TUCSON, Ariz. — Kevin McCarthy began to build the case for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment this week with the California lawmaker’s first trip to the border as House speaker. Talking to reporters, with the southeast Arizona border wall serving as his backdrop, McCarthy outlined the myriad crises plaguing the nation due to unchecked migration and charged the DHS secretary with lying to the public.
“Our border, we don’t even have operational control of it anymore,” McCarthy said. “This is why I will continue to investigate what has gone wrong here and we will hold people accountable. And that includes Secretary Mayorkas.”
In an exclusive interview with The Federalist after the press conference, McCarthy offered no timeline for a potential impeachment inquiry and maintained that the process depends on what lawmakers find over the coming weeks.
“You never do impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy said. “If something rises to that level,” he explained, “we will follow it wherever it goes.”
McCarthy led the congressional delegation with four GOP freshman, kicking off what will be a top priority for the new Republican majority under the second half of President Joe Biden’s term. Every House committee is expected to visit the southwest border in the ensuing months. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., already introduced an article of impeachment against the DHS chief on Feb. 1.
In November, McCarthy demanded that Mayorkas resign over the border crisis or face impeachment in the lower chamber once Republicans took over. Mayorkas has remained defiant while the cartels run rampant. A coalition of 21 attorneys general sent a letter to the Biden administration last week demanding that Mexican drug cartels be designated as terrorist organizations.
Days before the speaker’s border trip this week, DHS staffed up to face House impeachment proceedings, entering a multimillion-dollar contract with a liberal law firm that has a history of left-wing donations.
“You cannot tell us this is secure when more than 42 percent of gottaways come through here,” McCarthy said on Thursday. “You cannot tell us this border’s secure when now there is enough fentanyl in this country to kill every single American more than 20 times over.”
“This has got to stop,” the speaker added. “And it starts with the secretary of Homeland. Stop lying to the American public. Tell them the truth [about] what’s happening and change back the regulation that we had before so our border can be secure.”
The White House hit McCarthy’s border trip as a partisan publicity stunt with a Wednesday statement. “Solutions are what President Biden is focused on, and his is plan working,”said Ian Sams, a White House spokesman. “House Republicans would be wise to join him to work together to strengthen our immigration system and fund border security.”
Biden’s first border visit was a sanitized tour in January, with officials clearing the camps in El Paso before the president’s arrival. Biden proceeded to call on Congress to pass immigration reform at his annual State of the Union last week and claimed his border measures were working.
“We’ve launched a new border plan last month. Unlawful migration from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela has come down 97 percent as a consequence of that,” Biden said. “But American border problems won’t be fixed until Congress acts.”
ACTS ON WHAT????????? Fund what???????? The Wall has been funded since Clinton. Finish the Wall. We’ve got the materials. Put it up.
Contrary to his claims the border is secure, data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows otherwise.
Law enforcement reported more than 156,000 migrant encounters in January. While lower than the record of nearly 252,000 encounters in December, 156,000 is still higher than the almost 155,000 in January last year and the 78,000 the same month in 2021 — and way higher than the less than 37,000 in FY 2020. In fact, it’s an all-time high for the coldest month of the year. Even bundled-up reporters shivered under cloudless skies in the high desert winds when lawmakers ran late on Thursday.
A Deadly Crisis
While the Biden administration tries to argue there’s nothing to see on the southern border, Alex Espinosa, the director of a funeral home 15 miles east of McCarthy’s press conference, says otherwise.
“During Trump’s administration, I picked up four border crossers,” Espinosa told The Federalist in his conference room overlooking the border wall. “Right now, I can’t even tell you how many. There’s more deaths. Way more deaths.”
Most, Espinosa said, die from exposure to the elements or fentanyl. He explained the numbers picked up “right after Biden won.”
“Never, never, never, ever have I seen it this bad,” Espinosa told The Federalist. “I’ve probably buried 40 kids.”
A reformed ex-convict himself, Espinosa, 61, served time behind bars for drug smuggling 30 years ago. He now hands out free Narcan, a medication known to save lives in the case of opioid overdose, at services, saying it has become a hot commodity. The local health department replenished his stockpile after it ran out during a single funeral for a recent 23-year-old who overdosed. His own son has also struggled with opioid addiction.
In Naco, a town on the border five miles south of Espinosa’s funeral home, locals were shy about the crisis. A ranch hand working in a field with a pair of day laborers from across the border offered only his first name, Greg, and said he often sees helicopter activity but described the overall area as tame. Another pair of women operating a local nonprofit in the community denied the area even faced issues.
Espinosa, however, who conducts the funerals for the border crisis victims, said locals often feel too intimidated to speak openly about the dangers their neighborhoods face. Despite his Mexican heritage, Espinosa has been tarred as a racist, and his truck was burned after he challenged the mayor of Douglas over the leader’s plans to declare the border town a sanctuary city.
“They need to finish the wall,” Espinosa said frankly, warning that until then, the area would not be safe to walk around at night.
McCarthy told The Federalist on Thursday at the conclusion of his congressional tour that DHS needs to complete the wall with modern technology as originally planned.
“You gotta finish this,” McCarthy said, pointing at the wall. “Finish the technology you haven’t hooked up — the lights, the sensors. There’s places in the wall that’s not done yet.”
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Republicans convened the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Tuesday to evaluate the “front lines of the border crisis” but Democrats were less than cooperative in the GOP’s efforts to hear from two chief patrol agents.
“President Biden and his administration have created the worst border crisis in American history,” committee chairman Republican Rep. James Comer said in his opening remarks.
Comer and several other GOP members on the committee pointed to President Joe Biden as the reason millions of migrants, including suspected terrorists, illegally cross the border. Witnesses — CBP Chief Patrol Agent of the Tucson sector John Modlin and Chief Patrol Agent of the Rio Grande Valley sector Gloria Chavez — confirmed this in their testimonies.
“In the Tucson sector, interviewing people post-arrest, what became the most common response [from migrants] was that they believed that when the administration changed that the law changed and policy changed and that there was an open border,” Modlin said.
The chiefs agreed that border security measures like the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (often referred to as the “Remain in Mexico” policy), which Biden eliminated with the stroke of a pen at the beginning of his term, were “effective” at combatting the staggering number of illegal migrants flooding the border.
And staggering those numbers are.
“We went from what I would describe as unprecedented to a point where I don’t have the correct adjective to describe what’s going on,” Modlin said.
Democrats Opt for Smears over Accountability
House Democrats, who had two years to give Biden’s disastrous border the oversight it required but failed to do so, were less interested in asking the CBP officials questions and far more interested in criticizing Republicans for suggesting that Democrats’ lax border policies are responsible for the worst migrant influx in U.S. history.
Before the hearing, the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security tried to obstruct oversight by Republicans by keeping CBP officials from testifying. Democrats joined in their attempts to taint the GOP’s investigation into the border crisis with smears that Republicans wanted “to amplify white nationalist conspiracy theories instead of a comprehensive solution to protect our borders and strengthen our immigration system.”
The “QAnon caucus” and “anti-immigrant” name-calling continued in the hearing after ranking Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin launched another round of politically motivated attacks in his opening remarks.
The same Democrats who bought into and promoted the border patrol whipping lie claimed that Republicans “demonize migrants” and refuse to fund the border through Democrats’ omnibus wish list. Washington D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton even went so far as to blame the GOP for the El Paso Walmart shooting.
Despite Democrats’ attempts to turn the hearing into a political circus painting the border crisis as a funding problem, instead of a policy problem, the witnesses confirmed that the U.S. southern border is comprised in a way it’s never been in the past.
Cartels ‘Leveraging Chaos’
A large part of the Republicans’ border inquiry centered on the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border against cartels, which Chavez said have become “more active” in trafficking humans and drugs into the U.S. in “recent years.”
“Cartels are leveraging chaos at the border. They are using their human smuggling operations to overwhelm U.S. Border Patrol agents with large migrant groups, often placing migrants in peril,” Comer said. “They create these diversions at the expense of human life to traffic dangerous narcotics like fentanyl, across our southern border. These deadly drugs then make their way into communities across the United States and poison our neighbors and our children.”
“No one crosses the border in Tucson sector without going through the cartels,” Modlin confirmed in his testimony. Chavez testified the same about her district.
“[Migrants are] pretty much confined to whatever those cartels require to be able to see their family member again,” she said.
Democrats tried to claim that the problems at the border are a “humanitarian crisis, not a criminal one.” Yet, none of them mentioned the connection between cartels’ illegal activities and migrants, including the criminals’ lack of care for the men, women, and children who have to bribe them for passage to the U.S.
“What my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are failing to recognize is in order to get here, [migrants] have to deal with a group of people that is not interested in human rights. They place no value on humanity. If they can make money on it, they will exploit it,” Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong said. “I think one of the mistakes we make quite often is we talk about [cartels] like they’re drug cartels. They’re in the business of making money and whatever the path of least resistance is, is how they make money.”
Cartels’ billion-dollar migrant smuggling business, Modlin and Chavez said, deliberately puts illegal border crossers in danger so Border Patrol agents will leave their posts to conduct rescue missions.
“There are a lot of migrants out there that are out there requiring rescue. So, a lot of times, our agents are out there rescuing people, being task-saturated in rescues, abetting frontline operations, so therefore cartels take advantage of that,” Chavez said.
Both Republicans and Democrats agree that the proliferation of fentanyl in the U.S. is a serious issue that needs addressing. What the representatives did not agree on is that it’s Biden’s policies that embolden the cartels to manufacture and smuggle fentanyl into the states.
Multiple Democrat representatives tried to blame the proliferation of fentanyl on U.S. citizens who are often selected to bring the drugs to the United States. Rep. Katie Porter even had the audacity to argue that because CBP is seizing more fentanyl now than it was before 2020, border security under Biden is a “success.”
“Regardless of who’s bringing it across the border, U.S. citizens, ports of entry, between ports of entry, not ports of entry, the drugs that are killing people in my communities are being made by the cartels,” Armstrong pointed out.
Modlin and Chavez both said their agents are overworked and overwhelmed by the crisis. Unless there’s a national policy shift on the border, the historic crisis is only going to get worse.
“What happens on the border affects the entirety of the country,” Modlin said.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
Such a smash success has Joe Biden’s presidency been so far that even the Chinese are sending up balloons. That’s more or less what Biden will say, over and over, during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The economy is humming. Inflation is cooling. Electric vehicle sales are raging. There has never been a more orderly southern border.
It will all sound very scary to viewers who will rightly begin to question their own sanity. Or perhaps it will make you feel like everyone else is getting ahead while you’re inexplicably falling behind.
Don’t panic. When confronted with these anxieties, there are steps you can take to re-ground yourself in reality. For instance, when Biden says something confusing — something like, “Folks! Energy costs are down, folks!” — remember to yourself that this is a lie. As of Monday, national gas prices averaged higher per gallon than a year before. It’s more than a dollar per gallon higher than it was in January 2021, the month Biden was inaugurated.
Biden will likely also mention “steps” he has taken to control the unabated flow of hundreds of thousands of destitute migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. In that stupefying moment, take a deep breath and refer to this chart maintained by Biden’s own administration, showing that December had the highest number of illegal aliens encountered by border agents — ever. That month, there were more than 250,000 migrants who unlawfully crossed into the U.S. The month before, almost 235,000. That’s nearly half a million migrants throwing themselves into the care of the American taxpayer in just two months’ time. They openly say they’re here because of Biden.
Democrat congressmen will leap to their feet and clap with ferocity when Biden says inflation is down. (Or even that higher prices are actually a great thing!) He might even say costs increased less than 6 percent from this time last year. If you feel a spinning sensation, close your eyes, count to 10, then look at this data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The less-than-6 stat is if you exclude food and energy prices.
In other words, if you don’t account for the things you depend on to survive, inflation really isn’t that bad! By itself, food cost is actually up more than 10 percent. It’s probably close to 12 — and maybe much more. Energy is up more than 7 percent. Mind you, this has been a year of rising costs, where each month it’s been more expensive to simply live than it was the same time a year before.
Biden’s vertigo-inducing speech will surely go on for what feels like an eternity, earning applause for assertions that are the exact opposite of reality. But remember, this too shall pass.
FIRST ON FOX: A coalition of 20 states and a top conservative legal group is suing the Biden administration over its recently-expanded humanitarian parole program that allows tens of thousands of migrants from designated countries a month into the U.S. — arguing that the program is unlawful. The lawsuit, filed by Texas and America First Legal in the Southern District of Texas, is joined by 19 additional states who are seeking to block the Biden administration’s parole program which allow up to 30,000 migrants from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela into the U.S. each month.
The Biden administration announced the program for Venezuelans in October, which allowed a limited number to fly directly into the U.S. as long as they had not entered illegally, had a sponsor in the U.S. already and passed certain checks.
Earlier this month, President Biden announced that the program would be expanding to include Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans, and that the program would allow up to 30,000 a month into the U.S. It was announced alongside an expansion of Title 42 expulsions to include those nationalities.
Around 60 recently arrived Venezuelan migrants are seen entering a shelter at Bellevue early Wednesday morning, Oct. 12, 2022, in Manhattan, New York. ((Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images))
“We anticipate this action is going to substantially reduce the number of people attempting to cross our southwest border without going through a legal process,” he said.
In the lawsuit, led by Texas and America First Legal and joined onto by 19 additional Republican-led states, plaintiffs argue that the program is illegal given the “exceptionally limited” parole power available to the federal government. The lawsuit notes that parole is limited by Congress to be used on a “case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” — a standard which the lawsuit says the program fails to meet.
“The parole program established by the Department fails each of the law’s three limiting factors. It is not case-by-case, is not for urgent humanitarian reasons, and advances no significant public benefit. Instead, it amounts to the creation of a new visa program that allows hundreds of thousands of aliens to enter the United States who otherwise have no basis for doing so. This flouts, rather than follows, the clear limits imposed by Congress.”
The Biden administration has said the program is one of a number of ways it is expanding lawful migration pathways as a way to combat the ongoing migrant surge at the border that has seen historic numbers hit the border each month –and is calling on Congress to pass a broader immigration reform bill. Separately, it has used humanitarian parole to allow Afghans and Ukrainians into the U.S. in the last year. But conservative critics have said the latest program is illegal, and facilitates rather than stops the migrant surge.
The lawsuit says that the program is also unlawful as it did not engage in the notice-and-comment rulemaking required by the Administrative Procedure Act — by which a number of immigration policies have been at least temporarily struck down in recent years. It also argues that the states “face substantial irreparable harms from the Department’s abuse of its parole authority, which allow potentially hundreds of thousands of additional aliens to enter each of their already overwhelmed territories.”
“Every state in America, especially border states like Texas, is being crushed by the impacts of illegal immigration,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “The Biden open borders agenda has created a humanitarian crisis that is increasing crime and violence in our streets, overwhelming local communities, and worsening the opioid crisis. This unlawful amnesty program, which will invite hundreds of thousands of aliens into the U.S. every year, will only make this immigration crisis drastically worse.”
The lawsuit also marks the latest in a flurry of legal challenges to the Biden administration’s policies by America First Legal — a conservative legal group launched by former Trump White House official Stephen Miller, who he described as being “at the forefront of the legal battle to save America’s borders from complete annihilation at the hands of this lawless administration.”
Miller labeled the Biden program as “pre-amnesty for what would be illegal aliens before they even arrive at our border.” He also compared it to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which granted protection from deportation to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors.
“This is a dramatic escalation in the open borders crusade – not only is Biden freely admitting illegal aliens who arrive at our borders, but he is now going to foreign countries to pre-approve innumerable illegal aliens to flood into our country without any legal basis whatsoever. It is illegal, unconstitutional, and contemptible,” he said.
The states joining onto the lawsuit with Texas are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The new parole program came after more than 250,000 migrants were encountered at the southern border in December, a new record. However, the Biden administration has said it believes that the new measures are already having an effect and that there has been a drop in migrant encounters at the border from those nationalities.
“The December update shows our new border enforcement measures are working. Even as overall encounters rose because of smugglers spreading misinformation around the court-ordered lifting of the Title 42 public health order, we continued to see a sharp decline in the number of Venezuelans unlawfully crossing our southwest border, down 82% from September 2022,” acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement last week. “Early data suggests the expanded measures for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans are having a similar impact, and we look forward to sharing the additional data in the next update.“
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security. He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter.
Despite a general lack of concern among Democrats and corporate media, the U.S.-Mexico border continues to spiral out of control, setting new records for illegal border crossings nearly every month now. In October, more than 230,000 illegal immigrants were arrested along the southwest border, the third-highest monthly total in U.S. history, according to new data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Only May and April of this year have been worse than October, with 235,785 and 241,136 arrests, respectively.
Prior to the Biden administration, monthly arrests at the border rarely exceeded 100,000. In October 2020, for example, roughly 45,000 illegal border-crossers were arrested by CBP. But now it has become commonplace. Every month since March, arrests have surpassed 200,000.
For some historical perspective on the October 2022 numbers, consider that in all of 2017 there were only about 303,000 border arrests, total. And just 46,000 in October of that year.
Since President Joe Biden has taken office, more than 5 million illegal immigrants, including so-called “gotaways” whom Border Patrol wasn’t able to arrest, have crossed the southern border. And unlike previous years, there is no sign of a seasonal ebb and flow at the border. At a time of year when crossings are typically slow, we are now seeing a massive surge.
Apologists for President Biden’s border crisis in the corporate press tend to dismiss these shocking figures and attempt to explain them away by claiming the high monthly totals represent the same people crossing illegally, being expelled under Title 42, and attempting to cross again.
What they don’t mention is that border data has always reflected this phenomenon. Of the 230,000 arrests last month, about 19 percent “had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months,” according to CBP. This is only a 5 percent rise compared to the average 14 percent reencounter rate from 2014 to 2019.
Despite these outrageous statistics, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has doubled down on his claim that the border is “secure.”
Asked recently whether he “continue[s] to maintain that the border is secure” by Rep. Dan Bishop, R- North Carolina, Mayorkas responded, “Yes, and we are working day in and day out to enhance its security.”
Sophia is an intern at The Federalist and a student at Le Moyne College. She majors in English and intends to pursue a career in journalism.
In April, a government watchdog reported that Border Patrol didn’t gather and record “complete data on migrant deaths.”
Jennie Taer//Daily Caller News Foundation
“Smuggling organizations are abandoning migrants in remote and dangerous areas, leading to a rise in the number of rescues but also tragically a rise in the number of deaths,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda told CBS. “The terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving.”
The problem has become so dire that morgues in towns along the border have run out of space.
“It’s gotten to the point where the state has to provide a refrigerator trailer where we’re having to take the deceased to and they’re there for maybe between about 24-72 hours where we try to get an identification on the person and at that point another sad thing that’s happening is our justices of the peace, they’re ordering autopsies on these unfortunate persons and the medical examiners that we use in Webb County…they’re starting to kind of turn us away because of the high volume of the deceased that they’re having,” Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber told the Daily Caller in September.
CBP attributes the issue to transnational criminal organizations who “continue to recklessly endanger the lives of individuals they smuggle for their own financial gain with no regard for human life,” the agency told the DCNF.
“Smuggling organizations are abandoning migrants in remote and dangerous areas, leading to a rise in the number of rescues but also tragically a rise in the number of deaths. The terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving. Despite these inherent dangers, smugglers continue to lie to migrants claiming the borders are open. The borders are not open, and people should not attempt to make the dangerous journey,” CBP added.
This story has been updated with comment from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said that the Biden administration’s announcement of its decision to end Title 42, which never came to fruition, unleashed a wave of migrants bound for the U.S., in a sit-down interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation in his presidential palace.
Guatemala has recently seen large waves of illegal migrants because of Biden administration policies in the U.S., including its announcement to scrap Title 42, the public health order used to expel certain migrants to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Giammattei told the DCNF. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on April 1 that Title 42 would end on May 23, but the move was blocked in a lawsuit led by Republican states. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Guatemalan President Says Biden Admin Refused To Help Him Deport Illegal Migrants Bound For The US Border)
“We have recently seen a very serious increase in the number of migrants seeking to cross our border,” Giammattei said. “When Title 42 was eliminated, we see an even greater increase in the crossings through Guatemala, illegal crossings through Guatemala to reach the United States illegally as well.”
WATCH:
The Biden administration also instituted a new rule to expel illegal migrants from Venezuela, while granting legal entry to 24,000 other Venezuelans that meet certain qualifications. Giammattei said that the program is also leading to problems for his country as Venezuelans continue to pass through with a new uncertain fate.
“And now that the Venezuelans we understand that have the possibility of obtaining a visa, that means another problem for Guatemala. We have no relationships with Venezuela, we do not have diplomatic exchanges, we don’t have an embassy here or there,” Giammattei said.
“Therefore, we cannot issue passports or any kind of identification for Venezuelan nationals here in Guatemala and that means a huge amount of a floating population that is going to become a serious problem for this country. While we remain stopping them here,” he added.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said the Biden administration refused to provide Guatemala with the tools to deport illegal migrants heading to the U.S., in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation from his presidential palace.
Giammattei told the DCNF that he’d requested that the Biden administration move its deportation planes and buses to Guatemala for the country to use in returning illegal migrants to their home countries before they reach the U.S. He said it would save the Biden administration hefty costs of such large migration waves and allow migrants from far away places to go home immediately. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: What Happens To Illegal Migrants After They’ve Been Deported? We Went South Of The Border To Find Out.)
Guatemala hopes to deter such action by working with the Biden administration to deport them as soon as they can.
“Having all of these people in the United States costs the U.S. government millions and millions of dollars. We have suggested that they should keep the airplanes here, so that we ourselves can deport them back to their countries of origin, be it Haiti or be it whatever the country. If they keep their airplanes here, we can send them back. Otherwise, why wait until the people reach U.S. soil to then spend millions and millions of dollars to then send them back?” Giammattei said.
Currently, Guatemala expels non-Central American illegal migrants to Honduras. Several illegal migrants from Afghanistan who were expelled to Honduras recently crossed back into Guatemala and reached Mexico in a matter of days, they told the DCNF.
“We have also stated that we could use the buses to return these people to their countries of origin,” Giammattei said. “And they have told us that they cannot do that because their laws don’t allow it.”
The U.S. has invested a total of over $109 million in programs in Guatemala in 2022.
On Oct. 13, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala announced that it gave 95 vehicles, including Toyota Hilux vehicles, Hino 5 and 12 ton trucks, Toyota Land Cruisers and Suzuki ATVs to the Guatemalan military to support border security efforts. The donation is meant to support Guatemala’s efforts in combating transnational crime and drug trafficking.
Despite the large amounts of aid for programs that support humanitarian, governance and health needs, as a few examples, Giammattei says there’s been little aid given to actually send illegal migrants back to their countries of origin. The Biden administration has emphasized that while giving aid, it’s working to crack down on corruption in Guatemala.
“We have requested assistance from the United States. And in this sense, we have received very little assistance,” Giammattei said.
Daily Caller News Foundation
Giammattei also mentioned the United Nations Office of International Migration (OIM or IOM) is aiding in the movement of illegal migrants. The U.S. government partially funds the agency.
“And as far as the IOM, they will take action only when a person becomes a voluntary returnee, they will say, ‘Oh, no, he doesn’t want to go back.’ So they just let them go through. And this is something we cannot allow,” Giammattei said.
