EXCLUSIVE: Texas is offering the incoming Trump administration a tract of more than 1,400 acres on which to stage its mass deportation operation when it enters office in January, as the transition team begins to make preparations for the ambitious project.
Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham has written to President-elect Donald Trump offering him the land in Starr County, which the state purchased from a ranch owner in October. The 1,402 acres are in the Rio Grande Valley sector near the border. Her letter to Trump, obtained by Fox News Digital, says her office is “fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history.”
This image shows drone footage from a ranch in Starr County. (Texas General Land Office)
“What I care about is that we have safe communities, and there is no doubt that we are losing too many of our children to these violent criminals that are coming across the border,” Buckingham told Fox News Digital in an interview on Tuesday. “I am 100% on board with the Trump administration’s pledge to get these criminals out of our country, and we are more than happy to offer our resources to facilitate those deportations of these violent criminals.”
The Texas General Land Office purchased the land in October to facilitate the construction of additional border wall, a project that the Biden administration stopped. The area, which was a ranch before Texas bought it, had seen drug smuggling and human trafficking, officials said.
In light of Trump’s election victory this month, Buckingham said she was brainstorming with her team and decided to make the offer to the incoming administration.
“Right now, it’s essentially farmland, so it’s flat, it’s easy to build on. We could very easily put a detention center on there, a holding place as we get these criminals out of our country,” she said. “It’s accessible to international airports as well as a major crossing over the river. And so, we’re just happy to get help, do anything we can to get these violent criminals off of our soil.”
Trump repeatedly promised throughout his 2024 presidential campaign to launch a historic mass deportation operation. In the days since the election, those plans have been put into motion, with officials looking at where they could build additional detention space.
Buckingham said the election proves that Trump’s approach to border security and illegal immigration is the one backed by the American people and that the Biden administration’s approach had been rejected.
“This election was a resounding referendum on the fact that Americans want safe communities. We want people to immigrate legally and legally only and that the administration’s policies over the last four years have failed every American citizen,” she said.
The Trump plan is likely to face opposition in other states, including Arizona, Illinois and Massachusetts, where governors have indicated they will oppose deportation efforts by the Trump administration. But that is unlikely to stop the incoming administration from conducting its operation.
Fox News’ Emma Woodhead contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
A migrant child sits in the back of a Border Patrol vehicle after crossing the border illegally into Ruby, Arizona, June 24. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Sitting before members of Congress on Capitol Hill Tuesday, retired Border Patrol agent J.J. Carrell told the lawmakers that the “United States federal government is the world’s largest child sex trafficking organization in modern history.”
WATCH: Retired Border Patrol agent J.J. Carrell tells members of Congress that the "United States federal government is the world's largest child sex trafficking organization in modern history." pic.twitter.com/0gVOAqpSDV
Carrell served in the Border Patrol for 24 years, retiring as a deputy patrol agent in charge of the San Diego Sector before going on to author a book on the border crisis and film two documentaries on the topic.
“I state with complete certainty that [President Joe] Biden, [Vice President Kamala] Harris, and [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas intentionally, strategically and purposely weaponized illegal immigration and use it as a tool to fundamentally transform America,” Carrell said during the joint hearing by the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability, both subcommittees of the House Homeland Security Committee.
“Inside this invasion, the unspoken evil of child trafficking and more specifically, child sex trafficking has flourished,” he said.
Where Are the Missing Migrant Children?
In August, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that it does not know the location or status of more than 300,000 migrant children. Between fiscal year 2019 and 2023, 32,000 illegal alien minors did not appear for their immigration court hearing, and an additional 291,000 were never given an immigration court date. According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 81% of unaccompanied alien children are between the ages of 13 and 18. The average age of a trafficking victim in the U.S. is between 12 and 15, according to Anti-Trafficking International.
Under current U.S. law, after being apprehended by Border Patrol or Customs and Border Protection, unaccompanied migrant children are released into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which in turn releases the child to a sponsor in the U.S.
For a decade, HHS has demonstrated a “record of losing children to sponsors who abuse, exploit, traffic, and harm children in unthinkable ways,” Tara Rodas told members of Congress during her testimony at Tuesday’s hearing, which was titled “Trafficked, Exploited, and Missing: Migrant Children Victims of the Biden-Harris Administration.”
As a government employee, Rodas was recruited in 2021 to help HHS with the growing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the southern border. She soon discovered that the department’s unaccompanied migrant child program was allowing for the exploitation of children.
The names of the sponsors who take the children from the Office of Refugee Resettlement are run through the National Crime Information Center before a child is released. A sponsor can be a distant relative or have no blood relation to the child at all, opening the door for human traffickers to prey on minors, which, according to Rodas, has and continues to happen regularly.
