduran 18-year-old drunken driver called Axel Flores-Cordova killed teens Rylan Oncale and Taliyah Crochet in Louisiana. The police didn’t report his status, but Flores-Cordova was seven times over the legal alcohol limit and had no driver’s license, so it’s a fair chance he’s an UNJIP.
In Virginia, another 18-year old Honduran, Elvis Jamir Cruz-Ferrera, was charged with involuntary manslaughter for killing college student Lauryn Ni’Kole Leonard, 19, back in February while driving. He was ordered deported in 2018 but didn’t show up for his court date.
Prior to killing Leonard, Cruz-Ferrera had already been caught once speeding and twice driving without a license.
Leonard would be alive but for Cruz-Ferrera’s illegal presence in the U.S. and continued ability to drive a car in spite of his many offenses.
It’s not just drunken driving that’s a risk, it’s uninsured, unlicensed, or criminal use of vehicles by people who should not be here at all, let alone in charge of a car.
On July 31, Jose Aguilar-Martinez, an El Salvadoran here illegally, was charged with carjacking a grandmother in Virginia, then running her over and killing her. ICE has put a detainer on him, meaning they want local authorities to tell them when he’s being released so they can arrest him. But many sanctuary jurisdictions ignore such requests and send these offenders back out on to the streets, despite their being clear, preventable dangers to their own citizens.
Prizing the imaginary rights of UNJIPs to remain in the U.S. over the actual rights of Americans to be safe in their own hometowns makes no sense.
I’m saddened, but not surprised, to see Princeton put ideology ahead of public safety, as do so many leftist-run towns, cities, and states. But instead of rushing to coddle and protect illegal immigrants from the due process that would apply to any American, they should help ICE do the hard work of interior enforcement—or at the very least stop vilifying them for doing their jobs.
Following weeks of speculation, Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Tuesday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be her 2024 running mate, creating the most radically left presidential ticket in modern history.
“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate,” Harris wrote on X. “It’s great to have him on the team.”
Tuesday’s pick surprised many political analysts, who viewed Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as the likely candidate to run alongside Harris. While governor of a key battleground state, Shapiro’s Jewish heritage and prior support for Israel prompted America’s corrupt media to speculate that his presence on the 2024 ticket would discourage the antisemitic wing of the Democrat Party from voting in the November contest.
Much like their bid to sanitize Harris’ extreme record, left-wing activists masquerading as journalists will undoubtedly work to whitewash Walz’s radical tenure as Minnesota’s governor.
In 2020, Walz reportedly delayed sending the National Guard to Minneapolis to stop riots that broke out in response to the death of George Floyd. According to the Star Tribune, “dozens of buildings had been looted and torched” by the time Walz’s government deployed the Guard to quell the violence.
Gov. Tim Walz's reaction the BLM riots:
"A society that does not put equity and inclusion first will come to this result"
Walz displayed his affinity for authoritarian policies that same year when instituting draconian Covid restrictions. In March 2020, he unliterally implemented a statewide stay-at-home order for all Minnesotans, closing schools, restaurants, and churches in the process.
During the state’s reopening phase a few months later, the Democrat governor allowed venues such as bars and tattoo parlors to open their doors for business, while still demanding places of worship remain closed. Residents who defied the state’s overreaching edicts were subsequently charged and jailed.
Walz also instituted statewide mask mandates, presided over a $250 million fraud scheme involving the misuse of Covid funds, and kept children — the least at-risk demographic for Covid mortality — out of school for months.
But the Democrat governor’s radical track record doesn’t stop there. Walz has signed virtually every piece of extreme legislation sent to his desk after state Democrats took unified control of the Minnesota Legislature during the 2022 midterms.
In recent years, he’s signed bills allowing abortions up until the moment of birth; banning“private conversations between therapists and patients struggling with their sex and sexuality;” making Minnesota “carbon-free” by 2040; permitting women from other states to travel to Minnesota to obtain abortions; granting 55,000 felons “voting rights;” allowing “trans” surgeries for minors; and allowing minors from other states to receive harmful “trans” procedures in Minnesota.
On immigration, Walz has been a major supporter of sanctuary cities and states. He also previously signed legislation allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and reportedly backed efforts to provide aliens in the state with taxpayer-funded health care and college tuition. During a previous CNN interview, he promoted the idea of investing in a “ladder factory” to help illegals scale President Trump’s border wall.
FLASHBACK: Kamala’s VP pick, Tim Walz, says he should invest in a "ladder factory" to help illegal aliens climb the border wall
To put the cherry on top, Walz previously downplayed the dangers of socialism — a state-run economic policy responsible for the deaths of millions worldwide.
“Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values,” Walz said. “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”
Top Kamala VP contender Tim Walz: "One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness" 🤔 pic.twitter.com/DHVSo37jsZ
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
Years after acknowledging and even praising President Joe Biden for naming Vice President Kamala Harris “border czar,” corporate media claimed the presumptive 2024 Democrat nominee was never charged with overseeing the logistics of the record-breaking invasion.
Biden first charged Harris with leading “our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help — are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border” in March 2021. At the time, he claimed the former California attorney general and senator was “the most qualified person to do it.” Harris didn’t do much with the title and task. Yet, even her delayed first and only(and heavily staged) visit to the border received celebration from her allies in the press.
This kid-glove treatment intensified recently when corporate media accused those critical of Harris’ failure to do anything but exacerbate the Biden administration-incentivized invasion of making the VP a “convenient scapegoat.”
“Harris’s job was meant to be narrow,” The Wall Street Journal insisted, “and over the years Harris has fulfilled it by announcing tranches of private investments by companies like Pepsi, Cargill and Nestle in Central America.”
Axios insinuated in an X post on Wednesday that Republicans are wrong to point out Harris’ border failures because the Democrat “never actually had” the title border czar.
The outlet’s complaints that the Trump campaign and Republicans like House GOP Chair Elise Stefanik have unfairly labeled Harris’ role, however, fall short in the face of its own reporting, which repeatedlyreferred to Harris as Biden’s border czar.
Axios added an editor’s note to the storyshortly after publication with a notice stating three years later it “was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris a ‘border czar.’”
Why, other than the usual motivations for the corporate media to deliberately distort the narrative, would publications like Axios lie about something its own pages contradict? It’s because the border has been and continues to be a “political grenade” for the Democrats who wrecked it. Stef W. Kight explicitly stated in her latest story thatshe aimed tosignal it “has become even more critical for Harris to find a clear border message, fast.”
“Making a clear immigration pitch to voters could be critical for Harris’s campaign,” Kight repeated, before noting that illegal border crossing activists are invigorated by Harris’ rise on the ticket because she is “personally well-versed and invested in the issue.”
Politifact, known for aiding Big Tech’s censorship efforts by printing fake fact-checks designed to demonize political dissenters, even joined in the propaganda dogpile when it claimed that Harris was merely “assigned to tackle immigration’s causes, not border security.”
USA Today, similarly, published a “fact-check” that deemed the claim that Harris was the presidential pick to oversee the skyrocketing number of illegal crossings “exaggerates the vice president’s role in addressing migration at the southern border.”
One quick look at Biden’s border czar pronouncement in 2021 suggests the opposite.
Biden noted that he was tasked with a “similar assignment” to “determine the best way to keep people from coming is keep them from wanting to leave” during the Obama administration.
“The Vice President has agreed — among the multiple other things that I have her leading — and I appreciate it — agreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept re- — the returnees, and enhance migration enforcement at their borders — at their borders.”
Harris also explicitly emphasized in her acceptance that “we will enforce the law.”
The real border story continues to be that the Biden administration ushered in the deadliest invasion in the world without facing any accountability. Corporate media, however, are more interested in running propaganda to help Democrats’ 2024 election chances instead of covering how Americans are suffering the consequences — like violent crime,fatal drugs, and infrastructure problems — that are directly linked to the ongoing influx of illegal border crossers.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Trump had illegal immigration down to a trickle compared to Biden blowing up the dam and allowing over 10 million Illegals along with unknown gotta-aways and terrorists.
Biden’s Broken Border Allowed 400 Illegals Tied to ISIS-Affiliated Human Smuggling Network into US, The Whereabouts of Over 50 Remain Unknown
By Margaret Flavin – June 26, 2024
Two Venezuelan illegal immigrants were arrested for 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray’s murder in Houston, Texas, after reportedly abducting her, strangling her, and dumping her body in a bayou.
An illegal from Ecuador wielding a “machete-style” knife kidnapped two school children from a New York park in broad daylight, tied them up, and then sexually assaulted the young girl.
The Gateway Pundit also reported that an illegal alien from El Salvador was charged with brutally raping and murdering Rachel Morin, a mother-of-five, on a Maryland hiking trail last year.
Now, disturbing news from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reveals that they have identified over 400 illegals who have entered the U.S. from Central Asia and elsewhere by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network and are considered “subjects of concern.” 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.
President Joe Biden announced an executive order (EO) Tuesday that awards amnesty to illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens. And while he dubbed his overreach as keeping “families together,” it is nothing more than another step in Democrats’ plan to expand their future electorate.
The EO makes it easier for illegal immigrants who married U.S. citizens — and their children — to apply for lawful permanent residence status without leaving the country, and after that, U.S. citizenship. An approximate 500,000 illegal immigrants who married a U.S. citizen will benefit from this order along with 50,000 children, according to the White House.
Without providing any explanation as to how, Biden claims this will “strengthen” the U.S. economy. Notably, recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows foreign-born workers gained 637,000 jobs year-over-year while native-born workers lost roughly 299,000. The BLS acknowledges foreign-born workers likely include illegal immigrants. As economist E.J. Antoni recently explained to The Federalist, the drain illegal migrants place on the economy offsets their production value.
By federal law, “non-citizens, including permanent legal residents,” are not allowed to “vote in federal, state, and most local elections,” according to USA.gov. But lawful permanent residents are “eligible to become a U.S. citizen after five years of becoming a lawful permanent resident, or three years if you are married to a U.S. citizen,” according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Unless there are specific carveouts in Biden’s executive order prohibiting individuals who came into this country illegally before receiving amnesty from registering to vote, then Biden just gifted Democrats with hundreds of thousands of potential future voters.
Former President Donald Trump warned that under Biden’s election-year order, “a deluge of illegals will be given immediate green cards and put on the fast track to rapid citizenship so they can vote.”
“Couple this with [Biden’s] previous voter registration EO and it is clear that Biden is attempting to win the upcoming election, not by winning over legitimate American voters, but by attempting to legitimize illegal immigrants,” said Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen. “He won’t stop with this EO. He will keep attempting to dilute the power of the vote of legal Americans.”
Of course, Biden and Democrats, as my colleague Shawn Fleetwood explained, “want Americans to believe they aren’t interested in handing out U.S. citizenship and voting rights to foreign nationals like it’s candy on Halloween.” Yet their actions, including this EO, suggest otherwise.