The White House, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and IOM didn’t respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
CNN’s Dana Bash is trying to make the number of dangerous criminals pouring over the southern U.S. border sound far lower than it really is.
“Less than 1 percent of migrants encountered at the border have a criminal record,” Bash said while interviewing Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Sunday, claiming to cite Department of Homeland Security figures.
“I’m going to have to disagree with you on that figure you just put out,” Lake countered. “We don’t know what their background is. There’s a reason they’re trying to get in unnoticed; it’s because they have a criminal background.”
“We know that [DHS has] tracked down terrorists, they have tracked down people wanted for murder,” Lake continued. “We’ve got people with rape records, you name it, we’ve got hardened criminals.”
“Let me just tell you that this stat that I just cited comes from the Department of Homeland Security, less than 1 percent of migrants,” Bash doubled down.
DANA BASH: DHS says less than 1 percent of migrants encountered at the border have a criminal record
KARI LAKE: I have to disagree with you on that figure … we have murders coming in, we have people with rape records
To the half-listening viewer, “less than 1 percent” sounds like a small figure. But when you consider that border enforcement officials have encountered more than 2 million illegal aliens pouring over our southern border so far during fiscal year 2022 — with another month to go before the year concludes — that figure begins to tell a fuller story.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 2,150,639 apprehensions on the U.S.-Mexico border between October 2021 and August 2022, the most on record and more than four times the total apprehensions recorded in 2020.
DHS is up to 2,000,000 migrant encounters in 2022. Their numbers show hundreds of violent criminals crossing every year and thousands of criminals overall. https://t.co/LRm7G8yZr3pic.twitter.com/TRu8dUnLGO
CBP’s Office of Field Operations, which operates at ports of entry, reported 15,558 encounters of noncitizens “who have been convicted of crime, whether in the United States or abroad, so long as the conviction is for conduct which is deemed criminal by the United States,” during fiscal year 2022 so far. Border Patrol, which operates along the border between entry ports, reported 10,778. Combined, that’s more than 25,000 convicted criminals — a whopping figure, far more alarming and newsworthy than the “less than 1 percent” talking point parroted by CNN. For Americans, who count immigration among their top three concerns headed into the midterm elections, tens of thousands of criminals pouring over the border is no small figure.
Of the more than 10,000 criminals apprehended by Border Patrol this fiscal year, more than 1,000 had prior convictions for “assault, battery, [or] domestic violence,” 60 had been convicted of homicide or manslaughter, and more than 2,000 were convicted of “illegal drug possession [or] trafficking.” More than 300 had been convicted of “sexual offenses” and nearly 800 of “burglary, robbery, larceny, theft, [or] fraud.”
Just two weeks ago, a Guatemalan national in the U.S. illegally was arrestedfor stabbing eight people on the Las Vegas Strip. An illegal immigrant from Mexico is accused of fatally shooting his partner, two of her children, and two neighbors last month in McGregor, Texas. Earlier last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it had arrested an Ecuadorian man who had repeatedly entered the U.S. illegally and is accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in Ecuador. When a 10-year-old girl in Ohio made headlines for seeking an abortion after she was raped, her alleged rapist was revealed to be an illegal alien.
The significance of 25,000 convicted criminals crossing the southern border notwithstanding, merely looking at criminal records vastly undercounts the number of likely criminals the Biden administration is inviting to the border. Impunity rates in Mexico and Central American countries are ludicrously high, meaning the vast majority of people who commit crimes are never convicted.
As NBC News reported a year ago, “the think tank México Evalúa found that 94.8 percent of the cases reported in Mexico go unpunished.” Another group suggested that number was even higher, with only 1.3 percent of crimes in the country ever solved. The Associated Press cited one estimation that “as of 2020, almost nine of every 10 homicides in Mexico go unpunished.” Another group found that “Over a period of four years, prosecutors’ offices managed just 35 convictions nationally in a universe of more than 82,000 investigations of forced disappearance in Mexico.”
In Guatemala, the next most common country of citizenship among illegal immigrants encountered by Border Patrol, impunity rates are comparably high. Despite the efforts of a UN-backed commission targeting corruption and impunity, “94 percent of crimes went unpunished on average over the last decade in Guatemala,” according to the think tank InSight Crime. “In 2018 alone, the impunity rate was almost 98 percent.”
Those sky-high impunity rates suggest that the number of people arriving at the southern U.S. border who have committed crimes — which were likely never prosecuted by corrupt, backlogged law enforcement in their home countries — is far, far higher than the nice-sounding “less than 1 percent” figure rolling off of Bash’s tongue. Furthermore, any person who breaks into the United States illegally is automatically committing a crime by violating our immigration laws.
No matter how hard CNN and the rest of the corporate press try to spin the facts into a different story, they can’t deny this one: More criminals are illegally entering our country than ever before because illegal immigration is at an all-time high as a direct result of the Biden administration’s policies.
Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.
Earlier this month, a Washington Post editorial acknowledged there was “no end in sight to the procession of buses inbound” to Washington, D.C., and praised Mayor Muriel Bowser for earmarking $10 million for the nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants who have arrived in the capital — about 15 percent of whom intend to remain there.
The Biden administration pretends it has the burgeoning problem of illegal immigration under control. Late last month, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that people aren’t just walking across the border. And just last week, Vice President Kamala Harris insisted the border was “secure.”
Much of the national media are happy to play along with this deliberate deception. The same corporate media that last year blithely ignored the federal government’s mass, midnight airlifting of illegal immigrants to New York; Jacksonville, Florida; and points beyond are now obsessed when a southern governor flies 50 Venezuelans to swanky Martha’s Vineyard.
In their eyes, when the administration ships tens of thousands of illegal immigrants under cover of darkness, it’s no big deal. But if the Post spots 50 people flown into Martha’s Vineyard, somehow, it’s a “crisis.” The media never accused the administration of using migrants as pawns or being inhumane, yet the latter is doing exactly what Texas and Arizona are on a vast scale.
The Post’s editors argue that “state and local officials nationwide must accommodate a flow of migrants — in schools, shelters, streets” as if there is no alternative. They seem unaware that for 250 years, the United States had an immigration law and that, for much of that time, the executive branch did its job, enforcing the law and defending our border.
What the open-borders, sanctuary-city crowd are at last realizing is that their blank checks can be cashed. New York and Washington’s social services are drowning under a mere 10,000 arrivals each. They’re lucky not to be El Paso (population 684,000), which is dealing with 1,400 illegal migrants arriving per day, or Yuma (population 97,000), which has received 250,000 so far this year.
Mayor Bowser’s $10 million might sound like a lot but putting just 200 people in hotel rooms in Washington at $200 per night comes out to upwards of $15 million annually, and educating the “about 70” new illegal immigrant children now enrolled in D.C. public schools will cost a couple million more for the first year. What happens next year?
New York City already has 7,600 migrants in its homeless shelters, which are 99 percent full, and is struggling to find housing for 5,000 new arrivals. As if trying to put out a fire with an eye-dropper, the city has opened a $6.7 million “welcome center” in Manhattan to receive migrants arriving by bus. Cost estimates for housing the city’s noncitizens already exceed $300 million a year. To complicate things, New York requires residents to spend at least 90 days in a shelter before being eligible for housing vouchers. It also requires a background check to verify applications. This normally takes a month, but it will presumably longer to process illegal immigrants who have no records that can be checked.
Even assuming all the new arrivals actually claim asylum, the average wait for an initial hearing in New York is over three years. In the meantime, they will be public charges on the city’s schools, hospitals, and housing. How long will New York taxpayers put up with this? Well, Mayor Eric Adams has admitted that the city is reaching the end of its rope, and officials are now said to be reconsidering their “right to shelter” commitment to house unlimited foreign indigents on top of New York’s plentiful home-grown needy.
New York and Washington actually look tough compared to Chicago. Mayor Lori Lightfoot proudly signed a “Welcoming City” ordinance in February 2021 to stop city police from working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But when the first busloads of 50 migrants arrived in early September, she packed them off to neighboring Burr Ridge without telling its mayor.
Later, when 500 migrants arrived in Chicago, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared an emergency and called out the National Guard. Coincidentally, Chicago has suffered almost the same number (491) of murders this year, but that’s not considered an emergency worthy of mobilizing the guard.
How long will this game of pass-the-parcel continue? Migrants deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. However, that does not require those who enter illegally to stay here — on the taxpayer’s dime — until our overwhelmed immigration courts can get around to hearing their cases. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols, they could be housed outside our borders while their cases are considered. Even if not, ICE has to be allowed to do its duty, and those who fail to file for asylum or whose cases are denied after due process should be quickly deported as the law requires. It’s time President Biden stopped denying the crisis at the southern border and accepted the truth. Only then can we work for a national solution to the ongoing migrant crisis.
A former State Department official, Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Affairs.
It had been more than a year since Hashmatullah Niazy, a U.S. citizen, last saw his wife, Freshta, and four young children when they finally reunited in Austin, Texas this month.
While thousands of illegal immigrants pour across the southwest U.S. border daily, Afghan refugees abandoned by the Biden administration during the Afghanistan withdrawal are still struggling to gain legal entry to the United States.
It had been more than a year since Hashmatullah Niazy, a U.S. citizen who emigrated from Afghanistan, last saw his wife, Freshta, and four young children when they finally reunited in Austin, Texas this month. Niazy became a U.S. citizen in 2020 through the Special Immigrant Visa program after working as a translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. He began translating and training recruits at the Kabul Military Training Center in 2007 after his older brother died in combat while working with special forces. When Niazy obtained his U.S. visa in 2014, he resigned from his job and flew to the states.
Niazy told me he wanted to bring his family over with him, but every time he tried to initiate the immigration process, his wife was pregnant and wanted to avoid strenuous travel. Freshta and the children eventually joined the backlogged SIV immigration process before the Taliban took over the country, but their quest for permanent U.S. residency was derailed when President Joe Biden initiated the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan last fall.
I first reported on Niazy’s family situation in September 2021 when his brother, wife, and kids were all stranded in a Taliban-infested Kabul. At the time, Niazy was already in the United States, working nights and eagerly building a life for his family in Texas. But his excitement for his family’s new life in America was blunted when he realized they might not make it past the crowds at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul to get on an evacuation flight out of Afghanistan.
“Suddenly the Taliban took over the country and now we were like lost,” Niazy told me.
That’s when “angels from the sky” came in.
The Escape
After weeks of chaos at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, where some translators and their families were among the more than 200 people killed by a suicide bomber on August 26, Freshta and the kids, ranging in age from 3 to 12 years old, finally escaped Kabul at the end of September with the help of a large group of former U.S. soldiers, some trained in special operations.
Jim Young, Dan Fickel, Keye Perry, Joe Penkala, and another man named “Tom,” who is still in active government service and declined to give his last name, all graduated from West Point in 1994. When they saw the crisis in Afghanistan, they banded together to do everything they could to rescue Americans and Afghan allies the Biden administration had left behind. They enlisted the aid of several other former service members including Ryan Timoney, West Point class of 1993 graduate Dave Abrahams, retired Special Forces officer Matt Coburn, former Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, and Helen Jbeily of California Republican Rep. David Valadao’s office to actively shepherd Freshta, her brother-in-law, and her kids to the overcrowded, dangerous airport for evacuation while avoiding the Taliban as much as possible.
I talked to Penkala, a retired U.S. Army officer, about the rescue efforts after the Niazy family’s first attempt to seek evacuation at the airport.
“We had sort of an up and down type of situation, even after we had taken over his case, and had managed to get the family back to [the airport]. And it was through no small effort on the part of some folks from the Special Operations community, one individual in particular who was retired,” Penkala told me over the phone. “We actually got them to the North Gate [of the airport] so this is the second time they had made it to the airport. And even though there was an obvious way to bring them in, frankly, they were still left stranded. Nobody would open the gate for them even though at one point we only had about 25 people in front of the North Gate.”
At one point, Penkala told me that, “the Taliban began beating some of the local Afghans,” forcing the on-the-ground rescuers to adapt as the Niazy clan retreated to their apartment.
During that time, Niazy said his wife “never lost her courage.”
“There was the time that I lost my hope. That was the time when my wife said ‘It’s okay. Whatever it takes me to get my kids to their dad, I will do that,’” Niazy said. “So that was a time when she gave me the courage, she gave me the hope and I needed it.”
Efforts to orchestrate the evacuation of the Niazys and hundreds of others from the clutches of the Taliban were largely funded by one of Young’s business partners, Zekelman Industries out of Texas, which donated $1 million out of the $1.1 million required to reunite the Niazy family and other refugees after another sponsor backed out.
After days of chaos, the Niazy family and 528 other American citizens, legal permanent residents, their spouses, and their children were finally able to flee Afghanistan unharmed.
“We’re so thankful for all these great humans. From God first and then from all these humans that helped me and came into my life, me and my wife,” Niazy said.
Evacuation Was Only The Beginning
Even though the Niazy family applied to permanently rejoin the head of their household in the United States, it was a long and difficult process between September of last year and early April this year, when they were finally permitted to set foot on American soil.
“This was a family who was already in the process and had paperwork prepared. And, frankly, the wife was married to a U.S. citizen. This is the immediate family of a United States citizen and it took private efforts,” Penkala said. “And once we got them out of harm’s way, it took an additional five months to come into the country.”
During that time, Freshta and her children were at a refugee camp in the United Arab Emirates. While the family was safe from the dangers the Taliban posed to them, they were stuck in limbo and at the mercy of the American bureaucracy.
Penkala said “there were some folks who were kind enough to work through their connections to get them some additional food and supplies and that type of thing” but that didn’t help reunite the family.
Niazy admitted that the experience induced many “sleepless nights” for him as he anxiously waited for the green light. In total, it took more than five months for Niazy, an American citizen who served with U.S. forces in combat, to legally relocate his wife and kids to Texas.
The American Dream
The Niazy family may have had to jump through multiple hoops that illegal immigrants at the Southern border don’t, but a lack of help from the U.S. government hasn’t hampered their enthusiasm for the American Dream.
While Niazy works as an engineering technician, Freshta and the children are acclimating to their new lives along with Niazy’s parents, who also emigrated to the United States. Once the family moves to a new apartment, three of the four children will start attending school.
In just a couple of weeks, Freshta and the Niazy children are expected to receive their Social Security numbers. But for now he is thankful that his immediate family made it to a free country where his daughters can attend school.
“It’s the teaching of our parents that wherever you live, treat it as your home, keep it clean, and keep the environment clean and also treat your neighbors good,” Niazy said. “With this [Taliban] regime, no one is happy and everybody lost the hope that [Afghanistan] will ever be a free country.”
When I video chatted with the family last week, Niazy had just woken up after working a night shift at his engineering job and Freshta was preparing food in the family’s apartment kitchen. The children were happily chattering with each other as they played with toys. The youngest one gave me a shy wave.
“This is a beautiful life,” Niazy said as he bounced his daughter on his lap. “I’m very excited and very happy. And I am praying for those who helped me, these beautiful humans in my life.”
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
AUSTIN, Texas – During a recent trip to a Reynosa, Mexico migrant camp, I took photos of a United Nations-supported International Organization for Migration (IOM) operation to hand out cash debit cards to intending and repeat border crossers. One of two workers at a plastic folding table inside the Reynosa camp, which was filled to capacity with at least 1,200 mostly U.S.-expelled Central Americans, said they were distributing the cards for IOM to help migrants waiting until they cross the Rio Grande at greater leisure to claim asylum, for which most will be declared ineligible years later. Many parents, for instance, got about $400 every 15 days, I was told, or $800 a month if they were still there to collect it, although the support level varied.
My photos of this posted to Twitter and related dispatch for the Center for Immigration Studies drew outrage among some Republican lawmakers. They saw the images as evidence that the U.S. taxpayer-funded IOM was providing material support to an ongoing mass migration harmful to America’s national interest.
A couple of weeks later, Texas Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, and 11 other House Republican co-sponsors introduced the “No Tax Dollars for the United Nations Immigration Invasion Act” bill. It would prohibit the $3.8 billion in contributions currently proposed in the White House 2022 budget to the IOM and other UN-supported organizations. A Daily Caller story that broke news of the bill’s introduction quoted Gooden citing my Reynosa photos.
When I took the photos, I wasn’t exactly sure of exactly what I was seeing in Reynosa. But here’s what I have learned since: The money card is confirmed beyond doubt, but also “hard cash in envelopes” and “movement assistance”; and an online IOM “Emergency Manual” describes what I saw as part of a program it terms “Cash-Based Interventions,” or CBIs.
A plastic IOM cash card given to an aspiring border-crossing migrant in Reynosa, Mexico on November 20. Photo by Todd Bensman.
Paying People Who Illegally Enter the United States
So, for starters, country-specific IOM “Cash Working Groups” are indeed coordinating the handouts of the cash-holding plastic cards I saw (referred to as prepaid debit cards, e-wallets and e-cards) to intending U.S. border crossers in Reynosa, Mexico. But it turns out that is just an iceberg tip. The IOM is handing out cash and other material support to intending illegal border crossers in as many as 100 other shelters it helped build, expand, or supports from Central America north. Some form of this has been around for years, but starting with a mass-migration event and Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy in 2019, the IOM supercharged the program and “institutionalized” it. This doubled the countries where it is used in 2020 and increased by 77 percent the number of recipients to 1.6 million worldwide, according to an annual 2020 IOM report. That would include Mexico.
The IOM Emergency Manual document says this cash assistance also includes less-seeable bank transfers, mobile transfers, and e-vouchers that go to intending illegal border crossers en route or at least temporarily blocked like many of those I saw and interviewed in Reynosa. In addition to those and the pre-paid plastic cards, the IOM says in its Emergency Manual that it also sometimes hands out “cash in envelopes (hard cash).” No details are offered on that. Many payments are given as “unconditional; unrestricted cash transfers” for “multi-purpose use,” the manual says. Still other handouts subsidize the lodging, rent, and utilities of intending border crossers for “safe tenure, to reduce the risk of forced eviction.”
Start Tapping U.S. Taxpayers Before You Get There
Then there is “movement assistance” in the form of conditional or unrestricted cash transfers. The IOM describes this money as providing transportation access after, say a camp is closed, but also simply “to sites and other situations related to onward movement of population.”
To border hawks, all of this looks, feels, and acts like an agency providing the means for illegal border crossings. The IOM’s own stated purpose for cash-based interventions would only reinforce the perception: the money is intended to “restore feelings of choice and empowerment for beneficiaries.”
Migrant advocates defend cash support to aspiring illegal border crossers as a means to prevent death and suffering among populations they believe have no choice but to migrate and would whether or not any UN agency helps out. But the legitimate flip side of that claim is that cash in envelopes or in e-wallets—filled in part by U.S. taxpayer money—can also be said to enable, sustain, or even entice many driven not by urgent dangers but by a desire for better jobs amid reports that Americans would let them in.
Spending U.S. Money to Encourage ‘Invasion’
An aggravating irony among the fast-expanding coterie of Republican congressional critics of the UN largesse is that U.S. taxpayer money is being spent in contravention of American immigration law and national interest in controlling the border against economic migration.
“All of this sounds like they’re using U.S. tax dollars to encourage this invasion into the nation, and it seems strange to me that we would support an organization that encourages and funds this,” Gooden told me. “It’s totally crazy. I am baffled that there’s not more outrage, but I think the lack of outrage is due to the lack of knowledge.”
While it may be true that IOM money relieves the suffering of intending border crossers, it is just as arguably true that it creates financial breathing room they need to prepare for more opportune crossing moments. The money enables that highly desired payoff, rather than a forced trip home for lack of funds after, say, an expensive smuggling journey that ended with U.S. expulsion. Those ones arrive in villages with a deterring don’t-try-this message to friends and neighbors.
Regarding the importance of such messaging in the development of mass migration crises, I’ve never met one who didn’t carry a cell phone connected to Internet social media. In interviews with perhaps hundreds of migrants in Mexico and beyond, I learned that this live-time social media grapevine constantly sings with news from the trail upstream that directly informs decisions downstream as to whether to launch north or remain in place. So when word of these IOM cash, lodging, and transportation benefits spreads via social media to hometowns, friends and relatives undoubtedly feel more emboldened to invest smuggling money for their own journeys to UN waystations. Because of all this, monthly IOM cash for food, lodging, and “movement” assistance amounts to material support for illegal immigration. It influences decisions to cross.
Increasing U.S. Cash Support for Illegal Immigration
It’s unclear just how much the United States gives IOM to sustain intending border crossers until they succeed, or how many got some during 2021. But the cash giveaways have been on a steep skyward trajectory since 2019 and only show signs of continuing upward.
The public reporting as to how much the United States, through the State Department, gives IOM and how many got it is opaque at best. President Joe Biden’s 2022 budget calls for $10 billion in humanitarian assistance “to support vulnerable people abroad.” But there’s no detailed breakout.
A Fiscal Year 2019 summary (starting page 37) by the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), which provides U.S. funding to the IOM and many other United Nations agencies, offers one clue of the pre-expansion levels. IOM spent more than $60 million in 2019 for activities in the northern part of South America, Central America, and Mexico during the so-called “caravan migrant crisis” earlier that year, the fiscal year report said.
State Department-funneled money helped IOM provide 29,000 people in the Western Hemisphere with cash and voucher assistance and supported 75 shelter waystations, the State Department report states on page 42, much like the one I visited in Reynosa. Along the northern border of Mexico in July 2019, at the height of a “caravan” crisis, the IOM provided 600 beds and essential items to the Mexican government and helped it expand existing shelters and build new ones to accommodate the “asylum seekers.”
This came as a response to the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” turn-back policy. That deported economic migrants trying to abuse the asylum system, while others chose to wait for Democrats to take the White House in November 2020—a sound bet, it turned out.
The IOM decided to increase the size and scope of the program after 2019, even after President Biden took office and ended Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. The extent is unclear, but the IOM institutionalized cash handout programs in Panama, El Salvador, and Mexico in 2020. Ambiguously, the IOM’s annual 2020 report on the program showed only that it gave cash to somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 people in Mexico that year.
Whatever the recipient numbers since 2019, the IOM clearly intends an upward trajectory for the cash giveaways. The IOM’s Emergency Manual stated several times it would do so in alignment with a fairly recent pact among an international consortium of organizations known as The Grand Bargain, of which the IOM is a signatory. The Grand Bargain pact dates to 2016.
An Inter-Agency Standing Committee Grand Bargain website reports that number 3 on the objectives list is “Increase the use and coordination of cash-based programming.” A November 26, 2021 Grand Bargain caucus on cash coordination had all principals agree to increase the use of cash “beyond current low levels” through the use of even more means of delivery.
The section’s first line starts out using familiar language seen in the IOM’s Emergency Manual: “Using cash helps deliver greater choice and empowerment to affected people…”
Here’s the problem: with the greater choice and empowerment that IOM money can buy, aspiring migrants are able to remain within striking distance of the southern border to choose the time of their inevitable illegal border crossings. No one should wonder why border hawks hate this system and open borders advocates love it.
Todd Bensman is a Texas-based senior national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies and a writing fellow for the Middle East Forum. For nearly a decade, Bensman led counterterrorism-related intelligence efforts for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division. Follow him on Twitter @BensmanTodd. Bensman also worked for The Dallas Morning News, CBS, and Hearst Newspapers. He reported extensively on national security and border issues after 9/11 and worked from more than 25 countries in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.