“Migrant children are working overnight shifts in slaughterhouses and factories, and some may die today because they don’t have the knowledge or skills to do the job that their supposed to be doing, but their doing it because they need to repay debts to their smugglers and traffickers,” she said.
🚨Tara Rodas, former deputy to the director of the Federal Case Management Team at HHS:
"Children, boys and girls, are being sold for sex. Just last month I spoke to a care provider in Florida who told me about cases of migrant children as young as 8 with sexually transmitted… pic.twitter.com/H9BbF3W6AT
Rodas accused the U.S. of operating a “white glove delivery system” that is responsible for handing migrant children over to “MS-13, 18th Street Gang, Russian Balkans crime syndicates, and other unsavory characters.”
WATCH: Tara Rodas, former deputy to the director of the Federal Case Management Team at HHS:
"I'm very unclear as to why we're luring children to the United States to be the white glove delivery system of these children to known MS-13, 18th Street Gang, Russian Balkans crime… pic.twitter.com/je9J0OXmny
In defense of HHS, Rodas pointed out that the department is “not an investigative or law enforcement agency. HHS simply does not have the knowledge, skills, ability, or the tradecraft to protect children from traffickers.”
Furthermore, child trafficking has become a highly sophisticated operation, according to Rodas, mirroring the “tactics and operations of terrorist organization.”
HHS Whistleblower Tara Rodas:
“HHS has a 10-year demonstrated record of losing children to sponsors who abuse, exploit, traffic, and harm children in unthinkable ways.” pic.twitter.com/GNn4C4q5N2
Solutions to end the exploitation of migrant children, according to Rodas, include DNA testing for sponsors who claim to be a relative of the child, and prison time for sponsors who cannot produce the child that was given into their care.
“Let’s mobilize the full power of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to dismantle these criminal networks,” Rodas said, recommending that child trafficking activity should be elevated on the National Intelligence Priorities Framework and be designated a terrorist activity.
“We cannot be a nation that looks the other way,” Rodas said. “We have a moral imperative to care for children that the government takes into custody, and the time to act is now.”
Migrants of different nationalities walk toward the United States on a highway in Tapachula, Chiapas State, Mexico, on Oct. 5, 2024. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
Jason Hopkins is a reporter covering immigration issues for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—A migrant caravan is heading northward toward the United States a few weeks before Election Day, the results of which will almost undoubtedly spell changes for border enforcement policies, according to The Associated Press.
A roughly 2,000-person-strong migrant caravan left southern Mexico on Sunday in hopes of reaching the U.S. in the coming days, according to the AP. The latest caravan is so far the largest since newly elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum entered office in October. Among those in the caravan are individuals who expressed concern that a new administration in Washington, D.C., would lead to the end of a popular app that has allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to schedule appointments with Customs and Border Protection officials in hopes of entering the country.
“That is what makes us fearful,” Joel Zambrano, a Venezuelan national, said to The Associated Press. “They say this could change because they could both close the CBP One appointment and all the services that are helping migrants.”
The CBP One app was first created in October 2020, with the Biden-Harris administration dramatically expanding its use in January 2023. The popular app enables migrants to schedule appointments in order to obtain exemptions at ports of entry and permits them to submit biometric data to federal immigration authorities in order to apply for travel authorization and obtain parole. More than 800,000 noncitizens scheduled appointments through the CBP One app from January 2023 through the end of August 2024, according to CBP. The Biden-Harris administration has additionally flown in more than half a million foreign nationals into the country via an initiative known as CHNV—a program that grants two-year parole to Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.
Roughly 7.4 million migrants have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest data from CBP. While the CBP One app and an election-year crackdown on illegal immigration by the Mexican government have helped keep migrants in southern Mexico, many are reportedly leaving the region due to a delay in asylum appointments and a lack of job opportunities.
“The situation in my country is very bad, the president doesn’t do anything for us. We spent a week by the border, but getting documents takes time,” Honduran Roberto Domínguez said to The Associated Press. “The documents we get are only for us to be in Tapachula and we cannot leave the city.”
Despite an attempt to brand herself as more of a border hawk since launching her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently polled poorly with voters on border enforcement issues following her administration’s oversight of a historical border crisis. Former President Donald Trump, for his part, has pledged to hire 10,000 Border Patrol agents, give them a 10% pay bump, and wage a large-scale deportation effort.
Former President Bill Clinton said in a speech Sunday that Georgia nursing student Laken Riley’s murder would not have happened if the alleged killer, an illegal immigrant, was properly vetted. While campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris in the Peach State, Clinton accused her rival, former President Trump, of tanking negotiations over a bipartisan border compromise in Congress because he wanted it to be a campaign issue. He seemed to suggest that Riley’s death could have been avoided if Congress was able to pass a compromise – despite the alleged killer having already been vetted.