In fact, Biden’s EO sends the same message that a trio of Democratic witnesses sent during a Senate Judiciary Hearing in March. Not a single Democrat witness could resolutely say they believe only citizens should be able to vote in a federal election. And it’s the same message being sent by Democrats nationwide who oppose legislation to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections. As of right now, anyone registering to vote in federal elections must simply check a box affirming he is a U.S. citizen. Individuals — legal or not — can simply lie on their registration forms. In other words, our elections hinge on the honor system. It’s a loophole Republicans are working to close via the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would amend current law to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Democrats have insisted the SAVE Act is unreasonable and unnecessary since, according to federal law, it’s illegal to vote in an election if you’re not a U.S. citizen. It’s also illegal to bum-rush border agents and break into the country.
Only one state, Arizona, requires voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in state elections. As a result of the federal government’s attempt to weaken Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship law, individuals who cannot prove their citizenship can register as federal-only voters.
During the 2020 election in Arizona, 11,600 voters voted using a federal-only ballot, according to AZ Free News. Biden won that state by 10,457 votes.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.
With some aliens tied to the Chinese Communist Party, the surge in Chinese illegal immigration is raising U.S. security concerns. Thousands are being released into the U.S. due to Biden’s open-border policies. Pictured: Chinese aliens attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border on Nov. 11, 2023, in Jacumba, California. (Photo: Nick Ut/Getty Images)
Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
Editor’s note: This week, we will be taking a brief break from Simon Hankinson’s originally scheduled Part 3 of his series on the three reasons President Joe Biden’s border chaos is intentional.
Instead, we bring you lightly edited excerpts from his breaking testimony Thursday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability at a hearing on “Security Risk: The Unprecedented Surge in Chinese Illegal Immigration.”
——————
I served as a Foreign Service officer in seven countries. I have adjudicated thousands of visa applications to facilitate lawful visits, commerce, and immigration to the United States while excluding aliens who were legally inadmissible. The visa process I worked with overseas stands in total contrast to what happens at the U.S. border today.
Over the past two years, I have visited the border in Arizona, California, New York, and Texas. On those visits, I saw nationals of many countries apprehended by the Border Patrol. In San Diego last March, I watched Border Patrol dropping off dozens of aliens, including Chinese, at a bus stop to release them into the country.
Mass release of people who entered the country illegally happens nearly every day, multiple times, at multiple locations. At best, this is a mockery of U.S. immigration law and sovereignty. At worst, it is a huge national security and community safety risk. In addition to many Chinese aliens with connections to the Chinese Communist Party, People’s Liberation Army, and other state entities, it is statistically probable that the Department of Homeland Security is releasing people with serious criminal records.
According to U.S. law, DHS is supposed to detain aliens who enter the country illegally. But the Biden administration has replaced border control with mass processing, parole, and release. DHS has also abused immigration parole at an unprecedented scale.
In January 2021, which included the first 11 days of the new Biden administration, the Border Patrol encountered 17 Chinese aliens between ports of entry. By January 2024, it was 3,700 in that one month alone. As of April 30, this year, DHS had already encountered 48,501 inadmissible Chinese aliens in fiscal year 2024 (which began Oct. 1, 2023); 27,583 of them between ports of entry.
Nearly all are being released into an asylum process that will take years to conclude. At the end of that process, those ordered removed are extremely unlikely to be deported, because the Chinese government does not cooperate in accepting their nationals back.
In fiscal year 2023, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed only 288 Chinese aliens, leaving up to 100,000 still in the U.S., despite final orders of removal.
Most Chinese entering illegally are seeking employment. They use asylum claims to enter, remain, and work in the United States. Illegal immigration ebbs and flows corresponding to a risk-reward calculation. Today, Chinese are coming in great numbers simply because they can. Worldwide awareness of our open border, spread by social media, shows them how.
For example, Chinese citizens do not need a visa to fly to Ecuador, after which they can continue by land north to the U.S. And starting on May 17, Air China will begin direct flights from Beijing to Havana. If Chinese aliens are willing to take the dangerous trek by land from Ecuador to the U.S. via the Darien Gap, why wouldn’t they also be willing to traverse the 90 miles by water to Florida?
Overseas, an in-person interview by a U.S. consular officer is the first line of “vetting” for foreign visa applicants wanting to come to the United States. This is buttressed by consular staff who know local languages, customs, and news. Larger embassies host other federal agencies that can assist with vetting investigations.
The second line of vetting is through automatic checks of U.S. government databases. Applicants are frequently refused entry based on adverse information that would not have been discovered had the person arrived illegally with no identity documents at the border.
Meanwhile, at the border today, most “national security decisions” of who gets into our country are no longer made by American officers. Under President Joe Biden’s policies, what was once a privilege for aliens has become a right.
Despite what the Biden administration wishes the public to believe, there is no real “vetting” of those released at the border, nor of those allowed in under parole programs, much less of the “gotaways” who enter covertly between ports of entry without inspection. The official visa “front door” competes with a wide-open back door at the border, where there are no routine criminal background checks using records from the person’s home country. Unless a foreign national has a record held by U.S. agencies, DHS is flying blind.
Concerning China specifically, Customs and Border Protection agents have reportedly reduced the number of standard questions asked of inadmissible Chinese aliens at the border from 40 to five.
But, however many questions, the process relies on an alien telling the truth and agents taking them at their word. Even if Customs and Border Protection requests additional information on an individual, China routinely ignores U.S. requests for verification of nationality, and they reportedly hide records of criminal and corruption cases.
DHS releases most aliens caught at the border with a Notice to Appear in immigration court—at a date far into the future. Aliens are then free to go wherever they want, with no way for ICE to easily find them.
There are more than 6 million aliens on ICE’s Non-Detained Docket, of whom only about 184,000 are tracked using what’s called Alternatives to Detention, which uses passive methods to track them, such as having the alien check in with ICE by phone every day. Only 2% of aliens tracked using Alternatives to Detention have actual GPS monitors.
To close this dangerous loophole, the U.S. needs to re-implement agreements with Mexico and Northern Triangle countries of Central America so that inadmissible aliens are not released into the interior of the U.S. pending the decision in their asylum cases, but instead remain in those countries as they await their determinations (the vast majority of which will result in their asylum applications being rejected).
Given the population, economy, and politics of China, the U.S. can never meet the demand for those seeking to enter our country illegally. The U.S. will at some point have to remove those who are ineligible to enter or remain, or else abandon the rule of law that made this country so attractive for so many immigrants in the first place.
The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.
The news keeps getting worse for Democrats. And it’s a pattern they’d better get use to.
Trump mooned Democrats in New York City. It’s only a matter of time before he’s done with these kangaroo courts. But while Democrats attempt election interference, Trump gets stronger with each hit.
Each attempt to get Trump acts as a reminder of the good ol’ days of the Trump administration. The Dow gave back most of its profits over just a few days. This dramatic drop came on the heels of the latest inflation numbers. Apparently, inflation isn’t going down, but instead continues going up.
Just in time for the holiday season, huh?
Back in 2016, Trump explained the situation with illegals. And post-coup, Trump explained that immigration would metastasize, and that’s exactly what happened. Biden fathered an invasion.
Share of Americans who say they support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants
Survey of 6,251 adults taken March through April 2024
A purple bar chart showing the share of U.S. adults who support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, by Race/ethnicity, political affiliation and generation. The data was collected from a survey of 6,251 U.S adults March through April 2024. It shows that 51% of the general public supports this policy. The highest support was Republicans at 68%, and the lowest was Black respondents at 40%. Notably, support decreases with younger generations, with 60% of Boomers or older in favor, compared to 48% of Millennials.
General public 51%
Race/ethnicity
White 56
Latino 45
Black 40
Political affiliation
Republican 68
Independent 46
Democrat 42
Generation
Boomer+ 60
Gen X 53
Millennial 48
Gen Z 35
Data: The Harris Poll; Chart: Axios Visuals
Half of Americans — including 42% of Democrats — say they’d support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to a new Axios Vibes survey by The Harris Poll.
And 30% of Democrats — as well as 46% of Republicans — now say they’d end birthright citizenship, something guaranteed under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
These items are gaining steam due to Trump’s bold stance on immigration. And what balls it takes for him to announce that he would implement mass deportations.
Don’t be surprised to see all these numbers improve as the election nears. Then, when Trump gets back in office, he will no longer allow the propaganda to propagate.
Why it matters: Americans are open to former President Trump’s harshest immigration plans, spurred on by a record surge of illegal border crossings and a relentless messaging war waged by Republicans.
President Biden is keenly aware the crisis threatens his re-election. He’s sought to flip the script by accusing Trump of sabotaging Congress’ most conservative bipartisan immigration bill in decades.
But when it comes to blame, Biden so far has failed to shift the narrative: 32% of respondents say his administration is “most responsible” for the crisis, outranking any other political or structural factor.
Axios Vibe Check: Amid a record number of border crossings, nearly two-thirds of Americans said illegal immigration is a real crisis, not a politically driven media narrative.
What they’re saying: “I was surprised at the public support for large-scale deportations,” said Mark Penn, chairman of The Harris Poll and a former pollster for President Clinton.
“I think they’re just sending a message to politicians: ‘Get this under control,’ ” he said, calling it a warning to Biden that “efforts to shift responsibility for the issue to Trump are not going to work.”
Ouch. There simply is no way to spin this. And Trump doesn’t back down:
Zoom in: Trump has vowed to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” eyeing sweeping raids and detention camps in a plan that would target millions of undocumented immigrants.
Americans typically aren’t eager to deport immigrants who have put down roots in the U.S. But the poll of 6,251 U.S. adults suggests that the dynamic may be changing amid rising fears about crime and violence.
When asked to identify their greatest concern around illegal immigration, Americans most frequently cited:
Increased crime rates, drugs, and violence (21%).
The additional costs to taxpayers (18%).
Risk of terrorism and national security (17%).
The Left claims this data is wrong. However, these are the same people claiming that crime is dropping, while they omit data from the largest crime areas in the country.
Argentinian gang members beat up New York City cops and Democrats say ignore it. They released the guys almost immediately, too.
America is waking up, and Trump is the best alarm clock ever.
The U.K.’s ‘Rwanda Plan’ could serve as a model for the U.S. as both countries struggle to stem illegal immigration. Immigrants should be deported or sent to a safe third country to await the processing of their asylum claims. Pictured: Illegal immigrants sit on an inflatable raft before attempting to illegally cross the English Channel to reach Britain, off the coast of Sangatte, France, on July 18, 2023. (Photo: BERNARD BARRON, AFP/Getty Images)
After nearly two years of legal and political challenges, Britain’s parliament has finally passed a law confirming that Rwanda is a safe place to send people who arrive in the U.K. illegally by sea. This is a major policy win for the Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and a victory for common sense. Britain, like the U.S. and Europe, is experiencing mass illegal migration in the guise of asylum claims. The British devised the Rwanda plan in response, but the U.S. already has successful equivalents that can be resurrected when there is a will to once again control America’s borders.
Like those coming to the U.S. by land, most people illegally arriving in Britain by boat are economic migrants. Britain’s asylum system has been swamped by growing demand, and backlogs for processing cases stretch into years.
In 2018, only 300 people arrived illegally in the U.K. by small boat from France across the English Channel. In 2022, it was more than 45,000. And in August 2023, the U.K. received its 100,000th illegal boat-borne immigrant, one of 700 who arrived each day. Nearly all of the 100,000 are still in Britain, joined by ever-increasing numbers.