A new video shows up to 1,000 illegal immigrants were held for processing outdoors under a bridge near the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday as the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector in Texas continues to experience a surge of people crossing the border.
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin tweeted, “This is the largest group of migrants we’ve ever seen being held by Border Patrol under Anzalduas Bridge in Mission, TX. Looks like it could be up to 1,000 people. We can only get a look at the area with our drone. There’s a popular Rio Grande crossing area nearby.”
NEW: This is the largest group of migrants we’ve ever seen being held by Border Patrol under Anzalduas Bridge in Mission, TX. Looks like it could be up to 1,000 people. We can only get a look at the area with our drone. There’s a popular Rio Grande crossing area nearby. @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/AsAygsO966
Townhall.com reporter Julio Rosas also shared photos of the scene on Twitter, saying, “I’ve seen Border Patrol’s processing site underneath the Anzalduas International Bridge in Mission, TX off and on since March.
“I can say this is the most illegal immigrants I’ve seen at the site at one time. It’s close to 100 degrees out right now.”
Rosas also shared a video from Sunday night of another group, saying, “Another night in La Joya, TX another large group of illegal immigrants turning themselves over to Border Patrol. There are well over 150 people here. There is also a lot of sneezing and coughing among the group.”
Another night in La Joya, TX another large group of illegal immigrants turning themselves over to Border Patrol. There are well over 150 people here. There is also a lot of sneezing and coughing among the group. pic.twitter.com/cFkwdD8qnT
“Can’t stress enough that I’ve never seen such a large group at one time who have as many individuals who appear/sound to be sick,” he said.
The report comes as the delta variant of the coronavirus has led to a spike in new cases in recent weeks while President Joe Biden’s administration welcomes illegal immigrants into the country. Last week, authorities said a charity in the border town of La Joya had rented an entire hotel to house illegal immigrants who have tested positive for COVID-19, giving no notification to the local community.
“Police in La Joya, TX, a Border town, announce a charity has rented an entire hotel here for COVID-positive migrants,” Fox News State Department Correspondent Rich Edson tweeted Wednesday night. “They say they only found out when a family, showing symptoms and staying there, ate at a restaurant next door. A customer flagged down a police officer.”
A later post added, “They’re advising La Joya to mask up and distance.”
“The La Joya Police Department said a patrol officer was waved down Monday by someone concerned about a group that appeared to be sick at a Whataburger fast food restaurant,”Fox News reported late Wednesday night.
“The officer found a family inside who were coughing and sneezing and not adhering to health guidelines, including the wearing of masks, authorities said during a news conference,” the report said.
La Joya Police Sgt. Manuel Casas said his department and the city had not been notified of the situation.
“We did not know this,” he said. “No one told the city of La Joya. No one told the police department that these people were here, and no one told us that these people were possibly ill.”
The reported individuals were staying at Texas Inn & Suites after being released by Border Patrol.
Gov. Doug Ducey, the Arizona Republican, didn’t mince words Wednesday shortly after he learned that President Biden was tapping Vice President Harris to oversee the effort to resolve the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Ducey, who was in Tucson, told reporters that Harris is “the worst possible choice”for the job. He also said that Harris’ selection is evidence that Biden has trivialized the situation. He said Harris just “flat out”doesn’t care.
He pointed to Harris’ career as a senator from California. He said she has made it clear that she does not consider the border “a problem or a serious threat.” Harris was recently criticized after she laughed when asked by a reporter if she would be visiting the border. She joked, “Not today.”
“If President Biden’s intent was to show that he’s taking this seriously, he’s really done the exact opposite,”Ducey said.
Harris called the situation at the border “challenging,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Former Harris advisors told the paper that they believe that she is up for the challenge but called the job “high risk, very low reward.”
Biden made the announcement as a delegation of White House officials and members of Congress traveled to the southern border to tour a facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, where more than 750 migrant teenagers are being held. The Biden administration has in recent weeks moved to open more than 10,000 new beds across the Southwest in convention centers and former oilfield camps.
It notified Congress on Wednesday that it will open a new 3,000-person facility in San Antonio and a 1,400-person site at the San Diego convention center. HHS is also opening a second site in Carrizo Springs and received approval from the Defense Department Wednesday to begin housing teenagers at military bases in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas.
GOP lawmakers say Biden administration’s decision to reverse Trump-era immigration policies prompted the latest surge in migrants. The White House has argued that Biden inherited a chaotic situation and is working to stabilize the border.
Political observers say that this is the first major task for Harris as vice president and could have a lasting impact on her own future as a presidential candidate.
Biden called Harris “the most qualified person”to take charge of the situation and interact with countries like Mexico and Honduras.
“It’s not her full-responsibility job, but she is leading the effort because I think the best thing to do is to put someone who, when he or she speaks, they don’t have to wonder about, is that where the president is,”Biden said, according to the Washington Post. “When she speaks, she speaks for me.”
TOPSHOT – US Customs and Border Protection agents check documents of a small group of migrants, who crossed the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico, on May 16, 2019, in El Paso, Texas. – About 1,100 migrants from Central America and other countries are crossing into the El Paso border sector … PAUL RATJE/AFP via Getty Images
The United States should reopen itself to migration, amnesties, refugee inflows, asylum seekers, and more temporary contract workers, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States said Tuesday.
The U.S. immigration system “has to be based on facts and realities,” Ambassador Martha Bárcena Coqui told a forum arranged by the National Immigration Forum (NIF). She continued: ‘The facts and realities is the need to protect the most vulnerable, the need to keep open the generosity towards refugees, the need to recognize the complementarity of labor markets and demographic profiles, the need for temporary workers in the United States.”
The United States should not view migration as a security threat, she said, adding, “If you conceptualize migration as a national security issue, if you [push for] securitization of migration, and what is even worse, if you criminalize migration, then your approach always be policing, contentious [and] reduction of migration. So what we need is really to conceptualize migration … as an economic and social and political phenomena.”
“With all due respect to Madam Ambassador, she should mind her own country’s business, not ours,” responded Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
“The Mexican ambassador is going to tell us what is in the best interest of Mexico,” responded Rosemary Jenks, policy director at NumbersUSA. “But that doesn’t mean we have to do it — we have to do what’s in the best interest of the United States. of American, of Americans and legal immigrants,” she told Breitbart News, adding:
You know we have the pandemic still raging, we have economic lockdowns still going on, we have unemployment way too high. We have underemployment way too high. We have American citizens hurting. We absolutely do not need to reopen mass immigration — and certainly don’t need to give amnesty and taxpayer benefits to people who came here illegally. If Mexico thinks its plan is to just open up its own southern borders in the hopes that America will open our southern borders, that’s just going to reignite the caravans. I hope that the Biden administration is planning for that because that’s not going to go well, and 2022 is not going to go well for Democrats.
More migrants are coming, the ambassador said, even though the coronavirus crash has blocked the northward flow for the moment:
The root causes of these migrations have [not] disappeared. On the contrary, we are seeing pent up, building pressure. People cannot move now because of the restrictions on movement because of the pandemic. But the root causes are still there, [for example], the drought in Central America … a hurricane in Nicaragua and Honduras that have totally flooded Honduras.
The United States should amnesty many illegal migrants from all over the world, she said, and also import more migrants by accepting asylum applications at U.S. embassies, so the world’s migrants will not have to travel through Mexico. “What we would like to see, of course, is that the U.S. embassies in Central America could process even more of these requests for asylum, instead of having people crossing through Mexico and asking for asylum at the border.”
The ambassador was invited to speak by the NIF, which is a business-funded activist group that promotes cheap labor migration into jobs needed by lower-skilled Americans and by legal immigrants, and also into jobs that can be automated.
Roughly three million migrants have flooded over the southern border since the rules were loosened by Congress in 2008 and by President Barack Obama’s deputies in 2011. Trump stopped the flow in 2020, but few of the migrants — or of roughly 300,000 younger “Unaccompanied Alien Children” — have been sent home because they are being protected by pro-migrant immigration lawyers, by pro-diversity progressives, and cheap labor employers in sanctuary cities.
The large U.S. population of illegal immigrants helps to push down wages for Americans, push disadvantaged workers out of the labor force, reduce corporate investment in technology and training, and spike corporate sales and profits. The large population also shifts the U.S. politics from a focus on Americans’ jobs and wages, and then towards a politics focused on business demands and the 1950’s claim by elites that the United States is a diverse “nation of immigrants,” not a cooperative nation for all Americans.
The flood of cheap labor that is being promoted by the ambassador would be a disaster for Americans, Jenks said. “They would absolutely destroy the employment opportunities for lower-skilled Americans, particularly for minorities and legal immigrants. It would reduce wages among the people who can least afford reduced wages and put downward pressure on everyone else’s wages. The people who would benefit from it, of course, would be the elites who can hire nannies, maids, and housekeepers, and who go stay at resorts and so on, while the rest of us suffer.”
The ambassador’s statement, Krikorian told Breitbart News, “suggests that the [President Donald] Trump really was getting Mexico to change its behavior [after 2018] and that once Trump is gone, the Mexican approach these issues will revert to form, and they will again usher large numbers of third-country illegal aliens into our country.”
But if Mexico is concerned about the migrants coming up from the South, it can take its own defense measures, said Krikorian.
“As far as refugees and asylees go, Mexico is a signatory to the U.N. Convention on these issues. Mexico is about half the population, maybe a little less, of the United States. It doesn’t take a nearly proportionate number of asylum seekers or refugees [as the United States. So, “Physician, heal thyself,” would be my first response.”
Also, Krikorian added, the ambassador may be overstating the view of the Mexican government. “Whatever the ambassador said, it is an open question whether Mexico will truly open the floodgates again. The country has its own interest in limiting this transit migration because Mexican citizens are getting sick of the migrations. And many of these people end up staying anyway, applying for asylum in Mexico, or just hanging around illegally, and that undermines the job prospects of Mexicans in the same way that it can undermine Americans’ job prospects.”
“The United States is a sovereign nation that should and can have complete control over its borders,” said Jenks. “Regardless of what our neighbors may think, our government owes it to the American people to have an immigration system that benefits America. Period. Full stop.”
Overall, open-ended migration is praised by business and progressives partly because migrants help transfer massive wealth from American wage-earners to stockholders.
One of the big changes we should expect under a Joe Biden administration is an explosion of illegal immigration and a renewed crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. The reason for this is simple: the immigration and border policies the Trump administration has put into place over the past four years have succeeded in driving down illegal immigration, and Biden has promised to reverse nearly all of them.
Throughout the campaign, Biden was forthright about his plans to dismantle Trump’s immigration and border security agenda. His team is now planning to carry out those plans, including a 100-day moratorium on deportations, directives to curtail arrests of illegal immigrants, and a full restoration of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
These actions will almost certainly trigger a wave of illegal immigration up and down the southwest border. Why? Because Trump’s policies helped bring illegal immigration under control. Undoing them will be interpreted, rightly, as an invitation to would-be migrants in Mexico and Central America, who will respond accordingly, especially as those countries continue to suffer from worsening conditions under the pandemic.
Although pandemic restrictions and border security policies in the United States and Mexico helped decrease the number of apprehensions at the southwest border over the summer and fall, illegal immigration was steadily declining long before the outbreak, largely because of programs and policies implemented by the Trump administration in response to a dramatic rise in illegal border crossings and apprehensions in 2019.
The Migrant Protection Protocols, or the “remain in Mexico” program, which requires most asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their cases to be heard by a U.S. immigration judge, has been one of the most prominent—and controversial—Trump administration policies aimed at curbing illegal immigration. In cooperation with the Mexican government, it has also been successful at deterring illegal immigration and reducing specious asylum claims.
Since the program’s inception in late 2018, some 67,000 people have been returned to Mexico after having been caught crossing the border illegally. Many of these migrants have opted to return to their countries of origin, citing dangerous conditions in Mexico and the likelihood they will lose their asylum cases in court. Biden has said he will end the program.
Another major action taken by the Trump administration was the termination of the Flores Decree, a 1997 court decision that prevented U.S. officials from detaining migrant families and unaccompanied minors for more than 20 days. Because Flores all but guaranteed that an adult who crossed the border with a child would, upon claiming asylum, be quickly released into the United States, it created a powerful incentive for families to cross the border illegally and make questionable asylum claims.
It also fueled a lucrative and exploitative human smuggling industry stretching from Central America to the Rio Grande. Flores meant children were used as “passports” into the United States—not just by families but also by unscrupulous smugglers and cartels that profit handsomely from illegal immigration. U.S. officials discovered thousands of “fake families” at the border in recent years, with adults posing as parents of unrelated children, and even cases where children were “recycled,” crossing the border multiple times with unrelated adults.
By ending Flores, the Trump administration was able to more or less end this practice, since it removed the promise of a quick release if you had a child with you and claimed asylum. Biden has said he will effectively reinstate Flores, releasing asylum-seekers who arrive with children before their court dates and funding various case-management programs in hopes that they don’t simply disappear into the immigration underground once they are released.
Biden has also said he will restore DACA, the Obama-era program that allowed illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as minors a reprieve from deportation and renewable, two-year work permits. The promise of minors being allowed to stay in the United States helped fuel a surge of unaccompanied children and teenagers to the border beginning in 2014, with smugglers promising parents that they and their children would be granted “permits” to remain in the United States.
It didn’t matter that DACA didn’t actually apply to these minors. Unscrupulous smugglers, known as “coyotes,” sold families on the line to pocket their passage fees, with cartels taking their cut at the Rio Grande.
The Trump administration announced it was ending DACA in 2017, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the administration hadn’t followed the proper procedures for ending the program, leaving it for the time being in administrative limbo. Even so, as the case has been wending its way through the courts the past few years, the message has gotten back to sending communities in Mexico and Central America that unaccompanied minors don’t have a guaranteed way to stay in the United States through DACA. Once Biden restores it, they will.
Another Border Crisis Is Already Brewing
All of these changes promised by the Biden administration will not go unnoticed by would-be migrants seeking entrance to the United States, or by the smugglers and cartels who profit off getting them here. Messaging and sometimes even minor U.S. policy changes have a ripple effect on the migration pipeline that runs from South Texas all the way to Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa.
What’s more, Biden need not have the cooperation of Congress to do these things. Indeed, Trump didn’t have congressional support for most of his immigration and border policies, and neither did President Obama. Most Americans don’t realize it, but U.S. immigration law gives wide latitude to executive branch agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to create and implement policies at the border, from the detention and processing of migrants caught crossing illegally to the procedures and requirements for asylum adjudication.
That’s partly by design: Congress has long abdicated its responsibility for immigration, instead delegating authority and policy-making to an ever-growing executive bureaucracy.
That means every time the White House changes hands, U.S. immigration and border policy goes through a massive upheaval. All along, Biden has been candid about his plans for the border, and if he follows through on them—like Trump, mostly via executive order—it will trigger a wave of migration from Central America and Mexico that U.S. border officials will be largely powerless to stop.
To suppose otherwise is not only to ignore recent history, but to assume that the people of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador have no agency. Already in late September, at least one large caravan was reportedly forming in Honduras, headed for Mexico and the U.S. border.
Others will follow under a Biden administration, their ranks filled with people drawn by the resurrection of Obama-era policies that will grant them, by various mechanisms, entry to the United States. They will be making a rational and reasonably informed choice. And on understanding just how drastically U.S. immigration policy can shift with a presidential election, and how much easier it will be to get in under Biden, they won’t be wrong.
John is the Political Editor at The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
President Donald Trump slashed the inflow of southern migrants from 400,000 in 2019 to just 14,000 in 2020, according to acting homeland security chief Chad Wolf.
The coronavirus crash is creating a new surge of migrants up to the U.S. border, Wolf warned in his October 21 speech. “Should our critics be successful and repeal the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] CDC order, we would face an unimaginable public health crisis,” Wolf said in a Phoenix, Arizona, speech, adding:
The only reason today’s crossings have not reached a crisis level is because of the policies and procedures the Department has put in place during the past four years. If these critical tools are removed or overturned, then the Department—and you, our frontline partners—would be imperiled by another immigration crisis.
Wolf described the administration’s huge and successful efforts to curb the southern migration into U.S. blue-collar workplaces. Prior Presidents did little or nothing, but Trump’s hard-fought upgrades have helped push up wages and opportunities for tens of millions of Americans — including blue-collar blacks and Latinos. Trump’s effort also protected many millions of Americans from losing their jobs amid relentless Wall Street pressure for corporate cost-cutting.
“In perhaps no area did the Washington special interests try harder to stop us than on my policy of pro-American immigration,” Trump said in his August 28 acceptance speech.
Wolf also touted the agency’s efforts to start shielding all Americans from the trillion-dollar economic threat caused by the legal and illegal migration of white-collar workers. Wolf used his speech to describe the administration’s pro-American actions:
1. Border agencies have stopped the catch-and-release of migrants, said Wolf. CBP and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency caught and released 400,000 migrants in 2019, but just 15,000 in 2020, mostly for humanitarian reasons, Wolf said.
We have effectively ended the practice known as “catch and release,” which refers to releasing illegal aliens into the United States while they awaited hearings in immigration court—rather than holding them in detention. Thanks to our actions, illegal aliens will no longer be released into our country. They will no longer be able to abscond without consequence. And they will be quickly returned to their country of origin.
2. Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols ensured that “more than 65,000 aliens have been returned to Mexico for the duration of their immigration proceedings,” Wolf said. Because they are returned to Mexico, the migrants cannot get the U.S. jobs they need to pay their debts to the coyotes, preventing the coyotes from making a profit and helping to break the profitable business of transporting migrants into Americans’ jobs.
3. The administration has reformed asylum rules to exclude ineligible economic-migrants, according to Wolf. “We want to encourage meritorious asylum claims, adjudicate them expeditiously, and root out fraudulent claims,” he said, by:
Tightening up standards for asylum applicant employment authorization;
Elevating legal standards of proof for asylum and statutory withholding of removal screening; and
Instituting new mandatory bars to asylum.
DHS also suspended asylum for individuals who traverse through a safe country where they could seek asylum but decided not to. DHS is also currently finalizing regulations to prevent criminal aliens from obtaining asylum to remain in the United States.
4. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency “is returning approximately 90 percent of individuals who would otherwise be kept in CBP facilities back to Mexico within two hours,” said Wolf. That is a huge shift from prior years because the quick deportations prevent migrant from using lawyers, asylum claims, and jobs to extend their stay in the United States.
5. Border agencies can now prosecute and penalize migrants because Trump ended “prosecutorial discretion,” Wolf said:
Obama’s administration adopted a “prosecutorial discretion” policy … This devastating policy hamstrung ICE’s ability to identify, locate, arrest, and deport criminal aliens. Today, ICE no longer exempts any removable aliens from having our laws enforced on them. If you break our laws, you will be arrested and removed from our country.
…
The results bear out the success of this policy shift. Between 2017 and 2019, the Trump Administration removed from the United States more than 574,000 illegal aliens, including 16,000 gang members … [and] ICE has removed over 182,000 aliens in the first 50 weeks of 2020.
6. DHS has begun using a deportation power granted by Congress in 1996 and long ignored by prior administrations. “The Department has also ensured that certain aliens encountered anywhere in the country within two years of unlawful entry will be removed quickly—referred to as “expedited removal,” Wolf said.
7. The administration has built the border wall to curb migration and drug-smuggling, Wolf said:
Today, we have completed almost 400 miles of the new border wall system in high priority locations like San Diego, El Centro, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, and the Rio Grande Valley Sectors. And we have another 221 miles currently under construction and 157 miles in a pre-construction phase.
Each and every mile of border wall construction is new—whether we are constructing in a place where previously no barriers existed or replacing a 5-foot steel vehicle barrier with an 18- or 30-foot steel bollard wall complemented with roads, enforcement cameras, and other related technology. In fact, wherever effective border wall systems have been constructed, the number of illegal crossings—and crime—has gone down.
8. Protecting Americans from abuse of the legal immigration system is “equally important,” said Wolf:
this administration has had a laser focus on protecting the American worker. But amazingly, the immigration rules on the books seemed to always put foreign workers first in line for American jobs. In a major historical shift, the Trump Administration has put America First. Our results show the Department’s commitment and success in this area.
…
To that end, DHS announced an interim final rule that strengthens the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program to protect U.S. workers, restores integrity to the H-1B program, and better guarantees that H-1B petitions are approved only for qualified beneficiaries and petitioners. This rule will combat the abuse of H-1B workers to serve as low-cost replacements for otherwise-qualified American workers. It will also deter companies from gaming the immigration system to fill their own coffers.
Supporting this action is President Trump’s philosophy that we must take care of Americans first.
Trump’s 2020 plan offers broadly popular — but quite limited — pro-American restrictions on migration and visa workers. In many speeches, for example, Trump ignores the economic impact of blue-collar and white-collar migration on Americans while stressing issues about crime, outsiders, diseases, or welfare, even though his low-immigration policies have been a popular boon to Americans.
Joe Biden’s 2020 plan promises to let companies import more visa workers, to let mayors import temporary workers, to accelerate the inflow of chain-migration migrants, to end migration enforcement against illegal aliens unless they commit a felony, and to dramatically accelerate the inflow of poor refugees to at least 125,000 per year. This policy has helped Biden to win huge donations from investors on Wall Street.
Open-ended legal migration is praised by business and progressives partly because migrants’ arrival helps to transfer wealth from wage-earners to investors and stockholders.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden landed himself in a factually sticky situation Thursday night, arguing former President Barack Obama had never taken part in the policy of family separation carried out at the outset of the Trump administration.
The false claim came late in the second and final debate of the 2020 presidential election cycle, as he faced off with incumbent Republican President Donald Trump on the issue of illegal immigration.
“These 500-plus kids came with parents. They separated them at the border to make it a disincentive to come to begin with,” Biden said. “They got separated from their parents and it makes us a laughingstock and violates every notion of who we are as a nation.”
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“Kristen, they did it,” Trump said, addressing debate moderator Kristen Welker. “We changed the policy. They did it. We changed — they built the cages.”
“We did not separate — they,” Biden trailed off, changing course.
“Let’s talk about what we’re talking about. Let’s talk about what we’re talking about. What happened? Kids were ripped from their arms and separated.”
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The narrative was not original, having already been fact-checked on numerous occasions by independent sources in the establishment media.
The Associated Press, for its part, checked former first lady Michelle Obama for making similar claims in an address to the 2020 Democratic National Convention this past August.
“Michelle Obama assailed President Donald Trump on Monday for allegedly ripping migrant children from their parents and throwing them into cages, picking up on a frequent and distorted point made widely by Democrats,” The AP wrote. “She’s……………………………..READ THE REST OF THIS REPORT AT https://www.westernjournal.com/fact-check-biden-tells-biggest-lie-night-maybe-entire-election/
Andrew J. Sciascia is an associate staff reporter with The Western Journal, having joined the outlet as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018. He regularly co-hosts the outlet’s video podcast, “WJ Live.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with U.S. tech workers, before signing an Executive Order on hiring American workers, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Monday, Aug. 3, 2020, in Washington.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday which curbs the H-1B outsourcing of jobs at government agencies, including the government-controlled Tennessee Valley Authority.
“We believe jobs must be offered to American workers first,” Trump told attendees at a signing event in the White House.
Staffing companies have used the H-1B program to fill roughly 18,000 jobs in government agencies with foreign contract-workers.