“She’s the only candidate who has actually endorsed a bill that would hold down immigration any given year to a certain point and then made sure we gave people a decent place to live, didn’t divide people from their children. And we did total vetting before people got in. Now, Trump killed the bill,” Clinton said.
Former President Bill Clinton’s speech in Columbus, Georgia, heavily featured the issue of the border. (Getty Images)
“You had a case in Georgia not very long ago, didn’t you? They made an ad about it, a young woman who had been killed by an immigrant. Yeah, well, if they’d all been properly vetted that probably wouldn’t have happened.”
“And America isn’t having enough babies to keep our populations up, so we need immigrants that have been vetted to do work – there wouldn’t be a problem,” he added.
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), meanwhile, previously publicly confirmed that people who are encountered trying to cross the border illegally are vetted and screened. The alleged killer was encountered by CBP on Sept. 8, 2022, after entering near El Paso, Texas, and was “paroled and released for further processing.,” Fox News Digital was previously told.
The bipartisan border deal also only failed earlier this year, years after the Venezuelan national accused of killing Riley entered the country, still under the Biden administration’s watch.
Clinton later praised the current administration’s handling of the border and illegal immigration during a campaign stop in Georgia on Monday.
“For the last three years, the Biden-Harris administration has done increasingly tough things, trying to control the border. And illegal crossings have gone down every year for three years. Our friends in the other party don’t want to talk about that,” Clinton said.
It is notable that the former president’s speech largely focused on the border in Georgia, a state President Biden won by less than 1% in 2020.
The issue of illegal crossings at the border has become a political lightening rod in this election cycle. Democrats in tight races – both for the presidency and congressional and local positions – are emphasizing their support for tougher border security measures as Americans across the country have seen their area infrastructures strained by a deluge of people seeking shelter in the U.S.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at East Carolina University, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Greenville, North Carolina. (AP Photo/David Yeazell)
However, Republicans have long criticized Democrats’ handling of border security, citing the record number of border crossings since Biden took office. They have continued to do so during the campaign by arguing Harris has failed to live up to her informal “border czar” title.
Despite several instances of high-profile use in the media, Clinton accused Republicans of bestowing the title on Harris – which he dismissed as inaccurate.
“They want to attack Kamala Harris and blame her for anything they managed to keep from happening. Like they claim she was the ‘border czar,’ that’s not what her jobs are,” Clinton said.
“Her job was to go down to these other countries that were sending us a lot of people and trying to get them, to enroll them in a legal process while they were still in the country so they wouldn’t be illegally trafficked, show up our border, had to be cared for on one side of it or another, and then we’d run the risk of having people get in here who weren’t properly vetted. That’s what she tried to do.”
Former President Bill Clinton also accused former President Trump of not actually wanting to fix the border.
He also accused former President Trump of working to derail the bipartisan border compromise that failed in the Senate, and which House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., deemed “dead on arrival” in the House.
“He said, ‘Oh my God, we can’t fix the border. What am I going to do for TV ads? Who am I going to demonize every day? I don’t get into politics to solve problems. I get in it to create problems and blame other people for doing,’” Clinton said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump campaign for a response.
The former president is on a campaign swing through rural America on behalf of Harris’ 2024 bid.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
Rodney Scott, then chief of the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, stands near the border wall on April 25, 2018. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Jason Hopkins is a reporter covering immigration issues for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Retired Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott blew the whistle to the Daily Caller News Foundation on what he calls the Biden-Harris administration’s going to great lengths to hide the illegal immigration crisis from the public, just days after a current sector chief made similar claims.
Aaron Heitke, a former chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector, testified before a House committee Sept. 18 that the White House ordered agents to hide information on arrests of so-called special interest aliens or SIAs, move masses of illegal migrants out of sight of the press, and give other instructions to disguise the true level of the border crisis.
Scott, who led Border Patrol from roughly the last year of the Trump-Pence administration to the first seven months of the Biden-Harris administration, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he was given similar orders.
“There was a gag order put on us literally within minutes of the Biden administration taking office,” Scott said.
“The chief of staff for Customs and Border Protection, when she arrived, one of her first orders was to forbid us from talking to the public, or doing press releases, or doing media without the White House clearing our statements,” Scott said. “Not only were they not cleared, when they finally did give us talking points, they weren’t even accurate. They weren’t truthful.”
Scott’s tenure as Border Patrol leader overlapped with Biden’s assignment of Vice President Kamala Harris to address the root causes of illegal immigration from Central America. The retired chief confirmed that Harris never once spoke to him, even after her designation as “border czar.”
Having worked for the Border Patrol since the early 1990s, Scott experienced multiple changes in presidential administration. The longtime officer said higher-ups’ clamping down on communication to the public was nothing new, but the sheer level of control handed down by the Biden-Harris administration was nothing he had experienced before.