From Jan. 1 to April 21 this year, 6,265 small boats arrived in the U.K. carrying illegal immigrants, with the largest numbers being from Afghanistan and Vietnam.
Having left the European Union, the British are unable to return asylum-seekers to the first safe country in the EU under what are called the Dublin Regulations. By mid-2023, 96% of asylum-seekers who arrived in 2021 had not received final decisions in their cases, and around 50,000 were being housed in hotels, costing the United Kingdom the equivalent of more than $8.8 million U.S. a day. The limitless liability of illegal immigration to the U.K. is an important electoral issue for Conservative Party voters.
Sound familiar?
In August 2023, Sunak’s government passed an Illegal Migration Act that barred people who entered illegally by sea from applying for asylum. The act requires British officials to return inadmissible aliens—without appeal—back to their birth country, if possible, or if not, to a safe third country.
To implement the act, Britain needed a safe third country to house putative asylum-seekers pending case processing. Britain does not have any developing-country neighbors, so they struck a deal with Rwanda in 2022 in which that Central African country would be compensated to take up to 1,000 putative asylum applicants over five years.
Anyone sent to Rwanda could opt at any time to return to their home country or to be resettled in Rwanda as refugees, but they could not return to Britain. The British government fought a series of legal challenges to its policy, but passage of the new law should clear the way for removal flights to Rwanda within weeks from now.
Sunak says he means business. “The only way to stop the boats is to eliminate the incentive to come, by making it clear that if you are here illegally, you will not be able to stay,” he said at a press conference. “We are ready. The plans are in place.”
The government has also set aside judges and courts on standby to handle the inevitable legal challenges.
The Rwanda plan is Britain’s attempt to regain control over its borders and national sovereignty. The goal is to cut off the possibility of asylum from boat arrivals, thus both destroying the business model of maritime smugglers and saving lives. This past week, five people died when over 100 illegal migrants attempted to cross the English Channel in an overcrowded boat.
The Rwanda plan has many opponents. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees argues that if the U.K. is successful, it will set a “worrying precedent for dismantling asylum-related obligations that other countries, including in Europe, may be tempted to follow …” Perhaps so, but the alternative is to cede control over immigration to foreign actors in perpetuity.
The British hope to emulate the success of Australia, which in 2001, started turning back boats carrying illegal migrants. The idea was to give “no advantage” to asylum applicants arriving illegally by boat over those arriving by air.
Australia set up detention and asylum processing centers on the island nation of Nauru, and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Eventually, Australia adopted a strict rule that no asylum-seeker arriving by boat and processed offshore would ever be resettled in Australia. The policy faced considerable political opposition but was highly effective in reducing demand.
The message was quickly understood by would-be boat migrants and migrant traffickers across Southeast Asia. “Arrival numbers went off a cliff once the Australians started to deport … because ‘news spreads like wildfire among refugees,’” wrote Matthew Paris in the Spectator.
When a later Australian government closed the Manus and Nauru centers, illegal migration soared again. In 2012, more than 600 people drowned when boats carrying illegal migrants capsized. In response, Australia reopened the offshore centers and resumed sending back all illegal aliens who arrived or attempted to arrive in Australia by sea.
As before, the putative asylum applicants remained in the offshore centers for the entire time, pending the adjudication of their cases. The offshoring policy and an unbending Australian government destroyed the market for maritime migrant smugglers. For example, in 2014, only a single boat carrying migrants made it to Australia.
At its peak in 2014, Nauru’s camp had 1,233 asylum applicants living there. By June 2023, only three remained. Though the boat-borne illegal migration virtually stopped, a credible ability to restart offshore processing is vital to Australia maintaining its current control over seaborne illegal immigration. Therefore, Australia is paying the equivalent of $288,000 U.S. a year to Nauru to keep the detention/processing option open in reserve.
The U.S. does not have the advantage of being an island. But as recently as the Trump administration, we had Safe Third Country agreements in place with Central American countries and the Migrant Protection Protocols with Mexico. Under these agreements, any asylum applicant coming to the U.S. and first passing through a third safe country to get here would be sent back to that country if he or she had not applied for asylum in that country. For example, all those who crossed illegally into the U.S. from Mexico were returned there pending their case adjudication.
The U.S. needs to use all the economic and diplomatic leverage at our disposal to revive those agreements. Meanwhile, similar to the U.K. and Australia, we should prohibit asylum applications from those illegally crossing between ports of entry to discourage frivolous and fraudulent asylum claims.
The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.
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.
After he died last month in federal custody, Democrats are rallying around the death of an illegal alien who was convicted of murder more than two decades ago. Charles Leo Daniel, a Trinidad and Tobago citizen who illegally overstayed his U.S. visa, died due to unknown circumstances on March 7 in the Northwest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington.
Daniel was first jailed after he was convicted in 2003 of the brutal murder of his landlord roommate with a “bloody butcher knife.” Court documents say police arrived on the scene to find Daniel “covered in blood.”
Daniel claimed self-defense but the court determined that “testimony to be lacking in credibility” and “found the forensic evidence inconsistent with Daniel’s account of how he had stabbed” the victim, Raymond Lindsay. The court initially sentenced Daniel to “220 months prison and 24 to 48 months of community custody.” A per curiam decision issued in 2007 affirmed that sentence after concluding that “the court did not misapply the law of self-defense.”
After an immigration judge ruled in favor of expelling Daniel from the country in 2020, Daniel was transferred into the custody of the Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, where he died.
Shortly after his death, researchers at the University of Washington quickly alleged that the circumstances of Daniel’s detention, which included “the second-longest stretch in solitary confinement of any person in ICE custody since 2018,” caused him suffering and may have played a role in his death. The UW activists demand that Congress send “written information requests of the agency’s Congressional liaison.”
“If members of Washington’s Congressional delegation have chosen not to make use of this tool to date, now is the time to start, in the interests of transparency, accountability, and supporting the leadership of Washington communities who are using every tool at our disposal in our effort to stop the abuse of our neighbors,” the “research update” concludes.
A few weeks later, a dozen Democrat Senators sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Patrick J. Lechleitner, the ICE official performing the duties of the director, on March 29 demanding an end to the “misuse of solitary confinement in immigration detention.”
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin, two of the signees, also spoke out against solitary confinement for those convicted of crimes connected to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. They did not, however, ever send a formal letter demanding better treatment for detained Americans than for illegal border crossers.
Democrats’ letter to ICE does not mention Daniel’s name. It does, however, use the same language as UW to pressure ICE into reducing punishments for foreigners who break U.S. law and murder Americans.
On March 21, Rep. Pramila Jayapal also released a statement scolding ICE for “overreliance on detention” and even suggested that “nearly 67 percent of people detained in ICE custody have no criminal record and many more only have minor offenses such as traffic violations.” While mentioning Daniel by name, she did not mention Daniel’s criminal record atop his violation of U.S. immigration law. Instead, she offered sympathy to his family for the “unacceptable tragedy.”
“First and foremost, my heart goes out to Mr. Daniel’s family and loved ones. His death is an unacceptable tragedy and there must be accountability and a full investigation to understand exactly what happened at the Northwest Detention Center,” she said.
Democrats’ attention to Daniel’s death received amplification from The News Tribune. The pro-illegal migration group La Resistencia also saw their fact-free claims of “harassment” and “intimidation” amid protests outside of the Tacoma detention facility published in a positive light.
Neither article mentioned Daniel’s criminal history.
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, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
A group of several hundred illegal immigrants forcibly pushed past Texas National Guard troops on Thursday in El Paso, Texas, breaking through razor wire and assaulting guardsmen as they forcibly rushed a border gate. Video of the clash, which was filmed by reporters from the New York Post, quickly went viral. It shows the crowd of migrants, all of them adult men, at first putting their hands up as they crowd around a small group of Texas guardsmen trying to block an opening in the fence the migrants had created. After what appears to be a brief physical altercation, the crowd rushes past the guardsmen. The Post reporter at the scene described it as a “riot.”
The video is shocking. It underscores not only how unstable the border has become but also what has been true for a while now: This is an invasion. What began as a crisis created by the Biden administration’s lax border policies is now an open conflict careening toward disaster.
This is the moment when TX National Guard became overrun by migrants rioting to get across the border here in El Paso today
What can be done to stop this? In the near term, mostly nothing. The riotous scenes at the border, the millions of illegal immigrants processed and released into the country by federal immigration authorities, the chaos of homeless illegal immigrants camped out on the streets of major American cities — all of these were totally predictable policy outcomes that the Biden administration knew would happen. They did it anyway, and they will probably not do anything to stop it.
But even if the Biden administration recognized that the border invasion might be a political liability going into the November presidential election, the steps required to bring the situation under control at this point are so drastic that there’s almost no chance the Biden White House would even consider them.
The key thing to understand about the crisis is that it’s being managed by Mexican cartels, along with their partners inside the Mexican government, as a for-profit enterprise. Under Biden, the cartels have turned illegal immigration into big business, a massive black market in which every illegal immigrant who crosses the border represents a source of income for the cartels. They are all being trafficked, in other words. It is not too much to say the cartels are running slave markets, as my friend Joshua Treviño did in these pages recently, “in which children are bought and sold to increase the chances that the norteamericanos will admit a supposed family unit, and also to provide supply to the vile and ravenous market in sex.”
The Mexican government is complicit in all this. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, has not tried to hide his longstanding connections to the country’s most powerful cartel, Sinaloa, nor has he done anything to rein them in during his presidency, consistently pursuing the drug war policy he outlined when running for president in 2018: “hugs, not bullets.”
In recent years, he has become testy and aggressive on matters related to immigration and the border. AMLO is especially incensed at efforts by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to crack down on illegal immigration. Asked about the new Texas law that would allow state law enforcement officers to arrest and deport illegal border-crossers, which a federal appeals court temporarily blocked this week, AMLO strongly implied the Mexican military would help illegals cross the border. His foreign secretary, Alicia Bárcena, said the government would put “increased vigilance and controls” at border crossings to prevent Texas from carrying out deportations if the law goes into effect. While AMLO would not say clearly what steps he would take, he did suggest some kind of retaliation: “We will not just sit around with our arms crossed.”
This is not how a friendly neighbor talks nor how a partner nation behaves. The truth is, Mexico is neither. One of the great fictions Washington policymakers have labored under for decades is the notion that our southern neighbor is anything but an antagonist on the border issue and that carrots, not sticks, are sufficient to secure its cooperation.
But the truth is just the opposite. Unless Mexico is credibly threatened with concrete measures that would harm its economy, AMLO will not act to alleviate the illegal immigration crisis. During Trump’s term in office, he was only able to get his Mexican counterpart to cooperate with his border agenda by threatening to slap tariffs on Mexican goods coming across the border. In many ways, Trump’s clear-eyed dealing with Mexico is what made policies like Remain in Mexico successful.
Something similar will be required in any future Republican administration. The only way to deal with the border crisis, at this point, is to carry out mass deportations. That will mean forcing Mexico to accept deportees and do more — far more — to control the flow of illegal immigrants north to the U.S. border. Absent the threat of crippling economic sanctions — or something worse — Mexico will not act to stem the tide of illegal immigration.