A White House statement said:
President Trump is signing an Executive Order to create a policy where Federal agencies will focus on United States labor in lucrative Federal contracts. It would be unfair for Federal employers to replace perfectly qualified Americans with workers from other countries. The Executive Order will require all Federal agencies to complete an internal audit and assess whether they are in compliance with the requirement that only United States citizens and nationals are appointed to the competitive service.
The Department of Labor will also finalize guidance to prevent H-1B employers from moving H-1B workers to other employers’ job sites to displace American workers.
“Outsourcing hundreds of workers is especially detrimental in the middle of a pandemic, which has already cost millions of Americans their jobs,” the statement said. “President Trump’s actions will help combat employers’ misuse of H-1B visas, which were never intended to replace qualified American workers with low-cost foreign labor.”
The top management at the TVA has been trying to outsource 200 jobs to three companies that import many H-1B workers: Paris-based Capgemini, Canada-based CGI, and Accenture, a former U.S. company that relocated to Ireland.
Many polls show that American voters want to welcome immigrants — but strongly prefer that companies hire Americans before asking to import foreign contract workers.
Trump signed the E.O. after learning about the outsourcing from an online ad paid funded by U.S. Tech Workers. Trump initially dismissed the advertisement:
The invitees included Sara Blackwell, founder of Protect US Workers, and Kevin Lynn, the founder, U.S. Tech Workers. The invite list included several TVA workers: Gay Henson, President of the TVA’s Engineering Association, plus Chuck Charnawskas, Jonathan Hicks, David Littlejohn, Linda McDonald, Renae McKenzie, Wendy Turner, and Stacy Whetzell.
“This is a really significant date for U.S. tech workers,” said Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers, a grassroots group of U.S. college-graduate professionals. U.S. graduates know “what decades of outsourcing and offshoring of these valuable jobs have done to themselves personally and collectively, to the country,” he said, adding:
“We’ve been very much involved for the last three years to protect and preserve tech worker jobs here in the U.S. and in particular, fighting outsourcing schemes. So this is a great opportunity for us, it’s really a culmination of a lot of hard work … [We’re] really, really overjoyed as of this time that the president of the United States has chosen to act on behalf of American workers.”
Fortune 500 companies and their networks of U.S. and Indian-owned subcontractors and sub-subcontractor have used the H-1B program to outsource millions of college-graduate jobs over the last 20 years.
Currently, Fortune 500 companies keep at least 1.3 million foreign contract-workers in jobs needed by U.S. graduates, including at least 600,000 H-1B workers. This personnel policy is not an “abuse” of the law because the law was carefully drafted to help companies sideline American workers.
Some of the contract workers are hired by prestigious firms at U.S. wages. But many visa workers are employed by subcontractors at below-market wages, and many are hired as gig-worker for minimal wages. For example, the universities help get “Practical Training” work permits for 500,000 foreign graduates each year. These workers do not have to be paid minimum wages, and they are widely used by Fortune 500 subcontractors.
Many executives prefer hiring contract workers because they are compliant and quiet compared to U.S. professionals who can argue with executives and switch jobs. Many of the contract workers are imported for about a year, so they can learn how to do the job from an office in India.
Many foreign workers accept low wages for work in the United States because the U.S. work is preferable to work in India, China, or elsewhere. Also, U.S. employers keep their foreign workers on the job by dangling the promise of green cards and citizenship. For example, at least 300,000 Indian visa workers are working while they wait for promised green cards.
In his 2017 inauguration address, Trump promised a policy of “Buy American and hire American.” Trump said in March 2016, “I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.” On June 22, Trump announced a temporary halt to the H-1B inflow and directed his deputies to rewrite regulations on the Fortune 500’s use of foreign contract-workers.
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the BOK Center, Saturday, June 20, 2020, in Tulsa, Okla. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
President Trump will expand an executive order on Monday, halting a series of visa programs that bring hundreds of thousands of foreign workers to the United States to take American jobs. The order will halt the inflow of foreign worker pipelines until at least December 31. The visa programs suspended include:
H-1B visas, who take white-collar U.S. jobs
H-4 visas, who are the spouses of H-1B visa holders
H-2B visas, who take blue-collar nonagricultural U.S. jobs
L visas, who take white-collar U.S. jobs
J-1 visas, who take a variety of blue-collar and white-collar U.S. jobs
“Obviously American workers have been hurt, and it’s nobody’s fault that the coronavirus hit, but it did do a blow to the economy and to businesses who were furloughing and laying people off, and we want to make sure that Americans get hired into those spots,” said Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli.
Altogether, the order is expected to free up about 600,000 American jobs for the more than 30,000,000 Americans who are jobless mostly due to the Chinese coronavirus crisis. That includes about 287,000 U.S. jobs freed up for Americans that would have otherwise been taken by H-1B, H-2B, and L-1 visa workers, according to Cuccinelli.
Halting the J-1 visa program through the end of the year is set to free up about 97,000 U.S. jobs that would have otherwise gone to foreign workers. The order will be up for expansion within 30 days and reviewed every 60 days after that date. Those reviews include evaluating all regulations relating to visa programs. Cuccinelli credited the April order’s 60-day review process for giving the administration time to consider Monday’s expansion.
The order includes a handful of exemptions, such as an exemption for foreign au pairs who arrive on J-1 visas to do low-wage nanny work for mostly wealthy American households. Also exempted are H-2B visa workers taking U.S. jobs in the food industry, J-1 visa workers taking U.S. jobs in coronavirus-related medical research or treatment, and the Optional Practical Training (OPT) visa program, which delivers foreign graduates to multinational corporations at discounted wage rates.
DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are given authority to exempt visa workers from the order if they are deemed “necessary to facilitate the immediate and continued economic recovery of the United States.”
A DHS official told Breitbart News the exemption is for specific foreign visa workers who are vital to putting Americans back to work.
“The president is confident this is going to be very popular with the American people,” Cuccinelli said. “It’s proven popular thus far — to start clearing this space … and it is the kind of thing that, frankly, some people on the other side of the aisle have supported in the past.”
Indeed, reductions to overall immigration in the middle of mass unemployment are hugely popular with Americans.
In April, nearly 80 percent of Americans said they wanted immigration halted to the U.S. during the crisis and amid mass unemployment. This month, majorities of 55 to 85 percent of voters in ten swing states said they want less immigration at the moment.
Every year, the U.S. admits about 1.2 million legal immigrants on green cards to permanently resettle in the country. In addition, another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted every year to take American jobs. Often, Americans are fired and replaced by visa workers. Many are forced to train their foreign replacements.
This is the first time in American history that a president has used this particular executive order authority to reduce annual legal immigration levels, one administration official said. Trump’s authority over immigration, like all other presidents, is vast and broad.
In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the president’s control over legal immigration. In Trump v. Hawaii, the court stated that presidents have extraordinarily broad discretion to admit or exclude foreign nationals from the U.S. when they believe doing so is in the national interest.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
The Harvard/Harris Poll found that 5 out of 6 voters want immigration from Mexico to end. As you can tell by the number of people who approve of the plan, it cuts across all age groups and all political persuasions.
The plan is approved by 75 percent of Hispanic Americans and 77 percent of black Americans. Another 73 percent of Democrat voters said they support ending immigration from Mexico, while 84 percent of swing voters and 93 percent of Republican voters support such a measure.
It is popular even with liberal voters, who approve of the plan by nearly 70% and among Hillary voters by 74%.
At the same time that Americans want immigration from Mexico ended, the Dee State at the State Department is handing out H-2B and H-2A visas like they were candy. With unemployment expected to reach as high as 32% the extra competition for those jobs will not be welcomed.
While the overwhelming majority of Americans want to see an end to immigration from Mexico, the State Department has issued waivers that will more quickly fast-track many Mexican workers into the U.S. through the H-2B and H-2A visa programs.
The directive effectively allows agricultural and nonagricultural businesses to quickly import foreign workers on H-2A and H-2B visas without standard interview and application procedures.
As Breitbart News has reported, immigration moratoriums are not uncommon in American history. Currently, there are about 45 million foreign-born residents living in the U.S., a 108-year record high.
The country’s last immigration boom — between 1900 and 1920 — was eventually met with a near immigration moratorium. Between 1925 and 1966, the U.S. legal immigration level did not exceed 327,000 annual admissions.
Since major changes were enacted in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson (D) and in the 1990s by President George H.W. Bush (R) — changes that allow foreign nationals to bring as many foreign relatives to the country as they want — legal immigration levels have continued booming for about five decades.
Today, about 1.2 million legal immigrants are admitted to the U.S. every year.
US President Donald Trump arrives for a “Keep America Great” campaign rally at The Crown Arena in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on September 9, 2019. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump can claim credit for pushing poverty among black American adults to record lows, according to data in the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2018 economic report.
The good news is hidden deep in the 77-page report, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2018, which was released Tuesday, September 10. Table B5 on page 65 shows that poverty among married black families dropped to 18.8 percent, down from 20.2 percent in 2015 and 23.8 percent in 2007, which was the peak of the housing boom and bubble inflated by Congress and President George W. Bush’s terms.
Poverty among black female-headed families also dropped to 31.7 percent, down from 35.7 percent in 2015 and 39.7 percent in 2007.
Poverty among all black Americans dropped to 20.8 percent, down from 24.1 percent in 2015 and 24.5 percent in 2007
For comparison, black poverty is still somewhat higher than the poverty rate for all Americans, which is at 11.8 percent, and at 9.7 percent for all intact families and 26.8 percent for female-headed households.
The report does not suggest why the poverty rate is falling. But other data — including comments from industry CEOs — show that wages are gently rising as employers reluctantly begin to compete for employees in a low-immigration, tight labor economy.
Trump’s unprecedented combination of “Hire American” and economic growth policies is helping create those wage gains nationwide. The growth policies pressure companies to hire more workers.
The “Hire American” policy suppresses the inflow of legal and illegal migrants and also blocks demands from businesses for special infusions of cheap foreign labor, such as extra refugees, asylum-seekers, visa workers, and legal immigrants. Trump’s low-immigration policies have prompted many progressives and Democrats to claim he is racist. But his growth and “Hire American” combination is pressuring companies to compete for Americans workers — including blacks and Latinos — by offering higher wages and better benefits.
One expected impact of the shortage is a growing number of non-white Americans who are being hired and are getting wage increases. The Washington Postreported September 9:
Economists say the minority hiring boom is explained mainly by a tight labor market that is forcing employers to look beyond their normal pool of candidates …
“Now there are more job opportunities, I think. I look for jobs that want English and Spanish speakers,” said [Milagros] Tasayco, who spends her mornings at the community center and her afternoons at a private day care. “My children say, ‘Wow, Mommy, you have two jobs!’ My husband is proud, too.”
The Census Bureau said men who work full time and year-round got an average earnings boost of 3.4 percent in 2018, pushing their median salaries up to $55,291, a 3.4 percent gain after adjusting for inflation. Women gained 3.3 percent in wages, to bring their median salaries to $45,097 for full time, year-round work.
Trump’s wage gains may mark a historic shift in the nation’s economy.
This growth is already visible as a rising line at the end of a Census Bureau chart, which shows the flat-lined wages between 1973 and 2018. The flat wages followed 25 years of rapid wage growth in a low-immigration economy between 1959 and 1973,
Immigration Numbers:
Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university. This total includes about 800,000 Americans who graduate with skilled degrees in business or health care, engineering or science, software, or statistics.
But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of about 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including approximately one million H-1B workers and spouses — and about 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.
The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, it tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and it does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.
This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investors because it transfers wages to investors and ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.
This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, reduces marriage rates, and hurts children’s schools and college educations.
The cheap-labor economic strategy also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.
The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the Heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, undermines suburbia, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.
Central American migrants wait for food in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday in a pen erected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to process a surge of migrant families and unaccompanied minors. (Cedar Attanasio/The Associated Press)
Since September 2018, nearly 900 migrants arriving at the United States-Mexico border have been confirmed or suspected to have mumps, a federal report reveals.
A report by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) details how the contagious mumps disease has spread across 19 states in 57 detention facilities among migrants — those illegally crossing the southern border and those seeking asylum.
Between September 2018 and August 2019, about 898 cases of migrants who had arrived to the U.S. and were in federal detention were reported to have mumps. Another 33 cases of mumps were reported among staff members at the various detention facilities.
Roughly 44 percent of the cases reported occurred in detention facilities located in Texas while the average age of a migrant with mumps was 25 years-old and 94 percent were male migrants.
CDC officials state that the disease has largely spread to other migrants while in detention with 84 percent of cases reported having been likely contracted while in federal custody and five percent having been likely contracted before the migrant was apprehended by federal officials.
As of August 2019, CDC officials say there are ongoing mumps outbreaks among migrants at 15 detention facilities in seven states.
In June, Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kevin McAleenan admitted that border crossers and illegal aliens are being released into the interior of the U.S. without undergoing basic medical exams or disease tests, Breitbart News reported.
A report issued by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 2017 outlined urged the Trump administration to enact a slew of policies to prevent a disease outbreak in the U.S. caused by mass immigration.
“Most illnesses are spread by contact with infected people, livestock or agricultural produce,” the FAIR report states. “As a result, researchers have concluded that the international movement of people is a significant factor in disease outbreaks: ‘Mobile populations can link zones of disease emergence to low prevalence or non-endemic areas through rapid or high-volume international movements, or both.’”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Give Me Your Ebola, Your Tuberculosis, Your Mumps-Ridden Masses | Ep 386
Here are three facts that the most hysterical voices attacking the Trump administration’s proposal to radically reduce or freeze refugee admissions don’t want you to know:
1) They make billions of dollars off the federal refugee resettlement racket;
2) They are protected by the Open Borders Inc. media, which routinely whitewashes the gobsmacking financial self-interest of the “Let Them All In” leeches; and
3) They are never held accountable when untold numbers of the world’s most wretchedly violent and aggrieved refugees come here to sabotage the American Dream.
While left-wing religious groups, tax-exempt non-profits tied or allied to George Soros, and the amnesty-shilling Catholic Church scream “No hate, no fear, everyone is welcome here!” at the top of their lungs, American neighborhoods are being overrun by dangerous foreign criminals and jihad plotters. David Miliband, president and CEO of International Rescue Committee, attacked the White House plan to slash refugee numbers from an Obama-era high of 100,000 to less than the current historic low of 30,000 as “inhumane.” Is it because cutting the numbers would cut in to Miliband’s first-class travel and business lunch tabs? Malkin Truth-O-Meter: mostly likely true!
What Miliband neglects to mention in his diatribe against President Trump that his organization is one of 9 behemoth government contractors that works with the hostile United Nations and encrusted State Department social justice warriors to import thousands of new refugees every year with little input from the communities in which they are dumped. Miliband earns nearly a million-dollar salary and by one estimate, IRC has raked in nearly $900 million in refugee resettlement profits over the last decade. When you cut through the Statue of Liberty smokescreen of the open borders “charities,” the math is clear:
Reduced refugees means reduced cash flow.
Zero refugees means zero cash flow.
Why should taxpayers continue to see their hard-earned money siphoned away to feed the Trump Resistance Machine and Democrat Party’s Permanent Ruling Majority Project?
There are even more compelling reasons to throttle the refugee flow. According to the logic-twisting, ICE-doxxing cheerleaders at the New York Times, refugee reductions are the real threat to our nation because if we don’t keep importing hordes of Muslim translators from Iraq or Afghanistan, it would “undermine” our national security.
This is just plain ass-backwards.
The Trump-bashers and border-phobes equate any and all criticism of the refugee program as racist, xenophobic hatred. But it’s not all sweetness and light. They’re not all “yearning to breathe free.” Some of them just want free stuff. Some of them want to kill us. Many of them have absolutely no interest in assimilating themselves into our customs, measures, and laws. And many of them have outright contempt for Western civilization. They’re not here to strengthen our nation with their “diversity.” They’re here to destroy it. That’s fact, not “hate.”
In Open Borders Inc, I have profiled 60 of the planet’s most maleficent refujihadis nabbed over the past dozen years. Here are their names (you can learn their full stories in Appendix G of the book) . And remember: these are only the ones we’ve caught.
Nuradin Abdi
Dritan Duka
Shain Duka
Eljvir Duka
Mohanad Shareef Hammad
Waad Ramadan Alwan
Abdow Munye Abdow
Farah Mohamed Beledi
Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax
Shirwa Ahmed
Mahamud Said Omar
Abdiweli Yassin Isse
Kamal Hassan
Salah Osman Ahmed
Adarus Abdulle Ali
Ahmed Ali Omar
Khalid Mohamud Abshir
Zakaria Maruf
Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan
Mustafa Ali Salat
Tamerlan Tsarnaev
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
Issa Doreh
Basaaly Saeed Moalin
Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud
Ahmed Nasiri Taalil Mohamud
Ramiz Hodzic
Sedina Hodzic
Mediha Medy Salkicevic
Armin Harcevic
Jasminka Ramic
Nihad Rosic
Abdullah Ramo Pazara
Fazliddin Kurbanov
Liban Haji Mohamed
Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan
Abdinassir Mohamud Ibrahim
Mohamud Ali Yusuf
Nima Yusuf
Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman
Adnan Farah
Hanad Mustafe Musse
Guled Ali Omar
Abdirahman Yasin Daud
Mohamed Abdihamid Farah
Abdirizak Warsame
Hamza Ahmed
Abdullahi Yusuf
Ahmed Ali Omar
Amina Farah Ali
Hawo Mohamed Hassan
Abdul Razak Ali Artan
Dahir Ahmed Adan
Omar Abdulsattar Ameen
Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan
Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab
Abdullatif Ali Aldosary
Bilal Abood
Jamshid Muhtorov
Mahad Abdiaziz Adbiraham
More than half of these foreign menaces came from Somalia. The 60 refujihadis include a Muslim translator for the U.S. Army, cab drivers, gangsters, money transfer agents, janitors, and college students. They include convicted weapons felons, confessed aiders and abettors of terrorism, stabbing spree vigilantes, and bombers all sworn to wage war against infidels in the name of Allah – and fraudulently posing undercover as victims of political and religious persecution. Here’s just a small taste of what our blind “welcoming” culture has wrought:
Abdul Razak Ali Artan was a Somali refugee who left his homeland with his family in 2007 for Pakistan and landed in Dallas before resettling in Ohio. In 2014, he became a legal permanent resident. At Ohio State University, where he was a student, Artan raged against America and invoked radical Muslim cleric and spiritual adviser to jihadists Anwar al-Awlaki. In 2016, he plowed his car into a group of students and then broke out a knife and stabbed innocent bystanders. Eleven were injured before police shot Artan dead.
Somali refugee Dahir Ahmed Adan went on a stabbing spree at a St. Cloud, Minnesota, mall in 2016, injuring ten people before an off-duty police officer shot him dead. Police told local media Adan quizzed at least one person on whether the individual was Muslim and made references to Allah while carrying out the stabbings. A local chapter leader of the unindicted terror co-conspirators of CAIR-Hamas disseminated an obligatory condemnation of Adan’s jihad before wailing about “the potential backlash to this community.”
Mahad Abdiaziz Adbiraham pleaded guilty to stabbing two people at the Mall of America in Minnesota in January 2018. Initially, the crime was reported as an “interrupted theft” in which two men had spotted Adbiraham attempting to steal merchandise at a Macy’s. But Adbiraham made his intent clear in the courtroom when he entered his plea. His attack was a “call for jihad by the Chief of Believer, Abu-bakr Al-baghdadi, may Allah protect him, and by the Mujahiden of the Islamic State,” he wrote in a statement. “I understand that the two men I stabbed know and have explained the reason for my attack, and I am here reaffirming that it was indeed an act of Jihad in the way of Allah.” Motive: known. Adbiraham entered the U.S. with “derivative status,” meaning he came here with a relative legally (most likely a refugee or green card recipient).
Mohanad Shareef Hammadi was an Iraqi refugee who landed in Las Vegas before resettling in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 2009. He was not being hunted or oppressed by anyone. He was, in fact, a bomb-maker insurgent for Al Qaeda in Iraq who had targeted American soldiers on the battlefield and sought to amass high-powered weapons and ship them from his adopted home back to the front lines to assist his terrorist brethren. In 2013, he was sentenced to life in prison for providing material support to terrorists and “conspiring to transfer, possess, and export Stinger missiles,” not to mention making a false statement in an immigration application.
In 2015, a ring of Bosnian Muslim refugees and naturalized Bosnian-American citizens were indicted on criminal charges for sending money and supplies to terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Ramiz and Sedina Hodzic, refugees who had resettled in St. Louis, were charged in a criminal conspiracy involving fellow Bosnian immigrants Mediha Medy Salkicevic, Armin Harcevic, Jasminka Ramic, and Nihad Rosic. They raised money and purchased U.S. military uniforms, combat boots, tactical gear, and rifle scopes, which they sent to Abdullah Ramo Pazara–a Bosnian Muslim refugee who had lived in St. Louis and became a U.S. citizen just days before traveling to Syria in 2013 to fight for Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Pazara rose up the ranks of ISIS; he was reportedly killed on the Turkey-Syria border. Ramiz Hodzic, Harcevic, Salkicevic, and Ramic pleaded guilty to their charges in 2019. In May 2019, Sedina Hodzic pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism and is awaiting sentencing.
Open Borders Inc. propagandists and profiteers will do what they always do when confronted with criminal nightmares that don’t fit the Emma Lazarus fantasy narrative: Whitewash them. The vast majority of refugees are law-abiding, they’ll sputter. Only xenophobes dwell on the negative impacts, they’ll seethe. But an untold number of refugees are not just committing ordinary civilian crimes. They are Islamic oppressors masquerading as the oppressed. Never forget: Ramzi Yousef faked an asylum claim to plot the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Never forget: Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian bomb-builder who entered the U.S. illegally through Canada, claimed political asylum based on phony persecution by Israelis. Never forget: Palestinian jihadist Mir Aimal Kansi, convicted in 1997 of capital murder for the January 1993 shooting spree outside CIA headquarters in McLean, Va., claimed bogus political asylum based on his ethnic minority status in Pakistan. The 9/11 jihad attacks, which every feckless politician will commemorate during next week’s 18th anniversary events with “Never Again” platitudes, should have taught us that all it takes is a teeny-tiny minority of foreign menaces to wreak massive havoc on our safety and civil order.
How many more horrifying reasons do we need to shut off the refujihadi spigot, stop underwriting the U.N.’s sovereignty-eroding agenda, and get our house in order?
CLAIM: President Donald Trump is ending “a policy that allows migrants to not be deported while they or their family members receive life-saving medical treatments.”
VERDICT: False. There was never any such policy, and all the Trump administration is doing is moving discretion over individual cases from USCIS to ICE.
The media were abuzz Wednesday and Thursday with claims, such as the one quoted from The Hill, above, that Trump is so hell-bent on deporting people that he is even “deporting kids with cancer,” as Vanity Fair put it (adding that Trump was once again living down to comparisons to Adolf Hitler).
Former vice president Joe Biden seized on the news, and added it to his stump speech. He declared, for example, on Thursday night in Greenville, South Carolina:
In just the last few days, we’ve learned his newest target is children. I thought we’d hit the bottom. No! … He decided to take away automatic citizenship from the children of our military serving overseas. … Like every bully in history, he’s trying to make himself seem stronger by picking on the most vulnerable … I thought even he would understand that kids suffering from cancer, cystic fibrosis, and other diseases they can’t get treatment for in their countries were off limits. But like so many other things he’s said, cruelty seems to be the point. … They all have to be unplugged and gone. Ladies and gentlemen — Neuroblastoma! — I can’t imagine, if I had been an immigrant, my son Beau, when he came home from the war, and he ended up having stage 4 glioblastoma … and them telling me, “No, unplug him, send him home.” That’s what it is! That’s what he’s doing! And it’s immoral, and it’s wrong!