“No press conferences were approved, all border tours were shut down,” Scott said. “It was unprecedented. I’ve never seen a gag order that tight.”
Scott’s comments follow the testimony given by Heitke, in which the former San Diego sector chief agent said he was prohibited from talking about the rising number of special interest aliens—those who potentially pose a national security risk to the U.S.—unlawfully crossing the border.
“Prior to this administration, the San Diego sector averaged 10–15 SIAs per year,” Heitke told the House Homeland Security Committee. “Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023, and more than that this year.”
“These are only the ones we caught. At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests,” Heitke testified. “The administration was trying to convince the public that there was no threat at the border.”
Heitke also went into detail about steps he said the Biden-Harris administration took to hide masses of migrants from reporters, accusing the White House of portraying “fiction” to the public.
“Each time we asked for help in dealing with a new issue, it fell on deaf ears,” Heitke said. “At times in San Diego, we had 2,000 or more aliens sitting in between the fences asking to turn themselves in. I was told to move them out of sight of the media.”
This is not the first time agents have accused the Biden-Harris administration of intentionally trying to cover up the extent of the border crisis from the media. Ahead of Harris’ first trip to the border in El Paso, Texas, in 2021, administration officials gave explicit instructions to clear the area of migrants to put on a “show” for the vice president, according to Border Patrol sources who spoke to the New York Post.
Although an executive order issued by President Joe Biden in June led to a steady decline in illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, the Biden-Harris administration had overseen a major wave of illegal immigration into the country after issuing a slate of executive orders that largely dismantled the Trump-Pence administration’s border agenda.
Border Patrol agents reported encountering more than 7 million migrants illegally crossing into the U.S. since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The massive wave of illegal migration has strained the resources of major sanctuary cities such as New York City and Chicago, but also smaller towns in the heartland such as Springfield, Ohio.
Scott commended his former colleague for speaking out, noting that doing so puts his ability to make an income at risk. Many retired agents don’t speak out because companies and other private contractors that work with the federal government want to avoid the publicity that can come with working with or hiring whistleblowers, according to the retired Border Patrol chief.
“I think it’s very problematic that the administration is trying to hide so much relevant information from the public,” Scott said. “I’m very, very grateful that Chief Heitke stepped up and decided to share that information with the public because that really hurts his ability to get contract jobs in the future.”
Heitke is “not only taking a risk, he’s knowingly cutting his family’s income by standing up for what’s right,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Mayors in Arizona and Texas said every section of the border has different needs, making it imperative that the next president visit the U.S.-Mexico border.
EXCLUSIVE: Nearly 100 illegal immigrants on the terror watch list have been released into the United States during the Biden administration, while Border Patrol agents have encountered migrants on the watch list from dozens of different countries, a new House report is revealing.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, of the more than 250 illegal aliens on the terrorist watchlist who were encountered by Border Patrol at the southwest border between fiscal years 2021 and 2023, DHS has released into American communities at least 99, with at least 34 others in DHS custody but not yet removed from the United States,” the report by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, a copy of which was first obtained by Fox News Digital, says.
The staff interim report also found that immigration judges granted bond to at least 27 migrants on the watchlist who entered illegally, and that Border Patrol has encountered tens of thousands of migrants from countries that could present national security risks – including 2,134 Afghan nationals, 33,347 Chinese nationals, 541 Iranian nationals, 520 Syrian nationals, and 3,104 Uzbek nationals.
The report was written by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan. (Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“That does not include the untold numbers of potential terrorists that evaded Border Patrol to enter the United States as part of nearly 2 million ‘gotaways’ since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration,” the report says.
The report, citing information provided to committee staff in June, also found that Border Patrol had encountered migrants on the terror watchlist from 36 different countries — including places with active terror presences. Those countries include Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan and Yemen.
The Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) contains sensitive information on terrorist identities. It initially contained only known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but now also includes additional individuals who represent a “potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals.”
The concern about potential terrorists has grown amid the ongoing crisis at the southern border, where record numbers of migrants have been encountered since the Biden administration took office in 2021. The number of encounters on the watchlist has grown significantly as well, with the committee report finding a more than 3,000% increase of encounters.
SAN DIEGO, CA – JUNE 13: Migrants are processed by the U.S. Border Patrol near the Jacumba Hot Springs after crossing the US-Mexico border on June 13, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images)
The Biden administration has accused Republicans of not providing enough funding and reforms to a “broken” system, while Republicans have put the crisis down to the rolling back of Trump-era policies by the Democratic administration. But officials have warned about the risk that terrorists may seek to enter in through the southern border. That was on display when DHS identified over 400 individuals brought to the U.S. from Eastern European and Central Asian countries by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network in the past several months.