Until GOP leaders get that through their heads, they will be left in the ridiculous position of doing what House Speaker Mike Johnson did Thursday after the El Paso video went viral: pathetically tweeting about how it’s all Biden’s fault for “refusing to secure our border and protect America.” This, from one of the only Republicans in a position to actually do something about the border. Johnson could shut down the government over the Biden administration’s refusal to address the crisis, but he won’t.
It’s going to take stronger leadership than that to really deal with the invasion at the border, if and when a Republican takes back the White House. It will mean a total shift in conventional thinking about Mexico — and a willingness to treat our southern neighbor like the antagonist it has become.
John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, to be published in March 2024. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.
Earlier this month the Senate rejected a “compromise” on the border and sent a bill to the House that funds Israel’s many needs following the 10/7 massacre, Taiwan’s defenses, weapons for Ukraine and a significant spend on America’s defense industrial base. Now Speaker Mike Johnson has to decide what to do with it because he needs more support from his Caucus than the bill as currently written garners from the House GOP caucus. The best strategy for the Speaker? Make everyone an offer they can’t refuse: Build the wall.
The key to getting the Supplemental passed lies in a Washington Post article from February 27, the headline of which tells the story: “The Border Wall Has Never Been More Popular.”
The critical two paragraphs:
“Multiple recent polls have shown support for building a wall along the southern border creating a majority.
“Late last year, it was Quinnipiac University and Fox News polling that showed between 52 and 57 percent supported its construction. On Monday it was a Monmouth University poll that pegged support at 53 percent.”
Those are eye-popping numbers because the wall is former President Trump’s signature issue, but the collapse of security at the border and President Biden’s shrugging of shoulders at the flood of migrants who have crossed the border since he became president has changed public opinion dramatically in Trump’s and the wall’s favor.
Trump had the border under control by the end of his first term and has promised to do so again in a second term.
Biden, in the sharpest contrast of the campaign ahead, abandoned the policies that led to control of the border and eight million people entered the country without permission in Biden’s first three years. That number has likely now passed 9 million total “encounters” at the border —and that number does not include “got-aways”: The illegal immigrants who do not enter through a port of entry and are never “encountered” by law enforcement anywhere. The “get-aways” include the cartels’ worst customers carrying the most fentanyl and the Chinese nationals who don’t want to be fingerprinted and then released.
It’s a mess. It’s a huge burden on all the states and cities flooded with migrants. It’s a threat to every kid who tries one pill because they think they have bought a Xanax online but it’s a knock-off laced with enough fentanyl to kill. And it’s a national security nightmare.
Only 450 Chinese nationals were “encountered” at the border in Fiscal Year 2021. In FY 2022 “encounters” with Chinese nationals soared to 2,176. “In 2023, it ballooned to 24,314,” according to NBC News and in the first quarter of FY 2024, estimates are that another 19,000 have already entered and the surge in this demographic is increasing. That’s a national security issue of the first order. When the Soviet Union existed, do you think Ronald Reagan would have allowed 40,000 Soviets to enter the country and vanish into its interior? Of course not, but Joe Biden has done the equivalent of that by doing nothing.
Migrants are encountered by Border Patrol in the San Diego sector on Feb. 17. (Fox News)
When discussing this Chinese subset of the migrant flood with three former national security officials from the Trump era this past weekend, they guaranteed me that tens of thousands of Chinese nationals don’t slip easily out of the Chinese Communist Party’s control. They are very alarmed that the vast majority of these migrants are military-aged men.
Whatever one thinks about sanctuary cities, or California extending Medicaid to illegal immigrants (at a cost of more than $2 billion annually to a state with a $68 billion dollar deficit) the reality is that Americans of all political perspectives save the hard Left have awakened to the fact that this can’t go on.
The border with Mexico is 1,954 miles long. 900 miles are considered “passable.” When he left office, Trump was adding miles of Wall daily to try and get as much of the 900 miles of Wall needed built. But as soon as Biden was sworn in, construction stopped, and the film of migrants walking around the unfinished Wall or through openings created by the coyotes began playing. Americans noticed. They want The Wall and they want it now.
With funding for most of the Supplemental already enjoying majority support in the House, how to pass the necessary bill? Tack on funding for the wall as well as language that makes it clear that construction is to restart and conclude in a matter of months. That will also require language in the new law that approves that construction “notwithstanding any other law or treaty with any nation or sovereign Tribe.” That language blows past the obstacles to the Wall’s construction posed by the federal Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act while also mandating construction on tribal lands. This is America. We built the Interstate Highway system. We can build the Wall in a matter of months if the will, the money and the clear direction exist in the Congress.
Want the Supplemental? Build the Wall. It is that simple.
Hugh Hewitt is one of the country’s leading journalists of the center-right. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990, and it is today syndicated to hundreds of stations and outlets across the country every Monday through Friday morning. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and this column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his forty years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio show today.
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.
A New Gallup poll finds a record-high number of Americans believe illegal immigration is a “critical threat” to the nation’s vital interests. Voters are clearly blaming President Joe Biden and his band of leftists for the invasion the nation has endured over the past three years.
The latest survey of more than 1,000 adults nationwide, conducted Feb. 1-20, shows 55 percent of U.S. respondents believe that “large numbers of immigrants entering the United States illegally” is a “critical threat” to the nation — up 8 percentage points from last year’s poll. The significant majority of Americans deeply concerned about illegal immigration surpasses the previous high of 50 percent recorded in 2004, according to Gallup.
“Significantly more Americans name immigration as the most important problem facing the U.S. (28%) than did a month ago (20%),” the famed national pollster notes. “Immigration has now passed the government as the most often cited problem, after the two issues tied for the top position the past two months.”
Concern over the illegal immigration crisis is at the highest level in the 40-plus years Gallup has been tracking the issue.
The poll finds congressional job approval, long in the basement, dipped to just 12 percent. It’s the lowest approval rating for the legislative body since November 2015, when it hit 11 percent, and just a few points above its rock bottom of 9 percent in November 2013.
Gallup conducted the poll as a ludicrous border “reform” bill, which was really just a Trojan horse for more Ukraine funding and would have codified the continuing illegal immigration threat, faltered in the U.S. Senate. The deal, puppeteered in large part by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would have faced a near-certain death in the Republican-controlled House.
Biden’s job performance on immigration has sunk to 28 percent, a personal low for the Democrat, according to the new Gallup poll. That’s down from a CBS poll last month that found just 32 percent of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of border security, an all-time low at that time. The latest monthly Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, released on Monday, records a 35 percent approval rating for Biden on immigration, his lowest rating on any issue in that survey.
“While many Americans regard the economy, generally, or inflation, specifically, as the most important problem facing the U.S., far more name immigration,” Gallup notes in an overview of the poll. “Immigration now sits alone at the top of the most important problem list, something it has done only occasionally in Gallup’s trend and not since 2019.”
Biden’s Border Debacle Hitting Home
Not even the coddling accomplice media can cover for the addled president and the disasters his immigration policies have wrought. The let-‘em-all-in left certainly can’t hide from the stark numbers.
In fiscal year 2020, the last full year of President Donald Trump’s tenure, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded about 400,000 encounters of illegal aliens attempting to enter the southwest United States. Three years later, on Biden’s watch, agents encountered 2.4 million illegal immigrants at the border with Mexico, 3.2 million nationwide.
Facing abysmal poll numbers and a real threat to his reelection chances, Biden audaciously told 30 of the nation’s governors last week that his hands are tied on cleaning up the mess he’s made. In a bald-faced lie for the ages, the president barked at a White House meeting that he’s not to blame for the border debacle and that the governors need to “show a little spine” and urge their members of Congress to pass the “bipartisan security bill” that recently went down in flames.
Half of the nation’s governors are standing with Texas in its right to defend itself against the invasion of illegal immigrants attempting to flood the Lone Star State. The Biden administration has fought against Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to “fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border,” according to the governor’s office.
“Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies,” stated an Abbott press release issued after the governor welcomed 13 of his fellow Republican governors to Eagle Pass, a border town overtaken by illegal aliens.
Biden’s helpless act isn’t playing well with Americans. Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said the president has had the authority to tighten security at the southwest border since he took office at noon, Jan. 20, 2021 — if nothing else, by leaving things alone.
“The law is not only clear that he not only can enforce immigration laws, he is required to enforce them and he simply has been ignoring them,” the immigration reform activist told me last week on the “Simon Conway Show” on WHO in Des Moines.
In fact, Biden has signed an array of executive orders — early and often — reversing Trump’s work on securing the border. One of his first acts as president was killing construction of his predecessor’s border wall. Biden brought back catch-and-release and ended the remain-in-Mexico policy, among other executive actions that have effectively erased the United States’ southwest border.
“I’m not making new law. I’m eliminating bad policy,” Biden said at the time.
The results have been devastating, well beyond the border. Americans from the largest cities dealing with the massive influx of illegal aliens to small towns confronting rising crime and a fatal fentanyl epidemic are on the frontlines of Biden’s war on the border.
Last week, 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student Laken Hope Riley was assaulted, kidnapped, and murdered. An illegal immigrant from Venezuela has been arrested in connection with the crime, according to law enforcement, and is reportedly “expected to be charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another.” As my Federalist colleague Jordan Boyd writes, corporate media are trying to cover up that inconvenient truth, but Americans know the deadly consequences of Biden’s open border policies. The latest poll numbers confirm it.
Organizations like the Job Creators Network want to make sure Americans don’t forget who is responsible for the border invasion. JCN recently put up a billboard in New York City’s Times Square featuring a video of NYPD officers being beaten by a group of illegal immigrants. The billboard’s message to the president — and the country: “Hey Joe! If cops aren’t safe because of your open borders, nobody is.”
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.
The uptick in Chinese nationals illegally crossing the southern border proves the record-breaking number of foreigners walking into our nation and being shipped by border agents to American cities with little to no vetting is no longer a crisis but a full-fledged invasion.
The Biden administration’s long-held talking point is that the current border crisis is fueled by a surge of struggling migrants from unstable Latin American countries. Chinese migrants, however, not natural disaster victims in Central America, have become the fastest-growing people group to take advantage of the lapsed southern U.S. border.
Border Patrol agents in San Diego alone recorded encounters with 269 Chinese nationals on Monday, Fox News’s Bill Melugin reports. Since the 2024 fiscal year began, Customs and Border Protection clocked more than 20,000 Chinese nationals illegally crossing into the U.S. via the southern border. Some of them crossed with the help of the Chinese Communist Party-linked app TikTok.
The 2024 number is already dangerously close to the 24,000 Chinese border crossers who were apprehended in the 2023 fiscal year and up significantly from the 450 Chinese arrests border agents made during President Joe Biden’s first year in office.
A large amount of the illegal crossings in San Diego sector happen in Jacumba where there is a small gap in the wall that illegal immigrants pour through every day. (We shot this a couple weeks ago). Inexplicably, the Biden admin has made no effort to fill or fix this small gap. pic.twitter.com/wqQRI917VU
In January alone, border agents encountered 176,205 illegal border crossers. That number may be a significant drop compared to recent record-breaking months, but it still exceeds 23 of the last 24 Janauries on record.