Everything about that statement is false.
Trump is not taking away birthright citizenship “from the children of our military serving overseas.”An NBC reporter had to issue a correction: “Experts who have looked at new USCIS [U.S. Citizenship and Immigrant Services] policy say it applies if a service member adopts a child overseas, but children born to service members on deployment would still automatically get citizenship.” (Evidently Joe Biden did not get that particular memo.)
Second, there is no existing policy of “special status”for medical deferment, according to sources who spoke to Breitbart News on background.
What has happened in the past is that illegal aliens — not legal “immigrants,” as Biden suggested — were able to apply to an adjudicator at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for deferment from deportation. The majority of “deferred action” requests were denied by USCIS. Now they will be considered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is an enforcement agency (as USCIS is not).
The Associated Press cited letters sent to some Boston-area families ordering them to leave the country within 33 days. The letters apparently did not mention the shift in agency responsibilities. It is not yet clear what is happening in those cases, or why those individuals were not told about the shift from USCIS to ICE.
Nevertheless, what is happening to those individuals does not appear to be the result of a change in “special status”by Trump. Notably, the Associated Press refers to “immigrants”— not “illegal immigrants,”or even “undocumented” immigrants, obscuring the status of those affected (and perhaps frightening some legal immigrants).
People who want to travel to the U.S. for specialized care can still do so, legally, by applying via normal channels.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
African migrants and locals use a makeshift raft to illegaly cross the Suchiate river from Tecun Uman in Guatemala to Ciudad Hidalgo in Chiapas State, Mexico, on June 10, 2019. – In the framework of Mexico’s deal to curb migration in order to avert US President Donald Trump’s threat of …Photo: PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images
Hundreds of African migrants are finding themselves trapped in Mexico’s southern border region after new immigration rules no longer allow them safe passage to the U.S. The rule changes now say they must naturalize in Mexico or exit through its southern border.
A Cameroonian migrant, Esteban Azu, 37, said he paid human smugglers $8,000 to get him into the U.S. He said his journey took him from his home country to Turkey, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and finally to Mexico, Animal Politico reported.
“I arrived in Tapachula a month ago. I left Cameroon and went directly to Ecuador. From there to Colombia. I climbed mountains, walked through the jungle, to find this shit,” Azu expressed. “This shit! They don’t feed me. They don’t give me anything. I am very angry with the government of Mexico. This is not normal. This is bullshit. We need a solution. We just want to get out of here.”
The man who claims to be a plumber by trade, now finds himself trapped in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
A June 7 rule change that stems from an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico no longer allows safe passage to the United States. Mexico deployed thousands of its newly formed National Guard to enforce the new laws and deter migration through the country, Breitbart Texas reported. Since that time, migration through Mexico has dropped by about 40 percent.
Prior to the rule change, more than 1,100 African migrants arrived in a single Texas Border Patrol sector in a five-week period, Breitbart Texas reported in July.
In a press call in June, Brian Hastings, U.S. Border Patrol Chief of Law Enforcement Operations, told reporters this was the first large group “ever recorded in Border Patrol history solely from Central and South Africa. We’ve never seen that demographic in a large group of that size before.”
Prior to the rule change, migrants — African or others — received a 20-day passage through the country and were required to leave via any border. Obviously, the goal was the northern border of Mexico.
The new document being provided to migrants in southern Mexico states that the migrant may not “travel freely.” The document says they now must leave the country in 20 days “through a place destined for the international transit of people on the southern border closest to the place where said document was issued.”
Animal Politico interviews dozens of migrants — mostly Africans — who told the same story. They stated they were ordered to go to the regularization office or they may apply for asylum in Mexico. Neither option is said to be acceptable as their stated goal is entry into the United States.
“They do not want to request refuge in Chiapas because they want to do so in the United States,” Animal Politico stated.
Mexican immigration authorities reported that 3,712 people from Africa appeared between January and June 2019. The majority of those came from Cameroon. Most of the balance came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Similar demographics were reported by Del Rio Sector Border Patrol officials in June when more than 500 African migrants appeared along the U.S. side of Mexico’s northern border in a one-week period, Breitbart Texas reported.
Two weeks before the illegal crossings began in the Del Rio Sector, hundreds of African migrants gathered near an international bridge in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, to protest not being allowed entry into the U.S. through a legal port of entry, Breitbart News reported. The group complained that Cuban migrants were given preferential treatment.
Since that time, multiple groups of African migrants, mostly family units, crossed in the same area in large numbers. On June 5, agents apprehended another group of 34, bringing the total to more than 500 in less than a week.
In June and July, U.S. officials reported sharp decreases in the number of migrants being apprehended after crossing the border illegally.
The far-Left Democrats are trying to build momentum to abolish ICE and all enforcement of our sovereignty. Politically, it would take them 100 years to accomplish that goal, if ever. But the lower courts are doing it for them overnight with no pushback from the other branches of government.
On Tuesday, Ketanji Brown Jackson, a district judge in D.C. who is often touted as the next liberal SCOTUS pick, issued an injunction on two potential deportations of illegal aliens because she questioned the legitimacy of a lesson plan at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for training asylum adjudicators. She said that the new lesson plans drafted on April 30 might make it tougher for credible fear claims to be granted, even though they were implemented to actually weed out fraudulent claims. Thus, two illegal aliens from El Salvador who were ordered deported through the expedited removal process after losing their bid for asylum petitioned the judge to block the deportations, even though statute stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to review such a case.
Never mind the fact that the sole discretion for guidance in dealing with initial credible fear interviews and appeals is up to the DHS secretary and the attorney general. Beyond that, U.S.C. § 1158(b)(2)(C) states, “The Attorney General may by regulation establish additional limitations and conditions, consistent with this section, under which an alien shall be ineligible for asylum under paragraph (1).”
The key issue here is that such determinations of credible fear for those placed in expedited removal are completely unreviewableby federal courts, because Congress barred courts from jurisdiction over the entire issue. As the Congressional Research Service explains of expedited removal, a statue that passed the Senate unanimously in 1996, “The jurisdictional bar applies to claims that an immigration officer improperly placed an alien in expedited removal proceedings; challenges to an immigration officer’s credible fear determination; arguments challenging the procedures and policies implemented by DHS to expedite removal; and claims contesting the expedited removal order itself.”
Those jurisdictional bars are spelled out very clearly in 8 U.S.C. §1252(a)(2)(A). Yet Judge Jackson, in an act of civil disobedience against immigration law, says she will review the case anyway because DOJ’s arguments “raise complicated questions of statutory interpretation that will require briefing and evaluation.”
But if she hasn’t determined that she even has jurisdiction to decide the case, how can she then definitively decide to issue an injunction? As Chris Hajec, director of litigation at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, told CR, “I have never heard that this ‘jurisdiction-to-decide’ includes the jurisdiction to issue injunctions. How can a court exercise a power it hasn’t yet decided it has? In fact, staying removal doesn’t help the court decide whether it has jurisdiction to stay removal.”
The law is so clear that even the Ninth Circuit said in 2011, “Congress expressly deprived courts of jurisdiction to hear a direct appeal from an expedited removal order.” (United States v. Barajas-Alvarado (9th Cir. 2011))
Congress has plenary power over immigration. “Over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is”over immigration (Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 792 (1977)). Congress also has plenary power over the jurisdiction of the courts. This holds true for even the Supreme Court and certainly for inferior courts, which, according to Edmund Randolph, the nation’s first attorney general, “must have slept forever without the pleasure of Congress.” There are multiple statutes added to the INA in 1996 stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear numerous cases regarding deportations. But the judge is violating the essence of the Constitution.
This is also yet one more reminder that those Republicans suggesting that we need new laws to fix the border are living in an alternate reality. It is impossible to pass laws stronger than the expedited removal law in 1996, which categorically kicked the courts out of these cases. If our response to courts violating the law and hearing the cases they are forbidden to touch is to pass new laws that will be ignored by the courts, we are fiddling with a futile exercise while our border burns.
Author: Daniel Horowitz
Daniel Horowitz is a senior editor of Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @RMConservative.
Images: Joaquin Castro (L) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (R)
The current selective outrage from Democrats today stands in sharp contrast to the deplorable conditions migrants faced in detention facilities during the Obama administration in 2014. The commentary from certain Democrats appears to be more politically motivated than directed at improving conditions for migrants in detention.
In June 2014, Breitbart News Director of Border and Cartel Chronicles Projects Brandon Darby shocked the world with the publication of leaked photos showing the deplorable conditions faced by unaccompanied migrant children and family units. Democrat responses at that time appeared to be more angered that migrants were being detained at all than by the horrible conditions forced upon the migrants by Obama administration policies.
Dozens of photographs published by Breitbart News at that time show migrants packed into small holding cells, often shoulder-to-shoulder. Many of the photos show filthy conditions and some reveal portable toilet units. Other’s show people sleeping on the floor in cold conditions without blankets.
Contrast these with the single photo tweeted by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) this week that shows clean conditions and women with blankets. It is worth noting that Castro’s brother, Julián Castro, is a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president — seeking to pair off against President Donald Trump in November 2020. Julián Castro has been conspicuously silent on the recent discussion of migrant detention facilities.
When Rep. Castro visited an Obama-era facility in 2015, his concern seemed more focused on ending the detention of migrants altogether rather than improving conditions for the detained illegal border crossers. A report from the San Antonio Current at the time said Castro called it a “very emotional visit.”He reportedly said the migrants should qualify for asylum.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) took it a step further. “What I saw today did nothing but confirm my belief walking through the door that we should end the jailing of women and children in these proceedings. It is by its nature punitive, whether it is intended to be or not,” she said.
More than 130 Democrats in Congress signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson asking him to end the use of family detention facilities, the report stated.
“They are in a locked facility that feels quite a bit like a jail. I would say it is a jail camp,” Lofgren said after touring another facility in Central Texas.
On Monday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), accused Border Patrol agents of forcing migrants to drink from toilets. “Officers were keeping women in cells w/ no water & had told them to drink out of the toilets,” she tweeted.
National Border Patrol Council President and Border Patrol Agent Brandon Judd expressed his anger at the accusations leveled by AOC at the agents his union represents. His interview aired on Breitbart News Tonight.
“Nobody is forced to drink out of a toilet and nobody is told to drink out of a toilet,” Judd explained. “Its completely and totally a baseless and ridiculous allegation and frankly it needs to be investigated and she needs to be exposed.”
Responding to a statement from the freshman representative that she would rather be morally correct than factually accurate, Judd told Breitbart News, “How can you have the moral high ground if you are going to throw facts out the window and spew falsehoods? And that’s what she is doing.”
Judd explained further, “She gives absolutely no contexts to these allegations that she is making and by not giving context she is trying to paint a false narrative and a false picture and she needs to be held accountable for that.”
Since Breitbart’s release of the leaked photos in 2014, Congress, under either party’s leadership, has done little to nothing in terms of reducing the numbers of migrant families and unaccompanied minors crossing the border illegally. In fact, the issue has gotten much worse.
In 2014, Border Patrol agents working the nine sectors of the southwest border with Mexico apprehended 68,445 family units and 68, 541 unaccompanied minors, according to information obtained from the FY2014 Southwest Border Migration Report. A total of 136,986 migrant families and children.
During the first eight months of FY 2019, those numbers more than doubled. The most recent report from CBP shows that Border Patrol agents apprehended 332,981 migrants families and 56,278 unaccompanied minors — 389,259 total families and children (a 184 percent increase).
Despite these massive increases in the numbers of children and family units crossing the border, the most recent spending legislation approved by Congress last week provides “NO funding for ICE Detention Beds,” Breitbart News reported.
AOC went even further — criticizing Mayfair for making beds for migrants families to sleep on.
At the end of a lengthy discussion on Twitter, Darby concluded, “It’s absolutely right and noble to be upset about the humanitarian crisis on our border, my point is that some seem to only be upset now that it’s politically expedient to be upset. That’s all.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.
Vice President Pence briefly sparred with CNN’s Jake Tapperon Sunday over reports of unsanitary, dangerous conditions in migrant detention centers.
“No American should approve of this mass influx of people coming across our border,”Pence said on “State of the Union.” “I was at the detention center in Nogales, [Ariz.]. … It is a heartbreaking scene. These are people who are being exploited by human traffickers. … Congress has to act.”
Tapper played a clip of Justice Department lawyer Sarah Fabian suggesting detained migrant children did not need toothbrushes or soap, prompting Pence to respond, “I can’t speak to what that lawyer was saying.” He then insisted congressional Democrats had resisted expanding bed space in detention centers.
Pence, asked about additional reports of conditions inside the facilities, said that “we’ve got to get to the root causes”by improving border security.
Tapper continued to press Pence on conditions in the facilities, telling him he had “the power right now to go back to the White House”and raise the issue. Pence defended U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel, calling them “dedicated men and women” who are “doing their level best every day.”
Immigration attorneys have said that four toddlers were sent to the hospital last week after they were held at a Border Patrol facility.
Pence’s comments came in the wake of reports that President Trumphad canceled sweeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in several major cities Sunday, saying he would give congressional Democrats two weeks to reach an immigration deal.
Jon Anfinsen is a National Border Patrol Council vice president and based in Del Rio, which includes Eagle Pass, where most Congolese are arriving. Anfinsen represents approximately 1,000 agents who are based out of 10 regional holding stations. Anfinsen has been an agent 12 years and said the number of people in custody and subsequent illnesses among that population is “unprecedented.”
“Scabies, chickenpox — we had one case of the mumps here in Uvalde. I wanna say we had measles — plenty of the flu, plenty of colds, body lice, just assorted. And some of these things, they spread like wildfires when you get into a cramped holding cell. It happens,”Anfinsen said.
The continuous breakouts — in part caused by the overcrowded conditions in facilities and difficulty quarantining each sick person — are taking both a physical and mental toll on agents.
“It’s not so much the workload. It’s the constant illnesses. We have a lot of agents who are sick. The other day I talked to agents from four different stations. And every single one of them had a cough,”Anfinsen said.
“I’ll go and I’ll help process. There was one day I spent processing and we had like 40 Guatemalans and Hondurans, and most of them had some kind of cough. And sure enough the next day, I’m sick — for a week,”he said. “It’s become the new normal, and you gotta just keep going and do your job because you can’t just not process them.”
National Border Patrol Council vice president and agent in El Paso, Wesley Farris, said the breakouts rarely stop, they just dwindle down for a period.
“It’ll go in waves. Scabies — strep throat was the last one. Strep throat happened at the Santa Teresa station [in New Mexico]. It was everywhere,” Farris said. “Active tuberculosis comes in fairly regularly. We had an incident of H1N1, swine flu, in Clint [Texas] with a juvenile. And then the ones that are most disruptive are the simple ones: regular flu or lice.”
Union officials in El Paso have urged the sector’s 2,500 agents to wear gloves and face masks whenever possible. Neither official could provide confidential data on the amount of agent sick time used in order to see the brevity of sickness claims among Homeland Security employees.
Farris said the sector has harped on taking basic precautions to stay healthy, but said they are not enough, especially as populations from other parts of the world, including Africa and Asia, continue to arrive at the southern border at rates higher than previous years, bringing with it mild and possibly more serious types of illnesses that are not native to the U.S.
Farris said if he had his way, he would bring in physicians from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a proactive measure.
Both officials said migrants are currently screened after being taken into custody and transported from where they were found to a Border Patrol station. Some agents will ask migrants while they are in the field if they need medical help and will then acquire additional transportation if it is needed.
Once back at the station, either Border Patrol EMTs, medical personnel from the Coast Guard, or contracted doctors and nurses will take each person’s vitals and examine them for signs of illness. If a person is deemed to be in good standing, he or she will be released into a holding cell with others. All others will be sent to a hospital. Following hospital tests and possible treatment, the detainee is turned back over to Border Patrol. Quarantining is difficult because of the lack of space at stations, both men said.
Border Patrol does not do blood work as part of medical intake for incoming detainees. Anfinsen said even if they did do it, there is still a chance they or the hospital could miss something that is premature to be showing up in the blood.
The El Paso official said the contracted medical professionals and Coast Guard officials are doing their best, but deserve additional resources because of the risk posed to the general public by the release of hundreds of thousands of people this year.
“If I was running the ship, I would make medically screening people a higher priority,”he said. “At least 90% of people coming into this sector are coming in at one spot. I would get ahead of the game and set up what you call a hot zone — have medical right there.”
“We’re civil servants. It’s what we’re supposed to do in that regard — make sure we at least know [a person’s background]. We do it on the criminal side — we won’t release a criminal if they have an active warrant. We’ll check that. But we’re very reluctant to quarantine them medically,”he said.
Last week, the CDC announced the activation of an emergency operations center in an effort to help with the Congo’s Ebola outbreak, the second-largest in history.
Farris said if the CDC is jumping in to help with a major outbreak overseas, the U.S. agency should “absolutely” deploy some resources to the southern border.
“You’re going to have to sift through thousands before you get one [major disease],” said Farris. “That’s my nightmare — that somebody does get sick — because I’m going to have to make the funeral arrangements. And it’s not going to be an agent, it’s going to be his 3-year-old kid at home who contracts Ebola or H1N1 because they’re little.”
Coyotes are giving smuggling discounts to migrant parents who lend their young children to other migrants at the border, says a report by the Center for Immigration Studies.
“The child, real parent, unrelated adult client, and smuggler often make the trip together,” said the report by Todd Bensman, a former manager at the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division. ”Only at the border is the child and bogus birth certificate given over to the paying migrant, who is expected to return the child days or weeks later once everyone is inside the United States,” he said.
Bensman spoke with Monica Mapel, an ICE agent in San Antonio, Texas, after she led a study into the novel child-trading scheme.
“I have current examples where they [the unrelated adult male] had never met them [the child] until the transportation to the U.S. began,”Mapel told Bensman. The adult male told the ICE agents that “I have no idea who the child is. I never met him before until I got on the transport. The child was given to me and the birth certificate was provided. The mom was on the bus,”she added.
The child-trading is made profitable by Congress’ refusal to fix the 2015 Flores Catch-and-Release loophole.The policy bars the detention of adults for more than 20 days, so the migrants and the cartel-tied coyotes have an incentive to bring and share many children so every migrant can get a child and walk through border fences via the Flores loophole.
Once through the border, the migrants are supposed to return the children to the mother, and then get blue-collar jobs to repay the cartel’s labor-trafficking business.
Democratic legislators have been silent about the child trading and the loopholes which make the journey possible, but very vocal about young migrants who die on the last stage of the journey into the United States. Republicans did little to close the loopholes when they held the House and Senate in 2017 and 2018.
Democrats and Republicans are also silent about the harms suffered by children of blue-collar Americans who are stuck in classrooms alongside migrant children who speak little or no English.
Bensman reported how the child trade works:
Mapel said human smugglers or brokers in home countries cut package deals where a parent provides a child (especially if parents have more than one) to a child-less migrant for a fee or an in-kind reduction in the real parent’s own smuggling fee. Such packages can reach $7,000 for transportation, food, doctored birth certificates, and the child.
“If you have children to spare during your trip to the U.S., your trip is not as expensive,” she explained.
…
To best maintain a ruse where the child is unable to blow the cover, Mapel said, young children are preferred, especially infants and toddlers who can’t answer questions or make mistakes. Border Patrol has often reported the arrival of single men carrying infants without baby formula, bottles, diapers or any other accoutrements indicating infant caretaking.
“I think it’s because they [a young child] won’t make a mistake in a facility. To them, it’s just a trip. They clearly have no idea what’s happening,”Mapel said.
The trade is dangerous and traumatizing for the migrant children, Bensman reported:
“In the cases I’m looking at,”Mapel said. “the mother lost track of that child. That child is now in another person’s custody because they didn’t reunite or something, somewhere.”
Others may be abandoned in the field. Plenty of abandoned-child cases have come to the attention of federal agents, such a 3-year-old boy found recently near McAllen, Texas, crying alone in a corn field, the only tie to his family possibly the phone number written on one of his shoes. While it’s unclear whether those children had been used for the asylum loophole entry, Mapel described the vulnerability that complicit parents allow by turning their kids over to others, during detention and after release, as “just foul.”
“It’s a new low for humanity that you would give your child away like this to a stranger or friend,” she said. “I’d hate to see something happen to that child after the handoff occurs. They are with somebody who is not their parent. What if fake mom or fake dad needed to make medical decisions for the child? Just some random guy is going to be saying it’s ok to do this procedure at a hospital? It’s just not right; the person who is supposed to be protecting them is not there.”
…
Mapel said she believes true mothers and fathers who participate in faux family schemes should be subjected to child endangerment charges and perhaps something new that could bring [a] higher penalty.
“DHS has seen many examples of family unit fraud; you’ve victimized your child. A young, young child is sitting in a facility. If these children ended up with ORR, there’re no hugs. There’re no kisses. What are they, Facetiming? What are you doing to see your child? And yes, you did do that to him. That seems like child endangerment. So yes, I think children are the pawns in this scheme.”
The inflow of children is huge. The Washington Postreported May 28:
Nearly 169,000 youths have surrendered at the southern border in the first seven months of this fiscal year, and more than half are ages 12 and under, according to federal records and officials familiar with Customs and Border Protection statistics. Minors now account for nearly 37 percent of all crossings — far above previous eras, when most underage migrants were teenagers and accounted for 10 percent to 20 percent of all crossings.
The migration is also emptying towns in Central America. On April 21, the Wall Street Journalreported:
COLOTENANGO, Guatemala—Gloria Velásquez is used to saying goodbye. Four of her six siblings have migrated to the U.S. and she, too, is thinking about heading north with her 9-year-old daughter.
…
Ms. Velásquez said her four siblings in the U.S. are encouraging her to join them. Her daughter Helen Ixchel likes to teach language and mathematics to fellow children. She wants to learn English and become a teacher.
“I’m a bit scared [about going to the U.S.] after hearing all the news about the suffering of migrants at the border. But it’s my daughter’s greatest dream,” Ms. Velásquez said.
But the flow of migrants provides U.S. employers with an extra supply of tough, compliant, low-wage workers just as labor shortages are forcing companies to raise pay for Americans. The extra labor supply also reduces U.S. employers’ incentive to hire the population 12 million unemployed or underemployed Americans, some of whom are sidelined by disability, underinvestment in rural areas, or drugs, or even to hire U.S. factory workers to build labor-saving machinery.
Data released by the Department of Homeland Security shows that a huge volume of migrants is getting work permits for U.S. jobs.
From October 2015 to September 2016, for example, 270,000 migrants got work permits via the (c)(8) process, and another 78,000 migrants got paroled and got work permits via the “Paroled pursuant to INA 212(d)(5)” category.
In the next fiscal year of 2017, the regular number spiked to 403,000, but the parole number dropped to 59,000 as Trump’s deputies curbed the parole number. In 2018, the regular number dipped to 345,000, and the parole number lurched down to 18,000.
DHS officials have refused to tell Breitbart News how long the work permits last, so they are hiding the number of migrants getting new work permits or extended work permits.