That came after eight Tajikistan nationals with ties to ISIS were busted by federal authorities in New York City, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. All eight came in via the southern border illegally, but no derogatory information was flagged during processing, sources told Fox.
The Judiciary Committee report revealed that of those eight Tajikistan nationals, three were released after using the CBP One phone application to schedule an appointment and four were encountered by Border Patrol.
“Although American communities already feel the disastrous effects of the Biden-Harris Administration’s immigration policies, the worst could still be yet to come,” the staff interim report alleges.
“With national security experts and immigration officials increasingly concerned about the threat of terrorism originating from the border, it is clear that policymakers must take all necessary steps to secure the border and stop the flow of illegal aliens. However, the Biden-Harris Administration has refused to address the national security nightmare created by its radical, open-borders agenda,” it said.
Fox News Digital reached out to DHS
Fox News’ Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
With some aliens tied to the Chinese Communist Party, the surge in Chinese illegal immigration is raising U.S. security concerns. Thousands are being released into the U.S. due to Biden’s open-border policies. Pictured: Chinese aliens attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border on Nov. 11, 2023, in Jacumba, California. (Photo: Nick Ut/Getty Images)
Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
Editor’s note: This week, we will be taking a brief break from Simon Hankinson’s originally scheduled Part 3 of his series on the three reasons President Joe Biden’s border chaos is intentional.
Instead, we bring you lightly edited excerpts from his breaking testimony Thursday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability at a hearing on “Security Risk: The Unprecedented Surge in Chinese Illegal Immigration.”
——————
I served as a Foreign Service officer in seven countries. I have adjudicated thousands of visa applications to facilitate lawful visits, commerce, and immigration to the United States while excluding aliens who were legally inadmissible. The visa process I worked with overseas stands in total contrast to what happens at the U.S. border today.
Over the past two years, I have visited the border in Arizona, California, New York, and Texas. On those visits, I saw nationals of many countries apprehended by the Border Patrol. In San Diego last March, I watched Border Patrol dropping off dozens of aliens, including Chinese, at a bus stop to release them into the country.
Mass release of people who entered the country illegally happens nearly every day, multiple times, at multiple locations. At best, this is a mockery of U.S. immigration law and sovereignty. At worst, it is a huge national security and community safety risk. In addition to many Chinese aliens with connections to the Chinese Communist Party, People’s Liberation Army, and other state entities, it is statistically probable that the Department of Homeland Security is releasing people with serious criminal records.
According to U.S. law, DHS is supposed to detain aliens who enter the country illegally. But the Biden administration has replaced border control with mass processing, parole, and release. DHS has also abused immigration parole at an unprecedented scale.
In January 2021, which included the first 11 days of the new Biden administration, the Border Patrol encountered 17 Chinese aliens between ports of entry. By January 2024, it was 3,700 in that one month alone. As of April 30, this year, DHS had already encountered 48,501 inadmissible Chinese aliens in fiscal year 2024 (which began Oct. 1, 2023); 27,583 of them between ports of entry.
Nearly all are being released into an asylum process that will take years to conclude. At the end of that process, those ordered removed are extremely unlikely to be deported, because the Chinese government does not cooperate in accepting their nationals back.
In fiscal year 2023, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed only 288 Chinese aliens, leaving up to 100,000 still in the U.S., despite final orders of removal.
Most Chinese entering illegally are seeking employment. They use asylum claims to enter, remain, and work in the United States. Illegal immigration ebbs and flows corresponding to a risk-reward calculation. Today, Chinese are coming in great numbers simply because they can. Worldwide awareness of our open border, spread by social media, shows them how.
For example, Chinese citizens do not need a visa to fly to Ecuador, after which they can continue by land north to the U.S. And starting on May 17, Air China will begin direct flights from Beijing to Havana. If Chinese aliens are willing to take the dangerous trek by land from Ecuador to the U.S. via the Darien Gap, why wouldn’t they also be willing to traverse the 90 miles by water to Florida?
Overseas, an in-person interview by a U.S. consular officer is the first line of “vetting” for foreign visa applicants wanting to come to the United States. This is buttressed by consular staff who know local languages, customs, and news. Larger embassies host other federal agencies that can assist with vetting investigations.
The second line of vetting is through automatic checks of U.S. government databases. Applicants are frequently refused entry based on adverse information that would not have been discovered had the person arrived illegally with no identity documents at the border.
Meanwhile, at the border today, most “national security decisions” of who gets into our country are no longer made by American officers. Under President Joe Biden’s policies, what was once a privilege for aliens has become a right.