Border Patrol chiefs in several high-traffic sectors have warned that the overwhelming number of foreign illegal border crossers entering the U.S. puts our nation at risk because “information can be hidden” and “their agendas, their ideologies, the reason for them coming could be missed.” Gloria Chavez, chief patrol agent for Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol, complained to the House Homeland Security Committee last year that the influx of specifically Chinese migrants has slowed her agents’ interview process to seven hours to ensure some level of vetting.
Even then, CBP does not turn them away. Instead, busloads of Chinese nationals are dropped off in the heart of the U.S. and told to appear for an immigration court date that is often set years in advance.
“My Committee has been informed that some of these Chinese nationals have even been found to be affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—and those are just the ones we’ve been able to vet,” Chairman Mark Green noted. “As the CCP works to undermine and infiltrate our institutions and even military installations, Secretary Mayorkas has made it clear to the entire world that our borders are open. This is simply unsustainable, and the national security risks are massive.”
America’s number one foreign enemy isn’t just sending spies through gaps in the abandoned border wall. It’s also actively fueling the death and destruction at the open southern border. Communist China has long taken advantage of Biden’s lax policies to poison hundreds of thousands of Americans with one of the most potent, lucrative, and lethal drugs on the black market.
One gram of fentanyl alone, about the size of a pack of table sugar, can kill approximately 500 people. Yet, in 2023, CBP seized 27,000 pounds of fentanyl, nearly twice as much as they seized in 2022. Since Biden was elected, CBP has reported record-breaking fentanyl seizures nearly every month, marking an 800 percent jump since 2019.
Cartels do most of the fentanyl smuggling, but their operations are directly sustained by investors linked to the Chinese Communist Party, who fund thousands of illegal marijuana-growing and selling operations in Mexico and the U.S. They produce the precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl in Asia and then ship them to packaging facilities close to the southern American border.
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, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
A lot of ink has been spilled in recent days about the Senate’s $118 billion border bill, most of it detailing just how awful the proposed legislation is — awful, that is, if your goal is actually to secure the border. The bill creates a new baseline of admitting 1.8 million illegal immigrants annually, doles out work permits and green cards on the whim of federal bureaucrats, and funnels billions of tax dollars to the same NGOs that have for years facilitated mass illegal border crossings. And that’s just for starters.
But not much has been said about Mexico’s role in the new immigration regime this legislation would create. In fact, Mexico is barely mentioned at all in the 370-page bill. That’s odd considering that no border enforcement mechanism that actually keeps illegal immigrants out of the U.S. will work without some level of Mexican involvement.
Consider that the so-called “bipartisan” legislation, crafted behind closed doors by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, includes a “border emergency authority” to shut down the border if 5,000 illegal immigrants are arrested daily over seven consecutive days or 8,500 are arrested in a single day. Setting aside that this would cement into law nearly 2 million illegal immigrants every year, what would happen to all those illegal immigrants arrested in the U.S. after the border is “shut down” under this emergency authority?
Apparently, they would all be sent back to Mexico. But why would Mexico agree to that? Admitting hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals into northern Mexican border towns after they’ve already crossed into the U.S. would create massive problems for a country already beset by record-breaking violence and crippling levels of corruption.
The answer is that the Senate bill hopes to bribe Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Buried in the bill (on page 85) is a $415 million slush fund “to increase foreign country capacity to accept and integrate returned and removed individuals.” The unnamed foreign country here is almost certainly Mexico, which is where the “removed individuals” would be sent once the border is “shut down.” Another $850 million in the bill is set aside for undefined “International Disaster Assistance” to “address humanitarian needs in the Western Hemisphere.” Again, the likely recipient of the bulk of these funds will be Mexico.
For his part, López Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, has been candid about his desire for the United States to pay for Mexico’s cooperation on the border. Last month, following a high-level visit of Biden officials to Mexico City in December, AMLO reportedly demanded $20 billion from the Biden administration to help tackle the “root causes” of illegal immigration, as well as sweeping reforms to U.S.-Cuba policy and 10 million visas for Mexican nationals currently living in the United States.
In this context, it’s hard not to see the hundreds of millions of dollars set aside in the border bill as a down payment on AMLO’s demands. At best, it’s a quid pro quo for cooperation on the border. At worst, it’s a ransom payment to a hostile neighbor with ill intent.
Now, one might argue that Schumer and McConnell and the Biden administration are just doing the practical thing here and securing Mexico’s cooperation. But such a view belies a misunderstanding of the relevant history and Mexico’s malign role in the border crisis.
For many decades now, the default assumption in Washington was that Mexico is our partner, that we can’t solve illegal immigration without Mexico’s help. But that’s only half true. The reality is that Mexico is not a partner, not a friendly neighbor with whom we can cooperate to solve this problem, but an antagonist. Over the last 15 or so years, the merging of Mexico’s most powerful cartels with certain elements of the Mexican state means that much of the border crisis is being directed and facilitated by the cartels in collaboration with Mexico’s National Guard and the National Institute of Migration, the federal agency in charge of migration in Mexico.
On top of that, it’s now a well-established fact that AMLO himself is cooperating with the Sinaloa cartel, the country’s most powerful, and has been for many years. A long and detailed report published by ProPublica last week chronicled Sinaloa’s bankrolling of AMLO’s 2006 presidential campaign, which appears to have been the beginning of a long partnership that has now borne fruit — for both parties. Sinaloa has helped consolidate electoral victories for AMLO’s left-wing Morena party in the last two election cycles, while AMLO has pursued a policy of placating the cartels and disavowing the drug war — “hugs, not bullets,” as he put it on the campaign trail in 2018.
That AMLO’s administration has been compromised by its association with the cartels, or that the cartels have figured out how to monetize illegal immigration, isn’t some conspiracy theory but well-established fact. Given that reality, it stands to reason that if AMLO is going to cooperate with the Biden administration to reduce the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S. at the expense of the cartel networks with which he is politically allied, he’s going to want compensation. After all, the illegal immigrant black market was worth an estimated $13 billion a year as of July 2022, and is likely much more than that now, not counting the $56 billion in remittances to Mexico from the U.S. every year.
Put bluntly, that’s what the $415 million slush fund is really for, to make up for lost revenue that would otherwise go to the cartels, smuggling networks, and corrupt elements of Mexican officialdom. And it’s likely just a first installment.
Given all this, what other ways could we secure Mexico’s cooperation on the border crisis? Recent history suggests that sticks work better than carrots. In 2019, amid a much smaller border crisis, President Trump famously threatened to slap a tariff on all Mexican goods coming over the border unless the Mexican government did more to crack down on the caravans wending their way north through the country. If Trump had followed through, it would have collapsed the Mexican economy in short order, and everyone knew it.
Sure enough, the newly elected AMLO got the message. Arrests at the border soon began to plummet. The caravans were dispersed, and most never made it to the border. By the time Trump left office, illegal border-crossings were at historic lows.
That changed the month after Biden took office, and we have more or less been in crisis since then. Under Biden, almost nothing has been asked of Mexico, even as illegal immigration reached historic levels. Yet Biden hasn’t threatened AMLO’s government with a thing, and of course, the lack of consequences has incentivized more bad behavior from a corrupt Mexican state and the cartels that profit off the crisis.
If Senate Republicans were serious about convincing Mexico to accept expelled or deported illegal immigrants under a new U.S. border policy, they would treat our southern neighbor as the antagonist it actually is and threaten massive tariffs or some other economic penalties. As for the cartels, Republicans need to start making a more forceful case for going to war with them. Otherwise, there’s no way to get either the fentanyl or border crises under control.
The last thing you would do with such a neighbor, under these circumstances, is offer a bribe, validating the corruption right at the heart of the border crisis. Yet that’s exactly what the Senate bill does.
John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, to be published in March 2024. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.
After the much-anticipated “bipartisan” Ukraine and border bill finally dropped on Sunday, it took little time to confirm that all 370 pages are worse than intelligent observers predicted. The $118 billion boondoggle is dead on arrival in the House. For Democrats and their accomplice media, however, the legislation and House Republicans’ response to it are going exactly as planned.
Not only did national disgrace Sen. Mitch McConnell (feat. useful idiot James Lankford) work tirelessly with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on this bill to keep America’s borders open, give out amnesty Oprah-style, and write more blank checks to Ukraine and Hamas sympathizers in the Middle East, they also helped the corrupt corporate media run a propaganda operation against House Republicans and the rest of the GOP. Worse, they’re deliberately running it during an election year to boost Joe Biden on the border issue — which the near-dead incumbent has aided and abetted, and voters say is top of mind next to Bidenomics.
The Republican-majority House predictably isn’t going for the bill. Why would they? It would allow nearly 2 million illegal aliens into the country in one year — as long as the numbers stay below 5,000 entries per day for seven consecutive days, or below 8,500 border encounters in a single day — before triggering “emergency authority” for the Department of Homeland Security and closing the border. Even then there are exceptions.
Worse, if Biden decides it’s in the “national interest” to beckon some more Democrat representation padding and likely future voters across the Rio Grande, he can unilaterally suspend the border closure for 45 days per year. There’s more where that came from.
If GOP members of Congress had taken the bait, Democrats would have come out on top, having
convinced their political foes not only to continue funding a no-win forever war in Eastern Europe but also to keep letting illegal aliens into the country virtually unrestricted. Bonus: A codified open border could hamstring “the fixer” Donald Trump if he wins the general election later this year, zapping his political power to rehabilitate U.S. security and sovereignty.
Yet even without the House conceding to the bill, Democrats win anyway. Now Biden and his accomplice media can simply blame Republicans for not solving the crisis this administration caused. That’s exactly what’s happening, starting with Biden pointing fingers at Republicans:
Working with my administration, the United States Senate has done the hard work it takes to reach a bipartisan agreement. Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?
Biden’s media lapdogs dutifully advanced the narrative, which they’d already been spinning before the text of the bill was even released.
“GOP Blames Biden for Border Crisis That GOP Refuses to Solve,” blared one Daily Beast headline. “Republicans are yelling about a crisis at the border. But they’re also unwilling to do anything to address it for fear that it’d give Joe Biden a political win,” the subheading continued, taking its talking points straight from the president and Senate Democrats like Chris Murphy.
“Why Republicans Don’t Want To Solve the Border Problem — But do want to make deals to cut taxes,” read another headline in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer by Jonathan Chait.
“Republicans Who Screamed About A Crisis On The Border Now Oppose A Plan To Fix It,” said HuffPost, claiming Republicans oppose the border bill not because it’s nightmarish but because they want to hurt Biden. “Border Patrol Supports ‘Strong’ Immigration Deal. Republicans Don’t Care,” wrote Rolling Stone.
Vanity Fair claimed, “Republicans Don’t Want to Lose Their Favorite 2024 Talking Point,” with Bloomberg opting for a simple, “House Republicans Don’t Want to Fix the Border.”
Cable television has been as bad. A host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” said the “bipartisan border deal is doomed to fail … because Republicans have turned on it.” The “Today” show framed the gridlock as Republicans “threaten[ing] to block the border bill they negotiated,” as if McConnell and his sidekick colluding with Democrats behind closed doors amounts to a good-faith bipartisan negotiation.
This run-of-the-mill propaganda is to be expected from the corporate media, but it’s just so brazen considering Republicans’ efforts to secure the border earlier in Biden’s term and Democrats’ subsequent refusal to cooperate.