Immigration Numbers
Each year, roughly four million young Americans join the workforce after graduating from high school or university.
But the federal government then imports about 1.1 million legal immigrants and refreshes a resident population of roughly 1.5 million white-collar visa workers — including roughly one million H-1B workers — and approximately 500,000 blue-collar visa workers.
The government also prints out more than one million work permits for foreigners, tolerates about eight million illegal workers, and does not punish companies for employing the hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants who sneak across the border or overstay their legal visas each year.
This policy of inflating the labor supply boosts economic growth for investorsbecause it ensures that employers do not have to compete for American workers by offering higher wages and better working conditions.
This policy of flooding the market with cheap, foreign, white-collar graduates and blue-collar labor also shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors, even as it also widens wealth gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, and hurts children’s schools and college educations. It also pushes Americans away from high-tech careers and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions. The labor policy also moves business investment and wealth from the heartland to the coastal cities, explodes rents and housing costs, shrivels real estate values in the Midwest, and rewards investors for creating low-tech, labor-intensive workplaces.
A group of immigration hardliners who used millions of crowdfunded dollars to build a border barrier on private land along the U.S.-Mexico border unveiled the nearly completed half-mile steel bollard fence Thursday following construction delays.
The 2,300-feet-long project marks the first time a nongovernment organization or individual has built a wall on privately owned land on the international boundary. It runs up a rocky 320-feet-tall hill and is 18 to 20 feet tall, depending on the point on the hill where it is measured.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Kansas State Secretary Kris Kobach, World Series MLB player Curt Schilling, Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince, and other longtime supporters of President Trump were on site at the project in Sunland Park, N.M., to showcase the fence, which stands on less than half a mile of the 1,954-mile border.
The undertaking has evolved, prompting questions about how money is being spent and the Trump administration’s involvement in the process.
Brian Kolfage, a triple amputee veteran, created a crowdfunding page in December with the intent of raising $1 billion for border wall construction following the Trump administration’s failure to obtain $25 billion for the project last December. The GoFundMe website did not state where the wall would be built or any other details. Kolfage vowed to return everyone’s money if the project did not reach $1 billion.
Kolfage insisted the campaign was not a scam despite having run a since-shuttered Facebook “news” page known for spreading conspiracy theories. He was also sued in 2017 after he reported the wrong name of the suspect involved in the fatal car accident during a white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Kolfage’s page did not come close to its $1 billion goal and topped out at $22.9 million earlier this year. The more than 330,000 people who donated were informed by GoFundMe that they were eligible for a refund because Kolfage had changed the terms of the fundraiser to move to a different fund money people did not request back.
Weeks ahead of the crowdfunding campaign’s failure, Kolfage had launched We Build the Wall, Inc., a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization. Bannon, Kobach, and other staunch conservatives who have been criticized as anti-immigrant were appointed to the organization’s board. The money from the crowdfunding campaign was then funneled to the outside organization.
About the same time this spring, Bannon and fellow board members, including former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, held a couple rallies in Midwestern cities to raise money for the organization, though they have not shared how much they raised in addition to the crowdfunding dollars.
Tommy Fisher, president and CEO of Fisher Industries, was paid to install the steel fence and said it is expected to come in at $7 million after taxes.
We Build the Wall has raised nearly $23 million for the project, though it is unclear how the nonprofit group plans to spend the remaining donations. The group did not respond to a request for comment.
Fisher told the Washington Examiner on Thursday he got involved in the project in April after receiving a call about his company’s claims it could build a mile of border wall per day. We Build the Wall officials, including Kobach, attended a demonstration of the construction in Coolidge, Ariz., last month.
Fisher said the organization signed a contract for him to build the half-mile portion of steel fence over the course of eight days, but it took longer because the city of Sunland Park shut down construction for two days. The suspension was lifted Wednesday.
Despite the board’s connections to Trump, organizers have insisted the project is not affiliated with the White House.
That claim was called into question in a recent Washington Post article that said Trump was adamant about the Army Corps of Engineers hiring Fisher Industries to carry out border wall projects.
Fisher dismissed being described as having lobbied Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., to get his name in front of Trump and insisted Trump was calling for the Pentagon to hire his company because of personal frustration with the less than 40 miles of border wall that has been installed in the two years and four months that he has been in office.
Turning Point USA Director of Hispanic Engagement Anna Paulina questioned Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on Friday at the Houston International airport about the ramifications of an unsecured United States border. Harris, however, seemed more focused on taking selfies than answering the question.
Sen. Kamala Harris appeared attentive while speaking to Anna Paulina at the airport on Friday, until Paulina introduced herself as “the Hispanic engagement director with Turning Point USA,” at which point, the senator promptly turned to give her attention to somebody else standing nearby.
“I ran into Senator Kamala Harris,” said Paulina to Breitbart News, “As I approached her to talk to her about child sex trafficking at the border and how family reunification is being used by human traffickers and the Cartels to exploit and traffic children, she assumed I wanted a selfie.”
Watch:
“You are directly impacting the Hispanic demographic in a negative way,”said Paulina to the senator, “you are directly impacting what is happening with the children in this country and you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing as a representative.”
Sen. Harris, who shook her head after President Donald Trump called for putting illegal drug cartels and human traffickers out of business at his 2019 State of the Union, ignored Paulina to talk to someone vying for a selfie while someone who appeared to be the senator’s handler moved to stand in front of the TPUSA director.
“Shame on you. You’re not going to win,” said Paulina to Harris, who announced her 2020 candidacy for president in January.
Paulina told Breitbart News that Harris was willing to speak with her — likely assuming that Paulina was approaching her for a selfie — but when “I started questioning her about how open border policies are directly hurting Hispanic women and children, she refused to answer,”said Paulina.
“Her assistant told me she had to take selfies with others waiting,” added the TPUSA director, “I find it deeply concerning that a woman, who is running for President of the United States, was more concerned with taking selfies than addressing the trafficking of Hispanic women and children.”
“The loopholes in our immigration systems are exploited on a regular basis,” said Paulina to Breitbart News, “Organized crime is tracking what is happening at our border and with our immigration debate. Elected officials for open borders are lethally impacting people on both sides of the border.”
“It was evident while she was smiling and laughing, and ignoring my questions that she did not care,” said Paulina, “She was more concerned with selfies than children.”
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reports that 76,103 migrants appeared at ports of entry and illegally crossed between ports in February. This is the largest number of apprehensions and inadmissible migrants for a February reporting period in 12 years, CBP stated Tuesday.
Of the 76,103 migrants who came to the border seeking admission or illegally crossing between ports of entry, 62 percent were family units and unaccompanied minors. This presents both a border security and humanitarian crisis at our southwest border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan said in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
United States Border Patrol Chief of Operations Brian Hastings told reporters that during February, Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 66,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico between ports of entry. This is up from nearly 48,000 in January — a nearly 40 percent increase. When compared to the first five months of Fiscal Year 2018, this fiscal year has seen a 97 percent increase, he stated.
“A lot of folks look at that and they say, ‘we have seen numbers like that in the past,” Hastings explained. He said that many people do not understand the “significant change in the demographics of what we are seeing today is what presents us and our partners with a lot of challenges.”
The Border Patrol operations chief said that historically, agents have apprehended about 70 to 90 percent Mexican nationals. “We could apply a consequence to that demographic,” he stated. “We could return them quickly to Mexico.”
“Today, 70 percent of all of those we are arresting are from the (Central American) northern triangle — Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras,” Hastings continued. He explained that under current laws and court rulings there is no consequence to these migrants and they are nearly all released into the U.S. for an indefinite period of time.
“Without being able to deliver a consequence to these individuals for crossing our border, the Border Patrol has no reason to expect that this trend will decrease — in fact, we believe it will increase,” he surmised. “It’s well known at this time that immigrants with children will not be detained during the immigration proceedings. The word of mouth and social media quickly gets back to those in the northern triangle countries that ‘If you bring a child, you’ll be successful.”
Due to these circumstances, the number of cases of people falsely claiming to be family units has increased substantially. “From April 2018 through February 2019 we have had almost 2,400 fraudulent claims of families,” the operations chief explained. “Of those fraudulent claims, some are people who claim they are under 18 and they’re not. Others have actually been fraudulent familial claims.”
So far this fiscal year, Border Patrol agents apprehended 136,150 migrants claiming to be family units and 26,937 people claiming to be unaccompanied minors, according to the February Southwest Border Migration Report released Tuesday afternoon. This is a total of 163,087 family unit aliens (FMUA) and unaccompanied minors so far this year. In all of Fiscal Year 2018, Border Patrol agents only apprehended 157,248, the 2018 Southwest Border Migration Report stated.
Hastings and Commissioner McAleenan explained that these demographics present substantial challenges for the Border Patrol and CBP. In addition to the demographics, they explained that transnational criminal organizations (Mexican cartels) are shifting the crossing points to the most remote areas of the El Paso, Tucson, and Yuma Border Patrol Sectors and are crossing them in much larger groups in order to tie up Border Patrol resources.
The El Paso Sector witnessed a 1,697 percent increase in the number of family units apprehended in remote areas like the Antelope Wells crossing area. The Yuma and Tucson Sectors have both witnessed increases in excess of 230 percent. Other unsecured areas of the border including the Del Rio Sector in Texas saw an increase of nearly 400 percent over the previous February.
Commissioner McAleenan announced the formation of a new migrant processing center for the El Paso Sector to “provide one location for the processing of family units and children.”
The commissioner cautioned that the new facilities for processing migrants “will assist with managing the increased flows … The fact is that these solutions are temporary and this situation is not sustainable. Remote locations of the United States border are not safe places to cross and they are not places to seek medical care.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.
Assaulting someone over their hat is a crime, but bragging and seeking media attention for doing it while you’re in the country illegally seems particularly unwise.
Rosiane Santos was recently arrested for after assaulting a Trump supporter who was wearing a “MAGA” hat inside a Mexican restaurant in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Even employees of the restaurant confirmed that Bryton Turner had simply ordered food before he was accosted by Santos.
“Santos started yelling at him because of his hat, which bears the theme that President Donald Trump campaigned on,” Boston news station WFXT explained. “The woman is seen walking behind him and hitting his hat off his head.”
Even after being arrested, Santos claimed that simply being an immigrant allowed her to attack Turner.
“(B)eing discriminated for so many times in my life, I just had to stand up for myself,” she said in a phone interview with WFXT. “He’s not a victim. I am the victim. I have been bullied, OK?”
Going after someone because of a campaign hat and then drawing attention to herself on the news wasn’t a very wise choice. It turns out that Santos is from Brazil, and now the U.S. government says she was living in the United States illegally.
“The woman who was charged with confronting a man wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat inside a Falmouth Mexican restaurant is now in ICE custody,” WBZ-TV reported on Tuesday.
Her attention-seeking stunt definitely worked, but it will likely get her a one-way ticket out of the country.
“Deportation officers with ICE’s Fugitive Operations Team arrested Rosiane Santos, an unlawfully present citizen of Brazil, today near Falmouth, Massachusetts,” ICE spokesman John Mohan told the local CBS News affiliate.
“Santos is currently facing local charges for assault and other offenses. She is presently in ICE custody and has been entered into removal proceedings before the federal immigration courts.”
For his part, Turner told WBZ-TV that the entire incident could have been avoided if the woman had simply respected other people’s right to wear hats or hold opinions she might not agree with.
“It’s just a hat at the end of the day,” he said. “I don’t really understand why people can’t just express themselves anymore, everybody has to get mad.”
The real irony of this story is that Santos just proved Trump and his supporters’ point. The left insists that “undocumented immigrants”are all good people who only want to join the melting pot and have better lives.
Conservatives, of course, have pointed out that there’s a lot more going on. While many immigrants don’t cause problems once they cross the border, a solid number seem to have a mentality of entitlement, making demands while stirring up trouble.
That’s exactly what this woman did on camera while continuing to play the victim. She and others like her wail about “MAGA” hats and angry Trump supporters, but it was her own unhinged behavior and illegal actions that got her arrested.
Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan, before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico. Follow Benjamin on Facebook
A metal fence marked with the US Border Patrol sign prevents people to get close to the barbed/concertina wire covering the US/Mexico border fence, in Nogales, Arizona, on February 9, 2019. (Ariana Drehsler / AFP / Getty Images)
Apprehensions of illegal migrants at the Southwest border in January increased dramatically from the same time last year, and experts predict 2019 will experience increases in illegal migrant arrests overall.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection — a subset agency of the Department of Homeland Security — reported a total of 47,893 apprehensions of illegal migrants in January at the Southwest border, a region of the U.S.-Mexico border that is the most active. The number marked an increase of nearly 22,000 arrests, or 84 percent, from January 2018.
The huge uptick could suggest more illegal immigrants will try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019 than originally anticipated.
Princeton Policy Advisors — a group that analyses immigration trends — is currently forecasting 606,000 apprehensions for the entire year, but they left the door open to increase this projection.
“The January numbers don’t yet warrant an upward revision in our forecast of 606,000 apprehensions in 2019. But we are on notice,” Steven Kopits, president of Princeton, stated to the Washington Examiner. “Buckle your seat belts: 2019 could be a wild ride at the southwest border.”
The January numbers reflect a growing trend at the U.S.-Mexico border. Nearly 467,000 apprehensions took place at the U.S. Southern border in 2018, more than any other calendar year since at least 2012, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center. The spike in arrests was led in large part by migrant families attempting to reach the U.S. illegally at the tail end of 2018. While rising apprehensions can be indicative of more migrants attempting to enter the U.S., the numbers also reflect an evolving strategy among illegal migrants.
Many illegal immigrants reach the border with the intention of getting caught by border patrol where they can then make an asylum claim. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, for example, recorded 78,564 asylum requests in 2017, a huge increase from the 13,880 requests made in 2012.
“Remember, the problem right now isn’t people crossing the border illegally. It’s people presenting themselves to border patrol agents – people who want to get apprehended so they can lodge a frivolous asylum claim,” RJ Hauman, director of government relations for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, stated to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“They know we don’t have the detention space, so we just release them into the interior of the country.”
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Angel Families on Capitol Hill WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 15: Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) (R) leaves a closed-door committee meeting with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats in the Hart Senate Office Building June 15, 2017 in Washington, DC. According to committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), …
Angel Mom Maureen Maloney, the vice president of Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC), says Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA)’s staff threatened to call Capitol Police when Angel Families visited her Senate office in Washington, DC, this month.
Maloney — whose 23 years-old son, Matthew Denice, was killed in August 2011 by an illegal alien who ran over him while drunk driving without a license — told SiriusXM Patriot’s Breitbart News Tonight that the staff of Democrat 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris threatened to call Capitol Police when Angel Families visited the offices of prominent House and Senate Democrats to discuss illegal alien crime.
Meanwhile, Maloney told Breitbart News Senior Editors-at-Large Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak that Harris makes it known that illegal aliens are welcome in her office.
“So we went past her office about two weeks ago, we were in D.C. to see … Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, and Kamala Harris, in front of her office, has a big welcome sign in Spanish that says ‘Dreamers Are Welcome,’” Maloney said.
MANSOUR: Were you welcome?
MALONEY: No, in fact, two of the people I was with, they threatened to call Capitol Police on them if they didn’t leave.
MANSOUR: Kamala Harris’ staff threatened to call the police on you?
MALONEY: Yes.
Listen to Maloney’s full interview here:
In her 2020 presidential campaign kickoff speech in Oakland, California, Harris portrayed herself as an advocate for crime victims and thanked illegal aliens for visiting lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
You see, in our system of justice, we believe that harm against any one of us is harm against all of us. That’s why when we file a case, it’s not filed in the name of the victim. It reads, “The People.” This is a point I have often explained to console and counsel survivors of crime, people who faced great harm. Often at the hands of someone they trust – be it a relative or a bank or a big corporation. I would remind them. You are not invisible. We all stand together. [Emphasis added]
…
During the health care fight, I saw parents and children with grave illnesses walk the halls of the United States Congress, families who had traveled across the country at incredible sacrifice. They came to our nation’s capital believing that if their stories were heard, and if they were seen, their leaders would do the right thing. I saw the same thing with our Dreamers. They came by the thousands. By plane, train, and automobile. I’m sure they were sleeping ten-deep on someone’s living room floor. [Emphasis added]
Maloney said it is illegal aliens who have the upper hand against their American victims, not only when it comes to trying to speak with lawmakers, but also in the court system.
“Illegal aliens are treated with such leniency compared to American citizens. It’s really sickening what goes on in the courts,”Maloney said.
Harris and other elected Democrat lawmakers are “absolutely not” working on behalf of illegal alien crime victims, Maloney said, noting that she and other Angel Families have been unable to meet with Democrats about the immigration issue for years.
“My senators up here, Sen. Markey and Sen. Warren, I’ve tried for years to get an appointment to meet with them. They’re unable to meet with people here in Massachusetts and down in Washington,” Maloney said. “When I’ve been down in Washington to meet with Democrat leaders, they’re not available. Members of AVIAC have been trying to meet with Nancy Pelosi as long as we’ve been in existence and they’ve made public pleas to meet with her and she won’t meet with any of us.”
“No, I don’t feel that the Democrats are representing my family at all,” Maloney said.
Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 weeknights from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern or 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Burned Car | Ilya Andriyanov / Shutterstock(Ilya Andriyanov / Shutterstock)
President Donald Trump delivered his first primetime Oval Office address on Tuesday night, where he explained how the situation on the porous southern border of the U.S. had reached a “crisis” level in terms of humanitarian and national security needs, a crisis which necessitates the construction of a border wall in some areas as part of increased border security overall.
Democrats and the media immediately set about disputing Trump’s labeling of the border situation as a “crisis,” part of their overtly biased effort to instantly “fact-check” every word or statistic uttered by the president in the brief speech, and — coincidentally? — all seemed to arrive at the same conclusion: There is no real crisis at the border, only a “manufactured crisis” brought about purposefully by Trump’s actions, or some such nonsense like that.
Of course, to follow along with the media’s bouncing ball on this one, everyone must ignore the fact that the same liberal media loudly trumpeted the “crisis” at the border in 2013 and 2014 — when they were supporting comprehensive immigration reform and amnesty for illegal immigrants — or their hollering about a “crisis” on the border through much of 2017 and 2018 when Trump began to crack down on illegal border crossings and deportations ticked up.
In truth, however, the only thing “manufactured” about all of this is the Democrats ‘obstinate opposition to the president and their refusal to acknowledge the basic and undeniable facts of what is occurring on and around the porous and lightly defended southern border.
Case in point, Reuters reported on Thursday that at least 20 dead bodies — 17 of which had been badly burned — were discovered on Wednesday in the Mexican city of Ciudad Miguel Aleman, which is located a mere 56 miles across the Rio Grande River from the U.S. border city of McAllen, Texas, where President Trump visited with U.S. Border Patrol agents and other officials on Thursday.
Mexican authorities are reportedly investigating what has all the appearances of a deadly battle between members of two rival gangs in the area, gangs that routinely play in a role in the illicit cross-border excursions that bring illegal aliens, criminals, drugs, weapons and even terrorists into this nation.
The suspected gang-related massacre even drew a mention from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at his daily news conference on Thursday, and though he didn’t offer up much in the way of specifics, he did say that security officials would provide more information at a later date or time.
Reuters noted that according to one Mexican security official, five burned-out vehicles were also discovered along with the 20 dead bodies, though the outlet noted that a separate Mexican security official had reportedly counted as many as 21 dead bodies at the scene. The grisly scene was located in the Tamaulipas region of Mexico, one of the more violent states in that nation that has been controlled by dangerous criminal cartels and gangs for years. Those groups exert a great deal of control over drug and human trafficking across the border in that region, and are well-known for running extortion rackets on local residents and exploiting migrants passing through the area for whatever can be gained.
When not engaged in those border-related crimes, the cartels and gangs are fighting violently among each other or waging war against Mexican security forces, violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives — some innocent, some not so much — over the years.
Obviously, incidents like this one — and this bloody incident is far from an isolated occurrence — are what President Trump is referencing when he speaks of the “crisis” at the border while demanding Congress appropriate the necessary funds to construct a border wall where needed and to increase border security measures in other ways.
Yet, based solely on their reflexive opposition to all things Trump, many talking heads in the liberal media staunchly refuse to acknowledge as a “crisis” what their own colleagues are quietly reporting on a near-daily basis.
Indeed, some in the media have even adopted a sort of “Don’t believe your lying eyes” attitude when it comes to their anti-Trump reporting on the border, as evidenced by a ridiculous tweet from CNN’s Jim Acosta that actually seemed to prove the president’s point about how necessary and effective a border wall truly is.
In several other tweets after that, Acosta hyped up how safe the border town of McAllen is — while studiously ignoring the obvious fact that McAllen is safe because it has a border wall and other barriers obstructing those who would illicitly cross over.
Unfortunately, the wall and other barriers along the border in the McAllen region that keep it so safe only extend for so long, and eventually give way to mere chain-link fencing or nothing at all, meaning those who wish to cross the border illegally need only walk around the end to do so. Anyone with common sense and intellectual honesty can plainly see that and realize Trump is absolutely correct to want to address this security crisis post haste.
Skeletal remains of what is believed to be an unidentified migrant were found in Brooks County, Texas. (Photo: Brooks County Sheriff’s Office)
On December 11, a Brooks County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher received notice for the discovery of skeletal remains presumed to be those of a deceased migrant. The dispatcher sent Training Officer Ben Gomez to the scene to meet with a ranch hand who discovered the remains and Border Patrol agents, according to Brooks County Sheriff’ Benny Martinez.
The ranch is located west of the Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint located on U.S. Highway 281, about 80 miles from the Mexican border. Human smugglers frequently use this area to drop off their “cargo” and force them on a lengthy march that has led to the deaths for at least 48 migrants in Brooks County this year.
Skeletal remains of what is believed to be an unidentified migrant were found in Brooks County, Texas. (Photo: Brooks County Sheriff’s Office)
Gomez met up with the Border Patrol agents who escorted him 7.6 miles into the ranch where workers found the remains. Only the migrant’s skull and a small piece of bone were present. The remainder could not be found after they were presumably hauled away by animals.
The remains were transported to the sheriff’s office where a local justice of the peace made the formal death declaration. The remains will be transported to the Webb County Medical Examiners Office in Laredo, Texas, where officials will attempt to identify and make family notifications. No documents were found at the scene.
On December 1, Brooks County dispatchers sent Deputy Brenda Ligas to another ranch in the same part of the county following a report that a ranch hand found another set of skeletal remains, local officials reported earlier this week. Scattered remains were reportedly found while a hand was discing a field.
Officials recovered a skull and mandible, along with numerous other bones. A search of the area resulted in the recovery of several articles of clothing and two Honduran passports which could help identify the deceased migrant. Both bore the name Felix Antonio Godoy Ramos, a 43-year-old Honduran national. It is not known if these passports actually belonged to the deceased migrant.
Skeletal remains believed to be those of an as yet unidentified migrant were found in Brooks County, Texas. (Photo: Brooks County Sheriff’s Office)
The remains were transported to the Webb County Medical Examiner, who will attempt to verify identity.
The remains discovered this month bring the death toll in this single Texas county to at least 48, local officials reported.
In 2018, at least 226 migrants died in Texas while crossing the U.S. border or during smuggling into the U.S. interior, according to the International Organization for Migrants’ Missing Migrant Project. Nationally, that number climbed to at least 373 in the same period. An exact number is not known because many deceased migrants are never found.