Despite what the Biden administration wishes the public to believe, there is no real “vetting” of those released at the border, nor of those allowed in under parole programs, much less of the “gotaways” who enter covertly between ports of entry without inspection. The official visa “front door” competes with a wide-open back door at the border, where there are no routine criminal background checks using records from the person’s home country. Unless a foreign national has a record held by U.S. agencies, DHS is flying blind.
Concerning China specifically, Customs and Border Protection agents have reportedly reduced the number of standard questions asked of inadmissible Chinese aliens at the border from 40 to five.
But, however many questions, the process relies on an alien telling the truth and agents taking them at their word. Even if Customs and Border Protection requests additional information on an individual, China routinely ignores U.S. requests for verification of nationality, and they reportedly hide records of criminal and corruption cases.
DHS releases most aliens caught at the border with a Notice to Appear in immigration court—at a date far into the future. Aliens are then free to go wherever they want, with no way for ICE to easily find them.
There are more than 6 million aliens on ICE’s Non-Detained Docket, of whom only about 184,000 are tracked using what’s called Alternatives to Detention, which uses passive methods to track them, such as having the alien check in with ICE by phone every day. Only 2% of aliens tracked using Alternatives to Detention have actual GPS monitors.
To close this dangerous loophole, the U.S. needs to re-implement agreements with Mexico and Northern Triangle countries of Central America so that inadmissible aliens are not released into the interior of the U.S. pending the decision in their asylum cases, but instead remain in those countries as they await their determinations (the vast majority of which will result in their asylum applications being rejected).
Given the population, economy, and politics of China, the U.S. can never meet the demand for those seeking to enter our country illegally. The U.S. will at some point have to remove those who are ineligible to enter or remain, or else abandon the rule of law that made this country so attractive for so many immigrants in the first place.
The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.
An illegal alien from China arrives Oct. 10 at a San Diego train station with a group of other illegal immigrants. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
Chinese nationals are crossing America’s southern border at a rapid rate. On Wednesday alone, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered 206 Chinese nationals crossing into the San Diego sector, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported. But the illegal entry of Chinese nationals into America through the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector isn’t new. Chinese individuals long have worked with criminal cartels to get into the U.S., former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott says, but the numbers have shot up.
In January, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported over 3,700 encounters with Chinese nationals on the southern border, nearly all in the San Diego sector. But back up to January 2021, when Joe Biden became president, and CBP encountered only 17 Chinese nationals at the southern border. So what changed?
To find out why so many Chinese nationals are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the San Diego sector, The Daily Signal spoke to Scott as well as to Derek Maltz, a 28-year veteran of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and to Michael Cunningham, a research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)
They point to six main reasons.
1. San Diego Infrastructure
“It’s easy,” Scott said of why San Diego is a favorite crossing point for illegal immigrants from China.
Before serving as the 24th chief of the Border Patrol from January 2020 to August 2021, Scott was chief patrol agent for the San Diego sector from 2017 to 2019. San Diego, population 1.4 million, long has been a popular illegal crossing point for illegal aliens because it’s easy to disappear on busy city streets, Scott explains.
“If you’re coming across [the border] in between the ports of entry through traditional smuggling, we used to talk about a vanishing point,” Scott said. “How fast can you get across the border and then blend into society? That’s one of the reasons you look for [urban] infrastructure.”
San Diego is even more popular now for illegal aliens, given the situation at the border, because “it’s a lower risk,” he said.
To cross into Texas from Mexico, “you’ve got to come across the river,” the former Border Patrol chief explained, adding that globally, smugglers and others seeking to enter the U.S. illegally have seen Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to illegal immigration. In an initiative called Operation Lone Star, the Republican governor placed Texas National Guard troops along sections of the border with Mexico and installed concertina and razor wire, creating a greater challenge for migrants seeking to cross the border illegally.
And in Arizona, the harsh realities of the desert are a turnoff for illegal aliens trying to cross into the U.S., Scott said. Although such conditions don’t prevent illegal crossings, he said, Arizona is “hot” and “desolate.”
Mexico’s border with California in the San Diego sector offers a safer, more comfortable crossing option, he said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s nine southern border sectors. (Graphic: CBP/Border Report)
A migrant can go to Tijuana, Mexico, “be in a hotel drinking coffee, watching TV, get the ‘go,’ and in 15 minutes [he] can be in the United States,” Scott said. In 20 more minutes, he said, that same migrant can be getting processed inside a Border Patrol station with “air conditioning, food, and water.”
When illegal aliens are released in San Diego, the city offers “this massive nongovernmental organizational network system that’s going to provide free bus tickets [and] shelter,” he said. California also is a sanctuary state, meaning it doesn’t cooperate with federal authorities to enforce immigration law.
“From a marketing standpoint, it’s the easiest place to convince people to cross illegally,” Scott said of San Diego. “And then from a cartel perspective … that smuggling infrastructure has been well-established for years.”