We’re all old enough to remember less than a year ago when the House passed a stronger border bill that would have restarted Trump-era border wall construction, required aliens to remain in Mexico while waiting out their usually fraudulent asylum claims, restricted asylum eligibility to legal ports of entry, enacted harsher punishments for overstaying expired visas, kept Title 42-esque “expulsion authority” in place, and supplied border authorities with additional grant funding. Senate Democrats wouldn’t lift a finger.
But sure. It’s Republicans “playing politics.”
Kylee Griswold is the editorial director of The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religion, and the media. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.
When the Rev. Al Sharpton used the word “invasion” to describe the onslaught of migrants at the southern U.S. border on Monday, his MSNBC guest suddenly stopped nodding along. And then the fast blinking began — he was triggered. Because to the American left, the word “invasion” is off-limits and even “violence-inciting.”
But the word — and the concept — are at the heart of what’s happening in Texas, as Gov. Greg Abbott stands up to the Biden administration and its open border policies. He rightly contends that according to the U.S. Constitution, Texas does not merely have the Constitutional power to defend itself — it has a constitutional and moral responsibility to do so.
To qualify as an invader in the constitutional framework requires two qualities: entry into a sovereign territory, and enmity toward the sovereign. An immigrant without enmity is not an invader, nor is an enemy that stays outside our borders.
Consider some examples of what the Founders did consider invaders: foreign powers, pirates, and hostile tribes. In today’s context, a vast multinational criminal cartel whose activities and personnel enter America, harm Americans, destroy or commandeer property, defend routes on private and public lands, coerce American officials through extortion or bribery, and do so with the collaboration and collusion of a foreign state power is absolutely an invader, and would have been immediately recognized as such by the American Founders.
Sharpton wasn’t siding with Abbott, however; he was pushing the new Senate border bill.
But that bill misses the mark almost entirely on all these points. With its stupefying allowance of several million illegal entries per year, its comically constricted “border emergency” framework, its loosening of the asylum process, its billions in funding for the human-trafficking complex, and its wildly permissive structure for allowing the executive branch to override even its own minor strictures, the bill is right now Exhibit A in the contention that the border crisis is a choice made by Washington, D.C.
The border-security crisis is also a choice by Mexico’s own powerholders, stemming from two major motivations. The first motivation is simple: money. We must understand this very clearly: The Mexican state and the Mexican cartels are the same — including the president of Mexico himself.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has repeatedly sided with the criminal cartels, particularly the Sinaloa cartel. This includes his rhetorical generosity toward it, his public visits to honor the aged mother of the jailed drug lord El Chapo, and his political party’s use of its sicario enforcers to kill opposition candidates and rig elections.
AMLO’s policy of “abrazos no balazos” (hugs, not bullets), effectively prevents the use of force against cartel violence; he has handed over civil powers to his own army apparatus, which itself is a major trafficking organization and uses violence against Mexican civilians who defend themselves against cartels; and he has vowed to use the Mexican armed forces to defend Mexican cartels against the Americans.
The second motivation for Mexico City is leverage: leverage versus the United States, which is the only power capable of arresting and disincentivizing Mexico’s slide into narco-state status.
Mexico City understands two things very well: It makes billions off the border-security crisis, especially in human trafficking, and the crisis gives it leverage over U.S. officeholders, especially as the latter come under pressure from the American people to secure the border and defend our communities.
Texas has undertaken a variety of efforts in defense of itself and its citizenry that the federal government has refused to do:
Texas has illuminated the national scope of the border crisis, and invoked the principle of equity within it, by its transportation of migrants to leftist-run localities across the country.
Texas has used its military forces for their proper and primary purpose, in the defense of its own territory and citizenry, with the use of the Texas Military Department, including the personnel of the Texas Army National Guard, in Operation Lone Star.
Texas has built effective border-barrier infrastructure not once, but twice — with its innovative buoy barriers in the Rio Grande, and its barriers on the river’s north bank.
Texas has a new law that allows Texas law enforcement to intercept and de facto deport illegal entrants into Texas.
The federal government ought to be doing all these things — but it is not, and therefore Texas must see to its own self-defense. As Abbott has noted, in failing to do so, the federal government has abdicated its own Constitutional responsibility to the states.
Make no mistake, Texas is faithfully executing the law — both its own, and the Constitution’s, which provides in Article I, Section 10, for a state to defend itself against invasion.
The Senate’s emergency appropriations bill released on Sunday won’t address the border crisis, and contrary to the accomplice media’s spin, the spending bill won’t “severely curtail asylum at the US southern border.”
The bill could have had the Senate reclaim the reins of lawmaking from the executive and judicial branches and clarify that widespread criminality in another country is not a basis for asylum in America. Instead, the 370-page bill, the “Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024,” includes funding for both Israel and Ukraine, plus decidedly insufficient provisions for addressing aliens and immigration.
The backers of the Senate bill seek to portray its provisions as, in the words of Joe Biden, the “toughest and fairest set of border reforms in decades.” There is little that is “tough” in the bill, however, and what is can easily be sidestepped — either by the Biden administration or the throngs of illegal aliens invading from the south.
Consider, for instance, the “emergency authority” the bill would grant to the secretary of homeland security to “summarily remove” aliens. But that authority only arises if the number of encounters with aliens at the border averages 4,000 for seven consecutive days or more than 8,500 in any one day.
Beyond the flood of aliens allowed to enter the United States without triggering the emergency authority, the statutory exemptions gut the secretary’s authority. Specifically, the bill provides that the border emergency authority cannot be used against “an unaccompanied alien child,” so every illegal alien who is under 18 — or can pass as someone who is under 18 — will be allowed in.
Likewise, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can exempt aliens from the “border emergency authority” based on supposed “operational considerations.” An immigration officer can exempt other aliens for public health, humanitarian, and a smattering of other reasons. The president also has the power under the Senate bill to unilaterally suspend the secretary’s border emergency authority, meaning Biden can stop summary removals at will — at least temporarily.
The country has seen these types of exceptions swallow the rule since the Biden administration supplanted President Trump’s border policies, and there is no reason to believe things will be any different after nearly four years of an open border.
Empty Asylum Reform
The Senate bill’s claimed toughening of asylum procedures is similarly impotent. Most glaring is its provision stating that individuals seeking asylum will be “released from physical custody.” The sections and subsections that follow then detail the process for handling asylum claims.
The supposed improvement here is that asylum decisions are to be completed expeditiously, within 90 days. But the Senate includes the squishy “to the maximum extent practicable” to that 90-day timetable. That’s assuming the alien, who recall is “noncustodial,” does not abscond. The bill also allows for aliens to seek review of negative decisions, meaning they’ll have a second opportunity to flee even if they appear for the first hearing.
That the Senate bill provides for the release of aliens pending a hearing renders any other tightening of the asylum process meaningless. What would have sent a message, however, would have been for the Senate to clarify that facing general violence, including gang violence, in a country of origin, is not a basis for asylum.
Congress previously defined the grounds for asylum as limited to those who are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin “because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion…” The statutory “membership in a particular social group” language has led to claims for asylum premised on spousal abuse, threats by gang members, and individuals targeted because of their occupation.
Attempts at Reform
Under the Trump administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sought to “return some semblance of meaning to the ‘membership in a particular social group’ category by holding that an applicant ‘must demonstrate: (1) membership in a group, which is composed of members who share a common immutable characteristic, is defined with particularity, and is socially distinct within the society in question; and (2) that membership in the group is a central reason for her persecution.’”
As Sessions explained in his decision interpreting the statutory language, “nothing in the text of the [Immigration and Nationality Act] supports the suggestion that Congress intended ‘membership in a particular social group’ to be ‘some omnibus catch-all’ for solving every ‘heart-rending situation.’” The former AG’s opinion further indicated that “victims of private criminal activity” will generally not qualify for asylum, absent “exceptional circumstances.”
Following Joe Biden’s election, his DOJ issued an opinion vacating Sessions’ opinion, suggesting asylum was more readily available for victims of private criminal activity. But rather than explain, Merrick Garland noted he would leave the question to rule-making. Such a fundamental question should not be left to unelected bureaucrats, however, especially given the unsustainable levels of asylum applications seen in the last few years.
Asylum for All
Maybe Congress wants to open America to every citizen of the world who heralds from a country where the government cannot control crime — which is the conclusion that follows from the Biden administration’s all-inclusive reading of the statutory “membership in a particular social group” language. If so, Congress should say so. But if not, Congress should make clear that asylum provides a safe haven for those persecuted by their government because of their race, religion, sex, political views, or whatever other specific classifications our elected officials believe appropriate.
The irony here is that the Biden administration’s reversal of the Trump policies has fortified the funding of cartels, gangs, and traffickers — so much so that those flooding our shores will now be able to honestly say their government cannot protect them. And if “non-gang members” qualifies as a “social group,” it will be asylum for all.
Is that what Congress believes is appropriate? We don’t know because the cowards prefer to leave it to the administrative state. The Senate bill proves that.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
Yesterday, a reporter standing outside the Senate chamber told me that after four months of secrecy, The Firm™️ plans to release the text of the $106 billion supplemental aid/border-security package — possibly as soon as today. Wasting no time, she then asked, “If you get the bill by tomorrow, will you be ready to vote on it by Tuesday?”
The words “hell no” escaped my mouth before I could stop them. Those are strong words where I come from. (Sorry, Mom.)
The reporter immediately understood that my frustration was not directed at her. Rather, it was directed at the Law Firm of Schumer & McConnell (The Firm™️), which is perpetually trying to normalize a corrupt approach to legislating, in which The Firm™️:
Spends months drafting legislation in complete secrecy
Aggressively markets that legislation based not on its details and practical implications (good and bad), but only on its broadest, least-controversial objectives
Lets members see bill text for the first time only a few days (sometimes a few hours) before an arbitrary deadline imposed by The Firm™️ itself, always with a contrived sense of urgency
Forces a vote on the legislation on or before that deadline, denying senators any real opportunity to read, digest, and debate the measure on its merits, much less introduce, consider, and vote on amendments to fix any perceived problems with the bill or otherwise improve it.
Whenever The Firm™️ engages in this practice, it largely excludes nearly every senator from the constitutionally prescribed process in which all senators are supposed to participate. By so doing, The Firm™️ effectively disenfranchises hundreds of millions of Americans — at least for purposes relevant to the legislation at hand — and that’s tragic. It’s also un-American, uncivil, uncollegial, and really uncool.
So why does The Firm™️ do it?
Every time The Firm™️ utilizes this approach and the bill passes — and it nearly always does — The Firm™️ becomes more powerful.
The high success rate is largely attributable to the fact that The Firm™️ has become very adept at (a) enlisting the help of the (freakishly cooperative) corporate media, (b) exerting peer pressure in a way that makes what you experienced in middle school look mild by comparison, and (c) rewarding those who consistently vote with The Firm™️ with various privileges that The Firm™️ is uniquely capable of offering, such as committee assignments, help with campaign fundraising, and a whole host of other widely coveted things that The Firm™️ is free to distribute in any manner it pleases.