The number of reported deaths this year rose by nearly nine percent over 2017.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Border/Cartel Chronicles. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.
We’ve all seen the eye-opening images: Hordes of people from migrant “caravans” have moved from Central America into Mexico, pushing past border checkpoints and clashing with officials. Thousands of those migrants are now near the U.S.-Mexico border, creating chaos in places like Tijuana. All the while, the left has insisted that they’re merely fleeing oppression and want “a better life,” which America is apparently obliged to give them.
But a shocking update from those same migrants is casting doubt on the liberal narrative. The caravans are now making demands from the United States, and it’s almost impossible to see it as anything other than mass extortion.
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According to The San Diego Union Tribune, caravan members marched on the U.S. consulate in Tijuana and demanded that either they be granted entry across the border, or be paid tens of thousands of dollars.
“Two groups of Central American migrants made separate marches on the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana Tuesday, demanding that they be processed through the asylum system more quickly and in greater numbers,” the newspaper reported.
They’re also demanding “that deportations be halted and that President Trump either let them into the country or pay them $50,000 each to go home.”
Yes, that’s $50,000 per immigrant.
To put that in perspective, the average yearly wage in Mexico is about $15,000 dollars. In Honduras, it’s even less.
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Where did that absurd number come from? Caravan organizers declared that it was essentially reparations for what the United States “stole” from Central America.
“It may seem like a lot of money to you,” declared organizer Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa. “But it is a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.”
It’s worth remembering that the Mexican government previously offered working visas and at least basic jobs for the migrants. The vast majority refused, and chose instead to try to illegally cross border fences — often waving the flags of their home countries. The hostile, almost ransom-like insistence on being paid over three times Mexico’s average annual wage seems to be completely opposite of past claims that their trek was about escaping crime and poverty back home. It looks now like a get-rich-quick scheme that fell apart.
And if the group’s demands are not met? Well, it isn’t clear what they’ll do.
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“They gave the U.S. Consulate 72 hours to respond. They said they had not decided what to do if their demands were not met,” stated The San Diego Union Tribune.
“I don’t know, we will decide as a group,”Ulloa said.
Some caravan members essentially admitted that they expected to cut to the front of the immigration line and enter the United States no questions asked, a delusion that was abruptly halted by President Trump.
“A lot of people are leaving because there is no solution here,” said Douglas Matute in Tijuana. “We thought they would let us in. But Trump sent the military instead of social workers.”
In one of the most bizarre twists, caravan members blamed their situation on Americans “intervening” in Central America. Their solution? Demand that President Donald Trump intervene in Central America.
“[F]amilies, women and children who have fled our countries continue to suffer and the civil society of Tijuana continue to be forces to confront this humanitarian crisis, a refugee crisis caused in great part by decades of U.S. intervention in Central America,”one of the letters delivered to the American consulate insisted.
Yet intervention is exactly what the groups say they want.
“[T]he majority of [caravan members] are young men who are fleeing from poverty, insecurity and political repression under the dictatorship of Juan Orlando Hernandez,” lamented a second letter, according to The Tribune.
“Orlando Hernandez is the president of Honduras. Their letter also asked the U.S. to remove Orlando Hernandez from office,”the San Diego newspaper explained.
Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan, before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico. Follow Benjamin on Facebook
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
Central American refugees carrying Honduran flags, storming the border throwing rocks, and using children to shield themselves against the Border Patrol response.
The Trump administration’s often overlooked list of achievements has surpassed those of former President Ronald Reagan at this time and more than doubled since the last tally of accomplishments after his first year in office, giving President Trump a solid platform to run for re-election on.
As Trump nears the two-year mark of his historic election and conducts political rallies around the country, during which he talks up his wins in hopes it will energize Republican voters, the administration has counted up 289 accomplishments in 18 categories, capped by the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
They include 173 major wins, such as adding more than 4 million jobs, and another 116 smaller victories, some with outsize importance, such as the 83 percent one-year increase in arrests of MS-13 gang members.
“Trump’s successes in reducing the cost of taxes and regulations, rebuilding our military, avoiding wars of choice and changing the courts rival those of all previous Republican presidents,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
“Trump has an advantage over Ronald Reagan: He has a Reagan Republican House and Senate while Reagan had a [Democratic Speaker] Tip O’Neill House and a pre-Reagan Republican Senate. Reagan and [former GOP Speaker] Newt Gingrich were the ice breakers that allowed Trump’s victories to grow in number and significance,”he added.
Unlike the Year One list which included many proposals and orders still to be acted on, the new collection includes dozens of actions already in place, signed legislation, and enforced executive orders.
For example, while the Year One list bragged about the administration’s efforts to rewrite the much-maligned NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico, the Year Two list said: “Negotiated an historic U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement to replace NAFTA.”
In December, Secrets reported on the first list of White House accomplishments.
And shockingly the NAFTA achievement is presented as a sidebar to the larger achievement that reads, “President Trump is negotiating and renegotiating better trade deals, achieving free, fair, and reciprocal trade for the United States.”Under that umbrella are eight trade deals cut with Japan, South Korea, Europe and China.
“President Trump is a truly unique leader in American history. He’s a kid from Queens who became an international business leader and made billions by getting things when no one said he could,” said Trump’s 2016 campaign pollster John McLaughlin.
“They told him he couldn’t be president and beat the establishment and he did. For two years the establishment is telling him he can’t do things in Washington and he’s succeeding in spite of them. He never retreats. He doesn’t back up. He’s relentless. He just wins,”he added.
Comparing the two years shows that the latest has an expanded group of economic achievements while the pro-life category was folded into the health care section. Along the way, there have been some disappointments, such as failing to replace Obamacare, fund a big infrastructure plan, and build the border wall.
But the White House believes that despite a lack of media coverage of his accomplishments, supporters know about them and will head to the voting polls to help the GOP maintain control of the House and keep the president on what CNN dubbed a “winning streak.”
In the Washington Post Friday, former Bush speechwriter and columnist Marc Thiessen agreed and said that Trump has proven to be successful at keeping his campaign promises. He wrote, “The fact is, in his first two years, Trump has compiled a remarkable record of presidential promise-keeping.”
The list:
Economic Growth
4.2 percent growth in the second quarter of 2018.
For the first time in more than a decade, growth is projected to exceed 3 percent over the calendar year.
Jobs
4 million new jobs have been created since the election, and more than 3.5 million since Trump took office.
More Americans are employed now than ever before in our history.
Jobless claims at lowest level in nearly five decades.
The economy has achieved the longest positive job-growth streak on record.
Job openings are at an all-time high and outnumber job seekers for the first time on record.
Unemployment claims at 50 year low
African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American unemployment rates have all recently reached record lows.
African-American unemployment hit a record low of 5.9 percent in May 2018.
Hispanic unemployment at 4.5 percent.
Asian-American unemployment at record low of 2 percent.
Women’s unemployment recently at lowest rate in nearly 65 years.
Female unemployment dropped to 3.6 percent in May 2018, the lowest since October 1953.
Youth unemployment recently reached its lowest level in more than 50 years.
July 2018’s youth unemployment rate of 9.2 percent was the lowest since July 1966.
Veterans’ unemployment recently hit its lowest level in nearly two decades.
July 2018’s veterans’ unemployment rate of 3.0 percent matched the lowest rate since May 2001.
Unemployment rate for Americans without a high school diploma recently reached a record low.
Rate for disabled Americans recently hit a record low.
Blue-collar jobs recently grew at the fastest rate in more than three decades.
Poll found that 85 percent of blue-collar workers believe their lives are headed “in the right direction.”
68 percent reported receiving a pay increase in the past year.
Last year, job satisfaction among American workers hit its highest level since 2005.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans rate now as a good time to find a quality job.
Optimism about the availability of good jobs has grown by 25 percent.
Added more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since the election.
Manufacturing employment is growing at its fastest pace in more than two decades.
100,000 new jobs supporting the production & transport of oil & natural gas.
American Income
Median household income rose to $61,372 in 2017, a post-recession high.
Wages up in August by their fastest rate since June 2009.
Paychecks rose by 3.3 percent between 2016 and 2017, the most in a decade.
Council of Economic Advisers found that real wage compensation has grown by 1.4 percent over the past year.
Some 3.9 million Americans off food stamps since the election.
Median income for Hispanic-Americans rose by 3.7 percent and surpassed $50,000 for the first time ever in history.
Home-ownership among Hispanics is at the highest rate in nearly a decade.
Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels ever recorded.
American Optimism
Small business optimism has hit historic highs.
NFIB’s small business optimism index broke a 35 year-old record in August.
SurveyMonkey/CNBC’s small business confidence survey for Q3 of 2018 matched its all-time high.
Manufacturers are more confident than ever.
95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future, the highest ever.
Consumer confidence is at an 18-year high.
12 percent of Americans rate the economy as the most significant problem facing our country, the lowest level on record.
Confidence in the economy is near a two-decade high, with 51 percent rating the economy as good or excellent.
American Business
Investment is flooding back into the United States due to the tax cuts.
Over $450 billion dollars has already poured back into the U.S., including more than $300 billion in the first quarter of 2018.
Retail sales have surged. Commerce Department figures from August show that retail sales increased 0.5 percent in July 2018, an increase of 6.4 percent from July 2017.
ISM’s index of manufacturing scored its highest reading in 14 years.
Worker productivity is the highest it has been in more than three years.
Steel and aluminum producers are re-opening.
Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and NASDAQ have all notched record highs.
Dow hit record highs 70 times in 2017 alone, the most ever recorded in one year.
Deregulation
Achieved massive deregulation at a rapid pace, completing 22 deregulatory actions to every one regulatory action during his first year in office.
Signed legislation to roll back costly and harmful provisions of Dodd-Frank, providing relief to credit unions, and community and regional banks.
Federal agencies achieved more than $8 billion in lifetime net regulatory cost savings.
Rolled back Obama’s burdensome Waters of the U.S. rule.
Used the Congressional Review Act to repeal regulations more times than in history.
Tax Cuts
Biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history by signing the Tax Cuts and Jobs act into law
Provided more than $5.5 trillion in gross tax cuts, nearly 60 percent of which will go to families.
Increased the exemption for the death tax to help save Family Farms & Small Business.
Nearly doubled the standard deduction for individuals and families.
Enabled vast majority of American families will be able to file their taxes on a single page by claiming the standard deduction.
Doubled the child tax credit to help lessen the financial burden of raising a family.
Lowered America’s corporate tax rate from the highest in the developed world to allow American businesses to compete and win.
Small businesses can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.
Cut dozens of special interest tax breaks and closed loopholes for the wealthy.
9 in 10 American workers are expected see an increase in their paychecks thanks to the tax cuts, according to the Treasury Department.
More than 6 million of American workers have received wage increases, bonuses, and increased benefits thanks to tax cuts.
Over 100 utility companies have lowered electric, gas, or water rates thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Ernst & Young found 89 percent of companies planned to increase worker compensation thanks to the Trump tax cuts.
Established opportunity zones to spur investment in left behind communities.
Worker Development
Established a National Council for the American Worker to develop a national strategy for training and retraining America’s workers for high-demand industries.
Employers have signed Trump’s “Pledge to America’s Workers,” committing to train or retrain more than 4.2 million workers and students.
Signed the first Perkins CTE reauthorization since 2006, authorizing more than $1 billion for states each year to fund vocational and career education programs.
Executive order expanding apprenticeship opportunities for students and workers.
Domestic Infrastructure
Proposed infrastructure plan would utilize $200 billion in Federal funds to spur at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investment across the country.
Executive order expediting environmental reviews and approvals for high priority infrastructure projects.
Federal agencies have signed the One Federal Decision Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) streamlining the federal permitting process for infrastructure projects.
Rural prosperity task force and signed an executive order to help expand broadband access in rural areas.
Health Care
Signed an executive order to help minimize the financial burden felt by American households Signed legislation to improve the National Suicide Hotline.
Signed the most comprehensive childhood cancer legislation ever into law, which will advance childhood cancer research and improve treatments.
Signed Right-to-Try legislation, expanding health care options for terminally ill patients.
Enacted changes to the Medicare 340B program, saving seniors an estimated $320 million on drugs in 2018 alone.
FDA set a new record for generic drug approvals in 2017, saving consumers nearly $9 billion.
Released a blueprint to drive down drug prices for American patients, leading multiple major drug companies to announce they will freeze or reverse price increases.
Expanded short-term, limited-duration health plans.
Let more employers to form Association Health Plans, enabling more small businesses to join together and affordably provide health insurance to their employees.
Signed legislation repealing Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, also known as the “death panels.”
USDA invested more than $1 billion in rural health care in 2017, improving access to health care for 2.5 million people in rural communities across 41 states
Proposed Title X rule to help ensure taxpayers do not fund the abortion industry in violation of the law.
Reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy to keep foreign aid from supporting the global abortion industry.
HHS formed a new division over protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom.
Overturned Obama administration’s midnight regulation prohibiting states from defunding certain abortion facilities.
Signed executive order to help ensure that religious organizations are not forced to choose between violating their religious beliefs by complying with Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate or shutting their doors.
Combating Opioids
Chaired meeting the 73rd General Session of the United Nations discussing the worldwide drug problem with international leaders.
Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand, introducing new measures to keep dangerous drugs out of our communities.
$6 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic.
DEA conducted a surge in April 2018 that arrested 28 medical professions and revoked 147 registrations for prescribing too many opioids.
Brought the “Prescribed to Death” memorial to President’s Park near the White House, helping raise awareness about the human toll of the opioid crisis.
Helped reduce high-dose opioid prescriptions by 16 percent in 2017.
Opioid Summit on the administration-wide efforts to combat the opioid crisis.
Launched a national public awareness campaign about the dangers of opioid addiction.
Created a Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis which recommended a number of pathways to tackle the opioid crisis.
Led two National Prescription Drug Take Back Days in 2017 and 2018, collecting a record number of expired and unneeded prescription drugs each time.
$485 million targeted grants in FY 2017 to help areas hit hardest by the opioid crisis.
Signed INTERDICT Act, strengthening efforts to detect and intercept synthetic opioids before they reach our communities.
DOJ secured its first-ever indictments against Chinese fentanyl manufacturers.
Declared the opioid crisis a Nationwide Public Health Emergency in October 2017.
Law and Order
More U.S. Circuit Court judges confirmed in the first year in office than ever.
Confirmed more than two dozen U. S. Circuit Court judges.
Followed through on the promise to nominate judges to the Supreme Court who will adhere to the Constitution
Nominated and confirmed Justice Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Signed an executive order directing the Attorney General to develop a strategy to more effectively prosecute people who commit crimes against law enforcement officers.
Launched an evaluation of grant programs to make sure they prioritize the protection and safety of law enforcement officers.
Established a task force to reduce crime and restore public safety in communities across Signed an executive order to focus more federal resources on dismantling transnational criminal organizations such as drug cartels.
Signed an executive order to focus more federal resources on dismantling transnational criminal organizations such as drug cartels.
Violent crime decreased in 2017 according to FBI statistics.
$137 million in grants through the COPS Hiring Program to preserve jobs, increase community policing capacities, and support crime prevention efforts.
Enhanced and updated the Project Safe Neighborhoods to help reduce violent crime.
Signed legislation making it easier to target websites that enable sex trafficking and strengthened penalties for people who promote or facilitate prostitution.
Created an interagency task force working around the clock to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and prevent human trafficking.
Conducted Operation Cross Country XI to combat human trafficking, rescuing 84 children and arresting 120 human traffickers.
Encouraged federal prosecutors to use the death penalty when possible in the fight against the trafficking of deadly drugs.
New rule effectively banning bump stock sales in the United States.
Border Security and Immigration
Secured $1.6 billion for border wall construction in the March 2018 omnibus bill.
Construction of a 14-mile section of border wall began near San Diego.
Worked to protect American communities from the threat posed by the vile MS-13 gang.
ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division arrested 796 MS-13 members and associates in FY 2017, an 83 percent increase from the prior year.
Justice worked with partners in Central America to secure criminal charges against more than 4,000 MS-13 members.
Border Patrol agents arrested 228 illegal aliens affiliated with MS-13 in FY 2017.
Fighting to stop the scourge of illegal drugs at our border.
ICE HSI seized more than 980,000 pounds of narcotics in FY 2017, including 2,370 pounds of fentanyl and 6,967 pounds of heroin.
ICE HSI dedicated nearly 630,000 investigative hours towards halting the illegal import of fentanyl.
ICE HSI made 11,691 narcotics-related arrests in FY 2017.
Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand introduced new measures to keep dangerous drugs out the United States.
Signed the INTERDICT Act into law, enhancing efforts to detect and intercept synthetic opioids.
DOJ secured its first-ever indictments against Chinese fentanyl manufacturers.
DOJ launched their Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) team, aimed at disrupting online illicit opioid sales.
Released an immigration framework that includes the resources required to secure our borders and close legal loopholes, and repeatedly called on Congress to fix our broken immigration laws.
Authorized the deployment of the National Guard to help secure the border.
Enhanced vetting of individuals entering the U.S. from countries that don’t meet security standards, helping to ensure individuals who pose a threat to our country are identified before they enter.
These procedures were upheld in a June 2018 Supreme Court hearing.
ICE removed over 226,000 illegal aliens from the United States in 2017.
ICE rescued or identified over 500 human trafficking victims and over 900 child exploitation victims in 2017 alone.
In 2017, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested more than 127,000 aliens with criminal convictions or charges, responsible for
Over 76,000 with dangerous drug offenses.
More than 48,000 with assault offenses.
More than 11,000 with weapons offenses.
More than 5,000 with sexual assault offenses.
More than 2,000 with kidnapping offenses.
Over 1,800 with homicide offenses.
Created the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office in order to support the victims and families affected by illegal alien crime.
More than doubled the number of counties participating in the 287(g) program, which allows jails to detain criminal aliens until they are transferred to ICE custody.
Trade
Negotiating and renegotiating better trade deals, achieving free, fair, and reciprocal trade for the United States.
Agreed to work with the European Union towards zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers, and zero subsides.
Deal with the European Union to increase U.S. energy exports to Europe.
Litigated multiple WTO disputes targeting unfair trade practices and upholding our right to enact fair trade laws.
Finalized a revised trade agreement with South Korea, which includes provisions to increase American automobile exports.
Negotiated an historic U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement to replace NAFTA.
Agreement to begin trade negotiations for a U.S.-Japan trade agreement.
Secured $250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China and $12 billion in Vietnam.
Established a Trade and Investment Working Group with the United Kingdom, laying the groundwork for post-Brexit trade.
Enacted steel and aluminum tariffs to protect our vital steel and aluminum producers and strengthen our national security.
Conducted 82 anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations in 2017 alone.
Confronting China’s unfair trade practices after years of Washington looking the other way.
25 percent tariff on $50 billion of goods imported from China and later imposed an additional 10% tariff on $200 billion of Chinese goods.
Conducted an investigation into Chinese forced technology transfers, unfair licensing practices, and intellectual property theft.
Imposed safeguard tariffs to protect domestic washing machines and solar products manufacturers hurt by China’s trade policies
Withdrew from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Secured access to new markets for America’s farmers.
Recent deal with Mexico included new improvements enabling food and agriculture to trade more fairly.
Recent agreement with the E.U. will reduce barriers and increase trade of American soybeans to Europe.
Won a WTO dispute regarding Indonesia’s unfair restriction of U.S. agricultural exports.
Defended American Tuna fisherman and packagers before the WTO
Opened up Argentina to American pork experts for the first time in a quarter-century
American beef exports have returned to china for the first time in more than a decade
OK’d up to $12 billion in aid for farmers affected by unfair trade retaliation.
Energy
Presidential Memorandum to clear roadblocks to construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Presidential Memorandum declaring that the Dakota Access Pipeline serves the national interest and initiating the process to complete construction.
Opened up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration.
Coal exports up over 60 percent in 2017.
Rolled back the “stream protection rule” to prevent it from harming America’s coal industry.
Cancelled Obama’s anti-coal Clean Power Plan and proposed the Affordable Clean Energy Rule as a replacement.
Withdrew from the job-killing Paris climate agreement, which would have cost the U.S. nearly $3 trillion and led to 6.5 million fewer industrial sector jobs by 2040.
U.S. oil production has achieved its highest level in American history
United States is now the largest crude oil producer in the world.
U.S. has become a net natural gas exporter for the first time in six decades.
Action to expedite the identification and extraction of critical minerals that are vital to the nation’s security and economic prosperity.
Took action to reform National Ambient Air Quality Standards, benefitting American manufacturers.
Rescinded Obama’s hydraulic fracturing rule, which was expected to cost the industry $32 million per year.
Proposed an expansion of offshore drilling as part of an all-of-the above energy strategy
Held a lease sale for offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico in August 2018.
Got EU to increase its imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States.
Issued permits for the New Burgos Pipeline that will cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
Foreign Policy
Moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Withdrew from Iran deal and immediately began the process of re-imposing sanctions that had been lifted or waived.
Treasury has issued sanctions targeting Iranian activities and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force
Since enacting sanctions, Iran’s crude exports have fallen off, the value of Iran’s currency has plummeted, and international companies have pulled out of the country.
All nuclear-related sanctions will be back in full force by early November 2018.
Historic summit with North Korean President Kim Jong-Un, bringing beginnings of peace and denuclearization to the Korean Peninsula.
The two leaders have exchanged letters and high-level officials from both sides have met resulting in tremendous progress.
North Korea has halted nuclear and missile tests.
Negotiated the return of the remains of missing-in-action soldiers from the Korean War.
Imposed strong sanctions on Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro and his inner circle.
Executive order preventing those in the U.S. from carrying out certain transactions with the Venezuelan regime, including prohibiting the purchase of the regime’s debt.
Responded to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.
Rolled out sanctions targeting individuals and entities tied to Syria’s chemical weapons program.
Directed strikes in April 2017 against a Syrian airfield used in a chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians.
Joined allies in launching airstrikes in April 2018 against targets associated with Syria’s chemical weapons use.
New Cuba policy that enhanced compliance with U.S. law and held the Cuban regime accountable for political oppression and human rights abuses.
Treasury and State are working to channel economic activity away from the Cuban regime, particularly the military.
Changed the rules of engagement, empowering commanders to take the fight to ISIS.
ISIS has lost virtually all of its territory, more than half of which has been lost under Trump.
ISIS’ self-proclaimed capital city, Raqqah, was liberated in October 2017.
All Iraqi territory had been liberated from ISIS.
More than a dozen American hostages have been freed from captivity all of the world.
Action to combat Russia’s malign activities, including their efforts to undermine the sanctity of United States elections.
Expelled dozens of Russian intelligence officers from the United States and ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, WA.
Banned the use of Kaspersky Labs software on government computers, due to the company’s ties to Russian intelligence.
Imposed sanctions against five Russian entities and three individuals for enabling Russia’s military and intelligence units to increase Russia’s offensive cyber capabilities.
Sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs, and 12 companies they own or control, who profit from Russia’s destabilizing activities.
Sanctioned 100 targets in response to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and aggression in Eastern Ukraine.
Enhanced support for Ukraine’s Armed Forces to help Ukraine better defend itself.
Helped win U.S. bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Helped win U.S.-Mexico-Canada’s united bid for 2026 World Cup.