2. Money Motivates Cartels
Chinese migrants are “lucrative” to the drug and smuggling cartels in Mexico, Scott told The Daily Signal.
“It’s pretty hard to get out of China,” the former Border Patrol chief said. “Nobody just goes to an airport and flies to the United States without specific permission from the government, so you have to be smuggled out of China and then into the United States.”
Chinese nationals buy “travel packages” from the cartels that are similar to commercial vacation travel packages, Scott said, and they pay based on what is included. For example, he said, one package for Chinese nationals requires them to travel to Ecuador and then on to Mexico.
“And when they came into Mexico, they got legit legal travel documents so that they could fly on domestic airlines in Mexico. But for a lower fee, you didn’t get that.”
3. Because They Can
Established smuggling routes, urban or suburban infrastructure, and the cartels’ financial motivation long have driven illegal Chinese migration to the U.S. So again, why the spike now?
“The difference now,” Scott said, “is there’s no real response from the federal government of the United States to slow it down. There hasn’t been since 2021.”
Biden, a Democrat, was inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021, and quickly dismantled the border security policies of his defeated Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.
Now, with a Biden-Trump rematch looming in November, Scott speculated, migrants and smugglers are concerned that U.S. border security will return if Trump or another Republican wins. That may help explain the rapid rise in crossings in recent months.
Illegal crossings in the San Diego sector by Chinese nationals were relatively few at the beginning of the Biden administration. CBP records only 75 encounters with Chinese migrants in the San Diego sector during fiscal year 2021, which ended that Sept. 30. The number climbed to 942 in fiscal 2022, then exploded to 10,520 in fiscal 2023.
So far in fiscal 2024, which ends in five months, CBP has encountered 23,890 Chinese nationals in the San Diego sector.
Cunningham, the research fellow in Heritage’s Asian Studies Center, told The Daily Signal that Chinese nationals “see all over the news that the border is wide open, that Biden is not protecting the border.”
So the question, he says, is “why wouldn’t they” attempt to cross into the U.S.?
4. ‘A Better Life’
“A lot of people are desperate to get out of China now,” Cunningham said. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese citizens endured about three years of lockdowns and restrictions that dwarfed those in the U.S. These “draconian lockdowns” led many Chinese to lose faith in their communist government, he said.
China’s older population lived through the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, if not previous repressive political campaigns, Cunningham said, before the regime implemented a strict “zero-COVID” policy.
“They saw zero-COVID as what it was—a political campaign. And they’re worried about China’s future,” he said of ordinary Chinese citizens.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping gained an opportunity to rule the nation indefinitely when the communist regime ended formal presidential terms in 2018.
China’s economy is struggling as young people try to find jobs, the nation’s real estate market is in trouble after the failure of two major property development companies this year, and its stock market saw a $7 trillion decline in just a few years.
“People for years have wanted to get their money out of China, and it’s very difficult because of capital controls,” Cunningham said. “Now more of them are just wanting to get out of China altogether for a better life.”
5. Chinese Influence on America
Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China plans to develop trade routes with other nations, expand infrastructure, and invest in foreign economic development initiatives.
With Chinese leaders’ end goal of expanding “their power and control dramatically,” Scott said, it is “not a hidden secret that they have long allowed and or even facilitated and helped getting people out of China into the U.S. through whatever means possible.” The former Border Patrol chief pointed to reports that Chinese nationals are “systematically coming into the United States and buying property, buying foreign property, buying property near military bases,” as evidence that they are crossing the border intentionally.
China owns 384,000 acres in the U.S., about 1% of foreign-held acres, according to a Department of Agriculture report in 2021, the latest data available.
Although illegal immigrants could achieve some cultural and economic influence on America, Cunningham said, it’s unlikely that significant numbers of Chinese nationals cross the southern border with the intent of spying on the U.S.
Legal ways to enter the U.S., he said, provide greater opportunity for Chinese spies to access sensitive U.S. data than an illegal alien could get at.
“The idea that China is desperate to get their spies in the U.S. and so they’re sending them across the border illegally where they’re going to have no identity, they’re not going to be capable of getting the high-access jobs that they want their spies to get—it’s just not reasonable,” Cunningham said.
But, he added, it’s reasonable to believe that Chinese spies are infiltrated within criminal cartels and are “keeping tabs on some of the Chinese who are coming to America.”
6. Marijuana Farms
The Chinese are heavily involved in the domestic growth of marijuana in America, both legal and illegal, federal officials say. In February, 50 members of the House and Senate sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland expressing concern about and asking for answers to “reports from across the country regarding Chinese nationals and organized crime cultivating marijuana on United States farmland.”