It’s through this process that The Firm™️ passes most major spending legislation. And it’s through this process that The Firm™️ likely intends to pass the still-secret, $106 billion supplemental aid/border-security package, which The Firm™️ has spent four months negotiating with the luxury of obsessing over every sentence, word, period, and comma.
I still don’t know exactly what’s in this bill, although I have serious concerns with it based on the few details The Firm™️ has been willing to share. But under no circumstances should this bill — which would fund military operations in three distant parts of the world and make massive, permanent changes to immigration law — be passed next week.
Nor should it be passed until we have had adequate time to read the bill, discuss it with constituents, debate it, offer amendments, and vote on those amendments.
There’s no universe in which those things will happen by next week.
Depending on how long it is and the complexity of its provisions, the minimum period of time we should devote to this bill after it’s released should be measured in weeks or months, not days or hours.
A talking point cropping up on social media and press contends that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is “ignoring” or “defying” the Supreme Court by continuing to erect fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border. This is wrong.
Abbott can’t ignore the Supreme Court because Texas wasn’t ordered to do anything. SCOTUS vacated an order against the Department of Homeland Security [sic] that stopped the Feds from cutting down razor fencing along the border. Nothing says that Texas can’t erect the fencing.
Though, you must marvel at the breathtaking audacity of Democrats suddenly treating the court’s (non-existent) words as if they were sacred text. This very week, President Joe Biden again ignored the court, rolling out yet another iteration of his unconstitutional student “loan forgiveness” program. Biden habitually circumvents, ignores, defies, attacks, and demeans SCOTUS — and Democrats cheer him on along the way. Senate leaders and “dark money” fake media organizations like ProPublica have poured millions into delegitimizing and smearing the court to undermine its authority.
Now, it is true that Biden has the power to ratchet up the fight, take federal control of the border, and implement any policy he desires — or, more specifically, any non-policy he desires. The Biden administration is standing in the way of Texas’ efforts to enforce state and federal law. Once that happens, we can have our constitutional crisis.
As a political matter, the case tells us that the border mayhem is not only a matter of historic incompetence but is also driven by ideology. Many Democrats believe limiting illegal immigration is immoral. They believe anyone who wants to walk over the border should be able to do so without any incumbrances.
This week, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that razorwire at the southern border is ineffective and gets “in the way” of law enforcement. I’m no expert on border control, admittedly, but I am relatively certain that any fence is better than what is happening now.
A few years back, Nancy Pelosi distilled the left’s view on physical barriers when she called them an “immorality,” the “least effective way to protect the border,” and too expensive. “I can’t think of any reason why anyone would think it’s a good idea — unless this has something to do with something else,” the then House Speaker said. None of that is true, either. The idea that real fences and walls can’t mitigate the movement of people is undermined by looking at the entirety of history. The least effective way is probably what we’re doing now.
The “something else,” of course, is meant to call you a racist. The reality is that Mexico is the top origin country for legal immigrants. Most Americans still see immigration as a net positive. The lawlessness at the border, and now in major cities, is helping undermine that sentiment.
One of the vital jobs of the federal government is to protect the sovereignty, borders, and citizens of the nation — even more important than creating “book ban” czars or banning Zyn packets. But not only has Biden abdicated his responsibility on that front, he wants to stop others from doing their duty, as well. But sometimes, it seems like the lawlessness is the point.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement on Wednesday asserting that the Lone Star State has a constitutional right to defend its sovereignty in the wake of an invasion facilitated by President Biden’s open border policies.
“The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States. The Executive Branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting States, including immigration laws on the books right now,” Abbott wrote. “President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them. The result is that he has smashed records for illegal immigration.”
According to the Washington Examiner, more than 10 million illegal immigrants have been apprehended by U.S. border officials since Biden assumed the presidency in January 2021. Those figures don’t even include the estimated 1.7 million “gotaways” who evaded capture upon illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
In his statement, Abbott slammed Biden for facilitating the ongoing invasion and noted how the president’s “refusal to protect the States” has resulted in “more than 6 million illegal immigrants” traversing Texas’ border alone. That figure is greater than the population of more than 30 states.
The Texas governor further underscored the federal government’s obligation to defend states from invasion and the states’ right to defend their sovereignty from outside forces, citing Article IV, § 4, and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, of the U.S. Constitution. While the former stipulates that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” the latter recognizes “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.”
“James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border,” Abbott wrote. “The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense.”
“For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself,” he continued. “That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.”
Abbott’s remarks appear to come in response to a Monday decision by the U.S. Supreme Court allowing the Biden administration to authorize Customs and Border Protection officials to cut razor wire installed along the border by Texas to stymie illegal immigration. Five of the court’s nine justices sided with the administration, including Republican-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
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
By a vote of 5-4, with two conservative justices joining the liberals, the Supreme Court has ruled that federal agents can cut razor wire installed along the Texas-Mexico border while a lawsuit over the wire continues. The Border Patrol Union and its agents who have spoken to reporters favor the razor wire installation because it is working in that section of the state in keeping migrants, criminals, and fentanyl out, but that apparently doesn’t matter to the court.
While the emergency appeal of a lower court ruling upholding the action by Texas did not require an explanation for their votes, it likely is because the majority felt the Constitution grants power to the federal government over individual states when it comes to border control. The obvious question which the court did not address: why is the federal government not enforcing immigration laws which migrants are breaking to enter the country?
Suppose a Mexican army — no, forget an army — suppose a ragtag bunch of drug dealers decided to invade Texas, the governor acted to stop them — including installing more razor wire — and the Biden administration did nothing to stop them? Would the High Court be OK with that? The effect is the same as if an army of any kind was crossing the border.
How many more murders, rapes and drug deaths are to be tolerated before the administration begins to enforce laws passed by Congress and signed by presidents of both parties? If this is not a violation of Biden’s Oath of Office, what would qualify?
A statement from White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez is laughable: “Texas’ political stunts, like placing razor wire near the border, simply makes it harder and more dangerous for frontline personnel to do their jobs.” Except, as anyone can plainly see from watching pictures of tens of thousands of migrants streaming across the border, they are not doing their jobs because the Biden administration won’t let them.
Even President Biden recently stated the obvious when he said after months of denials by himself and his Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that the bord er is not secure. If his previous statements weren’t lies, we need a new definition of the word.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in response to the court ruling that the razor wire is an “effective deterrent” to the illegal crossings and “I will continue to defend Texas’ constitutional authority to secure the border.”
Local police and the Department of Public Safety officers have been arresting migrants on trespassing charges, but ultimately they will be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which is likely to continue releasing them into the country. From there they will likely head to already overcrowded cities seeking low-paying jobs, taking playground and other spaces from school children and in the case of New York, depositing human waste in parks, in the streets and in some cases in cups they leave on the doorsteps of local residents.
That this will — and already is — a major issue in this year’s presidential race is clear. According to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. “More voters pointed to immigration than to inflation as a top policy concern. The survey found that 35 percent of respondents listed immigration as their paramount concern among an array of issues, with inflation in a close second, named by 32 percent of respondents.”
Beware Democrats. You are on the wrong side of this issue.
“We need immigrants in this country,” Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler said Thursday during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement hearing. “Our vegetables would rot in the ground if they weren’t being picked by many immigrants — many illegal immigrants.”
“The fact is, the birth rate in this country is way below replacement level,” he continued. Nadler is adamantly anti-life and given that abortion is responsible for the deaths of millions of unborn American children, it’s unlikely that he’s sincerely concerned about the United States’ replacement rates.
Nadler’s remarks recall the Democratic party’s past reasoning for supporting slavery. Federalist Senior Editor Mark Hemingway pointed out that Democrats in 1823 were backing slavery because if there were no slaves, “Who would pick our cotton?” Today, Democrats are making the argument that low-wage working illegal migrants are necessary to pick “our vegetables.”
Another striking comparison is the Democrats’ past support of slave traders and their current aiding of human trafficking at the southern border. As Federalist CEO Sean Davis explained, “Before the Civil War, Democrats bought their slaves from human traffickers who kidnapped them and then shipped them across the Atlantic. In 2023, they use cartels to smuggle illegal immigrants across a border Democrats refuse to close.”
Indeed, human trafficking at our southern border is now a multi-billion dollar business, and Democrats have no plan to stop the abuse. In December alone, over 300,000 illegal immigrants crossed into the United States.
Now, illegal immigration isn’t just a problem for border states but the entire nation. Massive influxes of aliens are now invading places like New York City and Chicago, putting massive strain on city resources. Meanwhile, the fentanyl crisis created by the open southern border is taking countless American lives in all corners of the country — both urban and rural.
This week, citizens were given some hope after the Texas Military Department took over a 2.5-mile long stretch along the Rio Grande River, supposedly to stop illegal immigration in the high-traffic crossing area and keep out federal border officials who “perpetuate illegal immigrant crossings in the park and greater Eagle Pass area.”
However, as my colleague Jordan Boyd explained, the move appears to be nothing more than political theater. “Yet despite the addition of personnel, barriers, gates, concertina wire, and military Humvees’ to the area,” Boyd wrote, Texas Gov. “Abbott has not authorized the Texas National Guard to detain and deport illegal immigrants, who are still being turned over to Border Patrol for processing and, in most cases, release.”
“So, while the move prompted an outcry from the Biden administration and federal border officials who say the state’s interference prevents them from doing their jobs,” she added, “Abbott’s move won’t fundamentally change the dynamic at the border.”
In other words, the border remains open, and the drug and human trafficking crises caused by it rage on. But, according to Nadler, it’s all worth it because the vegetable industry needs people to pick produce for exploitative slave wages.
Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.
Democrats’ open border is turning the entire United States into a refugee camp. The record-breaking numbers of foreigners allowed to break U.S. border laws are most heavily affecting large and sanctuary cities like New York City, but the numbers are so high they can’t help but affect cities across America as well.
Yesterday, a Brooklyn high school informed parents their children will be
getting low-quality remote instruction because their school is being turned into a refugee camp. The 4,000 students are being displaced on behalf of approximately 1,900 foreign lawbreakers. In spring 2023, city officials also occupied school gyms with migrants, prompting safety concerns from parents about unvetted, military-age male foreigners sharing buildings with their kids.
As the “Louder with Crowder” blog notes, “Brooklyn went 74%-25% to Joe Biden, whose policies started the current border crisis. Also, pro-illegal immigration Governor Kathy Hochul won Brooklyn 72% to 28%.”
BREAKING: Buses are now pulling up to @JMHSBklyn and dropping off illegals. School is closed tomorrow because illegals will be sleeping in the school’s gym. This is disgraceful! NYC is prioritizing illegals over Americans. pic.twitter.com/2jmKXfRTHXhttps://t.co/ViZiWlqTX5
This is just a stark illustration of a phenomenon affecting the 50 million American K-12 kids still
seriously struggling to recover from three years of lockdown learning damage. Just as they’ve gotten back into schools, American kids everywhere are being placed in classrooms with even more illegal migrant kids who don’t speak the language, don’t share our customs, are in high-risk
circumstances linked with bad classroom behavior, and whose trafficking into America is swelling the fortunes of evil cartels.