Defense
Executive order keeping the detention facilities at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay open.
$700 billion in military funding for FY 2018 and $716 billion for FY 2019.
Largest military pay raise in nearly a decade.
Ordered a Nuclear Posture Review to ensure America’s nuclear forces are up to date and serve as a credible deterrent.
Released America’s first fully articulated cyber strategy in 15 years.
New strategy on national biodefense, which better prepares the nation to defend against biological threats.
Administration has announced that it will use whatever means necessary to protect American citizens and servicemen from unjust prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
Released an America first National Security Strategy.
Put in motion the launch of a Space Force as a new branch of the military and relaunched the National Space Council.
Encouraged North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to increase defense spending to their agree-upon levels.
In 2017 alone, there was an increase of more than 4.8 percent in defense spending amongst NATO allies.
Every member state has increased defense spending.
Eight NATO allies will reach the 2 percent benchmark by the end of 2018 and 15 allies are on trade to do so by 2024.
NATO allies spent over $42 billion dollars more on defense since 2016.
Executive order to help military spouses find employment as their families deploy domestically and abroad.
Veterans affairs
Signed the VA Accountability Act and expanded VA telehealth services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.
Delivered more appeals decisions – 81,000 – to veterans in a single year than ever before.
Strengthened protections for individuals who come forward and identify programs occurring within the VA.
Signed legislation that provided $86.5 billion in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the largest dollar amount in history for the VA.
VA MISSION Act, enacting sweeping reform to the VA system that:
Consolidated and strengthened VA community care programs.
Funding for the Veterans Choice program.
Expanded eligibility for the Family Caregivers Program.
Gave veterans more access to walk-in care.
Strengthened the VA’s ability to recruit and retain quality healthcare professionals.
Enabled the VA to modernize its assets and infrastructure.
Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act in 2017, which authorized $2.1 billion in addition funds for the Veterans Choice Program.
Worked to shift veterans’ electronic medical records to the same system used by the Department of Defense, a decades old priority.
Issued an executive order requiring the Secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs to submit a joint plan to provide veterans access to access to mental health treatment as they transition to civilian life.
Increased transparency and accountability at the VA by launching an online “Access and Quality Tool,” providing veterans with access to wait time and quality of care data.
Signed legislation to modernize the claims and appeal process at the VA.
Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, providing enhanced educational benefits to veterans, service members, and their family members.
Lifted a 15-year limit on veterans’ access to their educational benefits.
Created a White House VA Hotline to help veterans and principally staffed it with veterans and direct family members of veterans.
VA employees are being held accountable for poor performance, with more than 4,000 VA employees removed, demoted, and suspended so far.
Signed the Veterans Treatment Court Improvement Act, increasing the number of VA employees that can assist justice-involved veterans.
Are the migrant caravans currently in Mexico harmless and innocent, or are they full of problems and troublemakers? That’s the question that many people both in the United States and south of the border are asking after thousands of immigrants began arriving in the border city of Tijuana.
Liberal voices, predictably, have insisted that it’s the former while yelling “racist!” any time somebody suggests otherwise.
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More and more, however, there is mounting evidence that there are far more delinquents in the caravans than was previously reported … and now even Tijuana residents are starting to question the “open borders” narrative.
On Friday, El Sol de Tijuana reported that 127 migrants have been arrested in Mexico for various offenses, some of them violent.
The Mexican newspaper highlighted one of those crimes, which involved a knife attack by a Honduran migrant against another immigrant from Haiti. El Sol also explained that illicit drug use is commonplace among the caravan migrants.
“The fact (is) that these migrants, who have problems of addictions, who are using drugs on the public highway … become highly vulnerable to recruitment by local delinquency to turn them into drug dealers and possible victims of crime,” the paper stated. (Original Spanish article.)
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Ironically, government officials in Mexico are starting to come to the same conclusions as the Trump administration: Knowing who is a criminal and who is not is vital, yet extremely difficult given the circumstances of these caravans. While the left is busy demanding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement be disbanded, Mexican authorities are increasingly relying on their version of ICE to verify the identity of lawbreakers and deport them from Mexico.
Marco Antonio Sotomayor Amezcua, a government security official, indicated that the Instituto Nacional de Migración — which can be thought of as Mexico’s ICE — is a key part of being able to “detect and deport people who have committed crimes.” After years of the INM being primarily focused on enforcing immigration laws among American expats who retire to Mexico, the government is scrambling to deal with the very different issue of nearly 10,000 unknown foreigners arriving at once.
Meanwhile, the migrant situation in Tijuana has become so bad that the city’s mayor has called it a humanitarian crisis, and Mexican residents have begun protesting the caravans.
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“The mayor of Tijuana, Juan Manuel Gastélum, declared a humanitarian crisis in the city in the face of the extraordinary situation that is experienced by the arrival of thousands of migrants,” El Sol reported. (Original Spanish.)
“The city can no longer deal with the matter,” insisted Gastélum, who was recently spotted wearing a “Make Tijuana Great Again” hat.
Secretary of Public Security Marco Sotomayor confirmed that “104 [migrants] received administrative sanctions and four were turned over to the Public Prosecutor for crimes of theft, fights and outrages … while the rest have been for the crimes of possession of drugs, drunkenness on public roads and causing disturbances.”
To the embarrassment of American liberals, it seems President Donald Trump has been largely vindicated. Despite the left constantly calling Republicans “racist” for suggesting that it is not the best and brightest who are surging illegally across borders, it is now Mexico that is discovering the very same thing.
It is not racism, it is reality. When Mexican officials are raising red flags about how other Hispanics from Central America are ignoring laws, maybe it’s time to listen.
Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan, before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico. Follow Benjamin on Facebook
A demonstrator argues with a woman during a protest Sunday against the presence of thousands of Central American migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. (Rodrigo Abd / AP)
Hundreds of Tijuana residents congregated around a monument in an affluent section of the city south of California on Sunday to protest the thousands of Central American migrants who have arrived via caravan in hopes of a new life in the U.S. Tensions have built as nearly 3,000 migrants from the caravan poured into Tijuana in recent days after more than a month on the road. The federal government estimates the number of migrants could soon swell to 10,000.
U.S. border inspectors are processing only about 100 asylum claims a day at Tijuana’s main crossing to San Diego. Asylum seekers register their names in a tattered notebook managed by migrants themselves that had more than 3,000 names even before the caravan arrived.
On Sunday, displeased Tijuana residents waved Mexican flags, sang the Mexican national anthem and chanted “Out! Out!”in front of a statue of the Aztec ruler Cuauhtemoc, 1 mile from the U.S. border. They accused the migrants of being messy, ungrateful and a danger to Tijuana. They also complained about how the caravan forcedits way into Mexico, calling it an “invasion.” And they voiced worries that their taxes might be spent to care for the group.
“We don’t want them in Tijuana,”protesters shouted.
Juana Rodriguez, a housewife, said the government needs to conduct background checks on the migrants to make sure they don’t have criminal records.
A woman who gave her name as Paloma lambasted the migrants, who she said came to Mexico in search of handouts. “Let their government take care of them,” she told reporters covering the protest.
Most of the migrants who have reached Tijuana via caravan in recent days set out more than a month ago from Honduras, a country of 9 million people. Dozens of migrants in the caravan who have been interviewed by Associated Press reporters have said they left their country after death threats.
But the journey has been hard, and many have turned around.
Alden Rivera, the Honduran ambassador in Mexico, told the AP on Saturday that 1,800 Hondurans have returned to their country since the caravan first set out on Oct. 13, and that he hopes more will make that decision.
“We want them to return to Honduras,”Rivera said.
Honduras has a murder rate of 43 per 100,000 residents, similar to U.S. cities like New Orleans and Detroit. In addition to violence, migrants in the caravan have mentioned poor economic prospects as a motivator for their departures. Per capita income hovers around $120 a month in Honduras, where the World Bank says two out of three people live in poverty.
The migrants’ expected long stay in Tijuana has raised concerns about the ability of the border city of more than 1.6 million people to handle the influx.
While many in Tijuana are sympathetic to the migrants’ plight and are trying to assist, some locals have shouted insults, hurled rocks and even thrown punches at them. The cold reception contrasts sharply with the warmth that accompanied the migrants in southern Mexico, where residents of small towns greeted them with hot food, campsites and even live music.
Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum has called the migrants’ arrival an “avalanche” that the city is ill-prepared to handle, calculating that they will be in Tijuana for at least six months as they wait to file asylum claims. Gastelum has appealed to the federal government for more assistance to cope with the influx.
Mexico’s Interior Ministry said Saturday that the federal government was flying in food and blankets for the migrants in Tijuana.
Tijuana officials converted a municipal gymnasium and recreational complex into a shelter to keep migrants out of public spaces. The city’s privately run shelters have a maximum capacity of 700. The municipal complex can hold up to 3,000. Some from the caravan have diverted to other border cities, such as Mexicali, a few hours to the east of Tijuana.
Elsewhere on Sunday, a group of 200 migrants headed north from El Salvador, determined to also find safety in numbers to reach the U.S.
President Donald Trump, who sought to make the caravan a campaign issue in the midterm elections, used Twitter on Sunday to voice support for the mayor of Tijuana and try to discourage the migrants from seeking entry to the U.S.
Trump wrote that like Tijuana, “the U.S. is ill-prepared for this invasion, and will not stand for it. They are causing crime and big problems in Mexico. Go home!”
He followed that tweet by writing: “Catch and Release is an obsolete term. It is now Catch and Detain. Illegal Immigrants trying to come into the U.S.A., often proudly flying the flag of their nation as they ask for U.S. Asylum, will be detained or turned away.”
The Associated Press is an independent, not-for-profit news cooperative headquartered in New York City. Their teams in over 100 countries tell the world’s stories, from breaking news to investigative reporting. They provide content and services to help engage audiences worldwide, working with companies of all types, from broadcasters to brands.
A filmmaker traveled to Mexico and did what the U.S. media didn’t do: he witnessed the migrant caravan for himself and exposed the truth.nFilmmaker Ami Horowitz went to Oaxaca in southern Mexico to uncover the truth about the migrant caravan.
The caravan, consisting of thousands of Honduran illegal immigrants, has caught the attention of the media as it heads toward the United States. However, much of the coverage consists of hand-waving from the left-wing establishment media, which claims the caravan consists of peaceful families just trying to escape violence.
After visiting the caravan for himself, Horowitz came to a different conclusion.
“Despite the framing of the caravan as being full of women and children, the reality on the ground is quite different. Approximately 90 to 95 percent of the migrants were male,” Horowitz said in a Twitter video.
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Last month, BBC wrote that “The migrants, mostly from Honduras, say they are fleeing violence and poverty, and include women and children.” That’s a grossly misleading statement for a caravan consisting of over 90 percent men.
The establishment media also continuously repeated the narrative that the caravan is made up of people seeking to escape violence.
“We do know that many migrants have said they are fleeing terrible gang violence, with some fearing for their lives,” The Guardian claimed last month.
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However, Horowitz discovered that the migrants are actually seeking employment when they illegally enter the United States.
“The major narrative being pushed by the press has been that the migrants are leaving Honduras because they are facing extreme violence and that their lives are under constant threat,” Horowitz said.
To discover if this was true, the filmmaker asked several migrants, “Why are you coming to America?”
“To get a job,”one responded. “To work,”said another.
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It’s clear that these migrants, who are mostly male, are economic migrants seeking American jobs. They aren’t “women and children” who are “fleeing violence.”
It’s completely absurd that the truth had to come from a filmmaker investigating the caravan for himself because the establishment media is too busy peddling lies and misinformation.
Malachi Bailey is a writer from the Midwest with a background in history, education and philosophy. He has led multiple conservative groups and is dedicated to the principles of free speech, privacy and peace.
Matthew Whitaker’s tenure as acting attorney general may only be able to be measured in hours, but he’s already made a huge impact in how asylum-seekers are processed at the southern border. According to a new interim final rule from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, those who enter the country illegally and are captured will no longer be able to claim asylum and will instead be returned to their country of origin on an expedited basis.
“Consistent with our immigration laws, the President has the broad authority to suspend or restrict the entry of aliens into the United States if he determines it to be in the national interest to do so,”Whitaker said in a joint statement with DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
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“Today’s rule applies this important principle to aliens who violate such a suspension or restriction regarding the southern border imposed by the President by invoking an express authority provided by Congress to restrict eligibility for asylum.
“Our asylum system is overwhelmed with too many meritless asylum claims from aliens who place a tremendous burden on our resources, preventing us from being able to expeditiously grant asylum to those who truly deserve it. Today, we are using the authority granted to us by Congress to bar aliens who violate a Presidential suspension of entry or other restriction from asylum eligibility.”
Translating that out of federalese, this is basically saying that those who cross into America illegally and then are captured cannot claim asylum as pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act — the same act that the president used to craft the travel ban, which was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court.
That law holds that “(w)henever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
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The only way to gain political asylum, therefore, is to present oneself at a port of entry to the United States.
The New York Times crystalized the arguments for and against the move in their article on the new rule.
“Lawyers for immigration advocacy organizations said they violated a founding principle of federal asylum: to judge each person’s asylum claim on its own merits. And the lawyers said federal and international law made it clear that the United States must provide immigrants the opportunityto claim asylum regardless of whether they entered the country legally or illegally,” the Thursday article read.
“Trump administration officials defended the new approach, saying the president is responding to statistics that show that most migrants who seek asylum are eventually denied — but not before many of them skip their court hearings and choose to illegally stay in the United States.”
That last part is generally true. Few asylum seekers are able to establish a credible fear based on political persecution in their home country, which is why their application is typically denied. If they do have a realistic claim, presenting themselves at a port of entry is the proper way of doing things.
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As for the legality of that, Bill Hing, general counsel at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, told Newsweek that, “U.S. and international law does not specify that you have to go to a certain port.”
Whether or not this stands is going to be a matter of considerable debate. Whether it specifies you have to go to a certain port or not, under American law, seems again like it would be subject to the Immigration and Nationality Act — although that will certainly be a matter for the courts.
As for international law, that and $35 will usually get you an oil change. While there are obviously certain international legal norms everyone is expected to follow, the unsecured southern border represents an especial challenge to the United States. The abuse of the asylum process by individuals who have chosen to brake the law to get into the country in the first place, thus placing a strain on a system that already struggles to deal with legitimate asylum claims, should be an overriding concern in this case.
The Trump administration has also said those illegally in the country could apply for two other smaller programs as opposed to asylum, which would technically satisfy our treaty obligations. Whether treaty signatories buy this, and whether it ends up meaning anything, again remains to be seen.
No matter how this shakes out, it’s a sign that Whitaker is putting his stamp on the office posthaste — even if one gets the idea that President Trump had more than a little to do with the formulation of this policy. Say what you will about that, but Sessions certainly wasn’t willing to take this step.
Writing under a pseudonym, Cillian Zeal is a conservative writer who is currently living abroad in a country that doesn’t value free speech and exercising it would put him in danger.
President Donald Trump posted a chilling video on Twitter that could motivate Republicans to vote in the midterm elections. As the midterm elections draw near and with some races incredibly close, Trump shared a new video on Twitter along with a link to the Vote.GOP website. The chilling video shows an illegal immigrant from Mexico, Luis Bracamontes, laughing and bragging about his murder of two Northern California sheriff’s deputies.
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“It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now!”Trump tweeted with the video, posted Wednesday. (Warning: Contains graphic language.)
“I killed f***ing cops, they’re f***ing dead. I don’t f***ing regret that,” Bracamontes says in the video.
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In October of 2014, Bracamontes murdered Sacramento County Deputy Danny Oliver and Placer County Detective Michael Davis. He was finally found guilty this year which prompted these horrific comments.
“I’m gonna kill more cops soon,” Bracamontes said after promising to break out of prison.
Of course, not all illegal immigrants are as dangerous as Bracamontes, but it’s important to recognize that this monster was able to enter the country and kill people because of decades of bad immigration policy.
Trump has made countless efforts to push through new immigration legislation, but Democrats have stood in the way each time.
House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat, said in a statement that concern about the caravan is a “baseless fear of some families 1,000 miles away from the border.”
The complete silence coming from the left on the migrant caravan should worry anybody who is concerned about America’s safety and security. Illegal immigration could get even worse if Democrats gain seats in Congress from the 2018 midterm elections.
“Who else would Democrats let in?” the video shared by Trump asks.
If Republicans turn out to vote in the midterm elections, we won’t have to find out.
Malachi Bailey is a writer from the Midwest with a background in history, education and philosophy. He has led multiple conservative groups and is dedicated to the principles of free speech, privacy and peace.
A political ideology that’s locked into the idea that how Americans vote is determined by the color of their skin or ethnic background is always going to be taken by surprise when it turns out individuals are perfectly capable of exercising their own judgment based on their own experience and their own principles.
And MSNBC just gave its viewers that kind of surprise with a report from a race for Congress in Texas.
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In the Lone Star State’s 7th Congressional District, MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle reported Tuesday, Republican Rep. John Culberson is in a “tight race” with Democratic challenger Lizzie Fletcher. Ruhle cited a poll showing Culberson with only a 1 percentage point lead and pointed out that the district is 30 percent Hispanic.
Reporting from on the ground in the district, which covers parts of Houston and areas west of the city, MSNBC’s Mariana Atencio found not all Hispanics are favorable toward Democrats’ policy of welcoming illegal aliens.
The Republican National Committee wasted no time in posting an exceprt of the Atencio report – an interview with a Hispanic man at an early voting site in Houston that proves immigration isn’t the Achilles heel for Republicans that so much of the liberal media likes to pretend.
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Check it out here:
“Democrats believe that if they can get Latinos to turn out, that is what is going to push the Democratic challenger over the top,” Atencio said.
But she pointed out that Hispanic voting could be a two-edged sword.
“Texas Latinos, if they turn out, they may not all necessarily turn out blue,” Atencio said.
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And one man she interviewed proved the point.
“I do believe, if somebody wants to live in the United States, they should go through the official process,”one voter, identified as Rob Gutierrez, told Atencio. “And so as a result, I tend to ally myself with people who agree with that.”
When Atencio pressed, asking if images of migrant caravans, for instance, might affect how Gutierrez votes, his answer was simple.
“Yes, it makes me want to vote Republican,” he said. “Because I think that if you want to live in this country, you need to abide by its laws.”
This is a voter who understands his principles, and he understands what political party shares them. And they’re completely independent of his ethnic background. And that’s something liberals will never learn.
This is one of the best examples of the left’s seriously messed up set of priorities you may ever see, and probably one of the best reasons anyone would need to vote Republican in the November elections.
Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York’s 16th Congressional District has really gone out on a limb to help the left shake things up before Election Day.
The president has said he would cut off foreign aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras if they aided or failed to curtail the caravan of illegal migrants headed toward the United States.
Engel apparently believes the commander in chief lacks the authority to make that decision and has vowed to rally the liberal troops in Congress to stop him.
According to Engel, “Trump lacks the authority to make those decisions unilaterally due to a law called the Impoundment Control Act,” reported The Washington Examiner.
“Fortunately, Congress — not the president — has the power of the purse, and my colleagues and I will not stand idly by as this administration ignores congressional intent,” Engel said, according to the Examiner.
Meanwhile, the caravan keeps moving north:
It’s true that the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse. But it’s also true that the same Constitution makes the president in charge of American foreign policy. Democrats like Engel can preen about their pretend fidelity to the Constitution (which is a joke for that party) and if they win either the House or the Senate or both, they can make the next two years of Trump’s first term complicated.
But Trump has made it clear that he is making American aid contingent on the cooperation of foreign governments in controlling the flow of illegal immigration. It might take a Supreme Court ruling to decide the issue, but in the meantime, American voters are getting a clearer picture of Democrat priorities:
Democrats not only don’t want to stop illegal immigration into the United States, they want to keep pouring American taxpayer money into the very countries that are the source of the illegal immigration problem.
Let’s see how popular that polls.
Trump, meanwhile, is concerned with stopping terrorists and criminals from entering the U.S.
He tweeted:
Among the duties of the president is to protect our national security. Clearly the president is focused on that. However, it doesn’t appear Engel has the same priorities. And do we really have to remind Engel and the rest of the left that potential terrorists do enter the U.S. from our southern border?
In September, the conservative watchdog grouop Judicial Watch reported:
“Yet another group of migrants from a terrorist nation managed to infiltrate the United States through Mexico this week. Thankfully, the Border Patrol apprehended them, though it’s becoming a crisis largely ignored by the mainstream media. The men are from Bangladesh, a south Asian Islamic country that’s well known as a recruiting ground for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). Earlier this year Judicial Watch reported on the epidemic of Bangladeshi nationals getting smuggled into the country via the porous southern border, especially through Texas, which is where this week’s group got nabbed.”
Engel has a twisted view of how to secure our borders and stop illegal immigration, if he’s even concerned with stopping it at all. His solution is to keep dumping taxpayer money into already troubled areas.
According to the Examiner, Engel said: “El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala are plagued by violence and poverty. The best way to keep Central Americans from migrating to the United States is to continue investing in their communities so that they are not forced to make the dangerous trek north. Yet again, President Trump’s policy toward Latin America will only make things worse.”
Sure, because bribing Central American governments by “investing” American taxpayer dollars in more foreign aid to be squandered has worked out so well in the past.
It’s interesting to note that Engel is unopposed in his re-election bid in November, according to USA Today. While he may not be worried about losing his seat in 2018, he’s certainly doing a fine job of exposing the Democratic Party’s real position on national security when it comes to illegal immigration.
It’s a sad day when the safety of the American people takes a back seat to politics. But it’s a good day when American voters get the information they need just before a crucial midterm election.
An enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party activist, Lisa Payne-Naeger has spent the better part of the last decade lobbying for educational and family issues in her state legislature, and as a keyboard warrior hoping to help along the revolution that empowers the people to retake control of their, out-of-control, government.
A Border Patrol vehicle monitors the U.S.-Mexico border between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico. (Sherry Smith / Shutterstock)
Amapola Hansberger, an immigrant from Nicaragua, explained on “Fox & Friends” Monday how she legallyemigrated to the United States, and said those who are coming in illegally are a “threat to national security.” She referred to the caravan of migrants headed for the Mexico-American border as an “invasion and act of war”against the U.S. and said they constitute an “immediate threat.”
Host Brian Kilmeade asked Hansberger how she was able to come to the U.S. legally and she said she simply followed the process.
“I went to the embassy, filled out forms. [I] submitted myself to the vetting procession and waited patiently for the embassy to approve my coming,” she said. “That’s how people should do it.”
Hansberger said there’s no way to keep track of those who come over the border illegally and said some of them could be radicalized terrorists who plan to harm American citizens.
“They are a threat to our national security because today — war is not only countries that go to war, it is groups such as ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban,” she added. “And they have declared war openly against the United States. So with the open borders policies we’ve had, how many of them are in America? That’s the question.
“I believe that the numbers increase every time they come in successfully and at what point are we going to call them — call the organizers are committing an act of war,” she said. “Is it at 40,000? When they bring in 40,000 strangers?”
Hansberger’s comments come after President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday that any migrants who don’t apply for asylum in Mexico first will be turned away by American authorities.
A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Founded by Tucker Carlson, a 25-year veteran of print and broadcast media, and Neil Patel, former chief policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, The Daily Caller News Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit providing original investigative reporting from a team of professional reporters that operates for the public benefit.
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