A slightly earlier mass influx of foreigners, mostly Somalis, to the Midwestern Twin Cities has helped turn parts of the city and its schools into no-go zones. A majority of staff feel unsafe in high-violence St. Paul schools, and only one in five students in that district are meeting math and reading benchmarks. Foreign-born English language learners are the least proficient in reading, with aggregate scores even lower than those of homeless kids.
Statewide, Minnesota kids’ latest reading and math scores are the lowest on record. Kids don’t learn anything in those schools except violence-justifying racial grievance ideology. At this point, they’re not actually schools; they’re juvenile detention centers. A key factor making them juvenile detention centers is Democrats’ influx of illegally present foreign-born kids.
It’s completely impossible for a teacher to help kids seriously learn when several in a classroom don’t even speak English and arrive with little foundation for learning. Creating this situation is stiffing all the kids already here, who in cities like Minneapolis already enter school struggling. Further stretching already broken public institutions is not charity — it’s avoiding existing responsibilities.
The open border is rapidly replicating these circumstances across the country. The Biden administration is depositing pockets of “refugees” and fraudulent asylum seekers in flyover cities, making the border problem national. An Afghan “refugee” relocated to Billings, Montana was quickly charged with rape, which some Islamists consider a form of jihad. In Europe, “refugee” influxes have accompanied dramatic increases in rape. The Billings migrants also enter a city with already overcrowded schools.
Sioux City, Iowa schools are majority-minority, a dramatic and quick change. The district pays for services that help translate English into more than 150 languages. Most kids in the district are under the federal poverty level, qualifying them for multiple welfare programs and subsidies.
The same is true in Chicago, Boston, Denver, Washington D.C., and smaller cities across the American heartland. Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City, Wichita, and St. Louis all dramatically increased in foreign-born residents from 2010 to 2019 by 10 to 50 percent, and given border data since Biden took office, it’s certain that has seen yet another spike.
All these school districts were lower-performing than the rest of their states even before lockdowns and migrant dropoffs. Those two have made things even worse for everyone in town and everyone across the nation funding this national self-destruction. Admitting illegal border crossers to public schools violates American citizen children’s rights, secured in most state constitutions, to an effective education.
It is not the American government’s job to teach every poor kid in the world English, give them breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and provide their housing and health care. It sounds charitable, but it’s really an abdication of the government’s core duty to secure the rights of its own citizens. It is logistically impossible and existentially destructive for American taxpayers and communities to be forced to accept massive numbers of people whom our social institutions radicalize against this country rather than assimilate.
It’s ridiculous to think Americans should tolerate our libraries, schools, public parks, shopping malls, and every other public area made completely inhospitable by people breaking our laws and stealing our peace. This is our home, and we have a right to evict all trespassers who exploit our goodwill and generosity. Nobody would tolerate squatters in his living room because that violates Americans’ natural rights to affirmatively consent to those who would join our communities, as well as to property and safety.
New York City residents are dying in the streets in droves. Native kids in their schools can hardly read and write by eighth grade. It’s utterly ridiculous to think that city or any other should be doing anything for random foreigners when it cannot keep its own people from dying in their bodily excretions on the curb. The solution to refugee camps is not to make them cover the entire country.
Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her ebooks include “Classic Books For Young Children,” and “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media from Fox News to Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Her traditionally published books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.
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 study discredits the claim that climate change is largely responsible for mass migration, suggesting that the Biden administration is using it to distract from its open-border immigration policies. Pictured: A woman walks down a street in Gardi Sugdub, Panama, on Oct. 11. (Photo: Adri Salido/Getty Images)
Simon Hankinson, a former foreign service officer with the State Department, is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.
The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.
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To avoid admitting that President Joe Biden’s own policies are responsible for mass illegal migration, his administration is keen to implicate “climate change” as the root cause instead. Biden has done everything in his power to facilitate unlimited immigration, from setting up overseas “Safe Mobility Offices” to encouraging asylum claims to inventing “lawful pathways” that are really unlawful, using mass immigration parole to bypass requiring a visa for entry into the country. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has shifted all available resources from deterring illegal aliens to instead bringing them into the country.
By releasing thousands of illegal aliens at the border daily and fostering nearly unlimited asylum applications, the Biden administration adds to court backlogs already so long that aliens have de facto amnesty. The small percentage of asylum cases that eventually qualify have been buried by fraudulent and spurious ones. This is all by design. But the Biden administration is hoping to distract from this dismal record by blaming the whole thing on climate change.
The White House’s “Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration” declares “the United States will need to strengthen the application of existing protection frameworks, adjust U.S. protection mechanisms to better accommodate people fleeing the impacts of climate change, and evaluate the need for additional legal protections for those who have no alternative but to migrate.”
That word salad could mean more bogus immigration parole programs and including climate change in the criteria for granting asylum. But blaming illegal mass migration on warmer weather is politics, not science. Linking small changes in annual planetary average temperatures to specific weather patterns is difficult. Blaming weather for individual decisions to illegally come to the United States—often through several safe countries on the way—is not credible.
A recent Migration Policy Institute report notes that “[e]nvironmental issues are generally minor factors in people’s migration decisions, typically far behind economic imperatives, even in highly climate-affected countries.” A report by the Dialogue cites “political crises, economic insecurity, violence, weak social protection systems, COVID-19 contagion, low vaccination rates, and natural disasters” as “factors explaining current migration.” It concludes that “overall, aspirational or poor material conditions in the homeland is an important common denominator.”
A lack of affordable and reliable energy is associated with a lack of access to clean water, adequate medical care, affordable transportation, and economic opportunities, all of which stall human advancement, especially in the most vulnerable countries. Energy, in all its diverse forms, should be harnessed by all societies—because high-income societies are also high-energy societies.
(The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)
In other words, when illegal aliens select the U.S. as their destination, their main reason is to leave poverty and look for a better life either through finding a job or relying on America’s social safety net.
Under U.S. immigration law, being poor or wanting a better job don’t qualify an alien for asylum. To be eligible, applicants have to prove that if returned home, they would be persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. The “particular social group” category, already too broad, was expanded beyond reason by Biden administration guidance to the government staff who decide asylum cases. With the system already overburdened, activists now want to expand the asylum criteria even further.
The New York Times recently reported on the Miskito people of Honduras. Historically poor, subject to hurricanes, and now beset by drug cartels, some of them picked up and left. They didn’t relocate within Honduras or go to the nearest safe countries—Mexico or Guatemala—but trekked 2,500 miles north to the United States. Drawn by Biden’s open border, they now plan to claim asylum based on “extreme weather wrought by climate change,” helped by the National Immigration Project.
But the reality is that America is not to blame for their plight. U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have been falling. This is not because of Biden’s massive subsidies to renewable energy and electric vehicles; it’s the fruit of improved technology and investment by the private sector, as well as the conversion to cleaner natural gas.
In Europe, Germany and Britain are crippling their economies and sticking their populations with huge increases in energy costs in the pursuit of lower emissions. Meanwhile, China is building a coal-fired power plant every two weeks and continues to increase emissions year over year. India isn’t far behind.
This doesn’t stop the global Left from using climate change as an irrefutable catchall cause for illegal immigration, for which they blame only the developed world. Beijing wins again as mass migration based on fraud only targets desirable countries like the U.S. Other than maybe North Koreans, no one is lining up to get into China.
The plight of the Miskito, and of hundreds of millions of people across this crowded planet, can inspire our sympathy and aid, but it is not grounds for asylum. If we wish to remain a stable and prosperous society in an uncertain world, it can never be grounds for asylum.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that “[p]rojected population displacements by 2050 in Central and South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia due to climate change, rang[e] from 31 million to 143 million people.” To call that range “ballpark” would be generous, but there is no doubt that millions will continue to migrate, for various reasons, in the future. That doesn’t make it the duty of every desirable country on earth to surrender control over its borders, identity, and destiny in response.
Who comes to the United States, how many, and where from is a decision for American voters, not for globalist climate crusaders. The U.S. should offer our expertise and example to help countries overcome the challenges of a changing planet, but we can’t be the world’s default refuge.
Our current asylum system was designed for the 1950s, with the fresh memory of Jews fleeing Nazi extermination and dissidents fleeing communist tyranny. This humanitarian program was not intended for, and it has been destroyed by, mass migration for largely economic reasons. The result is engendering political pushback across the developed world. The U.S. needs to rethink the Refugee Act of 1980, which defines who qualifies for asylum. Climate change should be explicitly excluded, and the “particular social group” category eliminated or, at the very least, tightly restricted.
Under the Biden administration, it doesn’t really matter to the Miskito or other asylum claimants how unsound the basis of their claim is. They’ll be allowed to remain in the United States and work while they wait out a many-years-long court process. That’s ridiculous, and it’s why, in May of this year, the House of Representatives passed needed reform of the asylum criteria that would require people to wait for their asylum decision outside the U.S.
In the national interest, the Senate and Biden should accept these necessary reforms and abandon the canard that climate change justifies the president’s failed immigration policies.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted in a September report that foreign terrorists are exploiting the Biden-manufactured border crisis to illegally enter the United States.
Released last month by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the “Homeland Threat Assessment” for fiscal year 2024 includes an admission by the agency that international terrorists are looking to capitalize on the Biden administration’s open border policies and the resulting influx of illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border to enter the American homeland. Under the section titled, “Border and Immigration Security,” the report specifically noted how “[t]errorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.”
The agency further acknowledged “individuals with potential terrorism connections” are actively attempting to enter the U.S. thanks to the ongoing crisis. Months before the 2023 fiscal year ended, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had already encountered approximately 160 individuals on the Terrorist Screening Data Set (TSDS), or “watchlist” — more than the 100 or so encountered in the entirety of the 2022 fiscal year. According to the report, “Inclusion in the TSDS ranges from known associates of watchlisted individuals, such as family members, to individuals directly engaged in terrorist activity.”
Despite proclaiming support for a “secure” border, President Joe Biden and his administration have routinely dismantled policies that helped stymie the ongoing crisis. In addition to auctioning off border wall construction materials, Biden moved to gut the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy shortly after taking office. That policy required illegal border crossers seeking asylum to stay in the Latin American country until their court hearing.
It’s estimated that nearly 7 million illegal immigrants have been “encountered” at the U.S.-Mexico border since Biden took office, according to the New York Post. And that doesn’t even include the potentially millions of “gotaways” who evaded capture by CBP agents.
Last month’s DHS assessment was issued weeks before Hamas — an Iranian-backed terrorist organization operating out of Gaza — launched a series of unprovoked and barbaric attacks against Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The attacks have since prompted concerns that foreign-based terrorist organizations could exploit America’s open border to illegally enter the U.S. and launch similar operations.
In response to possible threats, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the state’s public safety division to coordinate with local and federal law enforcement on “heightened public safety measures,” with a particular focus on raising awareness of possible threats against the state’s Jewish community by Iranian-backed terrorist groups.
In its new threat assessment, DHS specifically highlighted Iran — the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism — and its “intent to plot attacks against current and former US government officials.”
“Iran relies on individuals with pre-existing access to the United States for surveillance and lethal plotting—using dual nationals, members of criminal networks, and private investigators,” the report reads, adding that Tehran has even attempted to carry out plots “that do not require international travel for operatives.”
The report also listed Hezbollah — another Iranian-backed terrorist group operating out of Lebanon — as another source of potential foreign terror threats.
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
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