“There’s a new term that’s been used a lot lately in local law enforcement—especially [in] Northern California [and] the inland parts of California—called narco slavery,” Scott told The Daily Signal. “And they’re seeing more and more Chinese that are being brought across and they’re being forced to work these domestic marijuana operations; they’re being forced to shovel money around the United States to pay back the smuggling fee that they couldn’t afford up front.”
Chinese-run marijuana grow operations “are all over the country,” Maltz, the former DEA official, told The Daily Signal. This isn’t a coincidence, he said.
“The marijuana today has high content of THC, much higher than we’ve ever seen,” Maltz said. THC, formally known as tetrahydrocannabinol, is a psychoactive compound found in cannabinoids. Large amounts increase the effects of marijuana on the user.
“Marijuana use directly affects brain function—specifically the parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, attention, decision-making, coordination, emotions, and reaction time,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cannabis products have been legalized for medical use in 38 states and legalized for nonmedical use in 24 states. The increased levels of THC in marijuana are “causing issues with the brain more than we’ve ever seen,” said Maltz, who also was in charge of the Justice Department’s Special Operations Division for nearly 10 years.
“Very smart Chinese Communist Party leaders understand this is another way we could take advantage of America’s addiction to marijuana, and dumb Americans will never figure it out,” he said.
Millions of migrants illegally crossing the border include terrorists on the U.S. watch list, creating a “powder keg” that eventually will explode, former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Friday. Whitaker, appearing on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America,” said “reports have been pretty clear.”
“Eight million or more undocumented people crossing the southern border illegally — it’s just almost impossible to keep track of all these folks and to know what they’re up to,” he said.
“The reports have been pretty clear. … People just on the terrorist watch list are in the hundreds that have tried to come in this country, and the known got-aways are in the millions … it’s just … a powder keg. It is going to explode. It’s not a matter of when, but where.”
Whitaker noted that protecting the nation “domestically and internationally … it’s more than a full time job,” pointing to a recent terrorist attack in Russia and the FBI’s warning of U.S. vulnerability.
“I’m scared to death like a lot of American citizens, and knowing how these radical Islamist terrorists view the world,” he said.
“We need to make sure we harden all of the targets where people gather,” he added, pointing out: “Our system of freedoms in the United States comes with a great responsibility, and it’s not only just law enforcement, but every citizen, I think, bears a responsibility to have their eyes open and to pay attention to what’s going on around them and their environment.”
Whitaker, a former Trump administration official, also weighed in on cameras in the courtroom, saying they should be allowed for each of former President Donald Trump’s upcoming trials, including a criminal trial that begins Monday.
“I think the more light we have shining on really all part forms of government, including our courts, allows citizens to understand,” Whitaker said. “All of these Donald Trump trials should be televised. I think the people should see how weak the evidence is, how bizarre the legal theories and how novel they are.”
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Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott joined “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday to explain how President Biden’s approach at the border increases national security risks for his state and the country as a whole.
GOV. GREG ABBOTT: Well, let’s be clear. The administration is doing nothing to stop terrorists from coming across the border. They are knowingly allowing them in. And there’s two categories here. There are the terrorists who were actually apprehended. The terrorists apprehended are an all-time record. Many multiples of those who came across the border under the Trump administration…
Second… the terrorist will pay extra not to be caught. What that means is the number that we’ve caught — which is extraordinary — there’s far more than that have gotten across the border. Also last month, the FBI director talked about a potential 9/11-type terrorist attack because of the terrorists who are coming across our border. The chief job of the President of the United States is national security. President Biden is failing at national security. We are extraordinarily concerned about a terrorist attack occurring in Texas or elsewhere in the United States because the terrorists who are crossing our border at will go unstopped by the bottom.
Texas on Wednesday defended its anti-illegal immigration law in oral arguments before a federal appeals court panel as the law remains on hold due to a legal challenge from the Biden administration. Abbott signed the legislation, SB 4, in December, which allows local police to arrest illegal immigrants and for judges to order them deported. However, the law has been on hold due to a challenge from the Biden administration, which says the law is unconstitutional, hurts international relations and impedes the federal government’s enforcement of immigration law.
Texas has argued that the law is necessary due to the Biden administration’s alleged failure to secure the southern border and enforce immigration law, and on Wednesday it argued before the three-judge panel that the ongoing crisis at the border is unprecedented.
The court had previously blocked the law from going into effect, but it was then briefly allowed to go into effect by the U.S. Supreme Court before being kicked back down and blocked again by the Fifth Circuit.
It is one of a number of such measures being passed or moved forward by states across the U.S. Louisiana, Iowa and Tennessee are all states that have bills under consideration that would do either the same or similar to what Texas is seeking to do.
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has blocked border enforcement by the state under Texas’s SB 4. Many of us had predicted this result given the prior precedent of the Supreme Court on the federal preemption of state immigration laws. However, the opinion also rejected the invasion theory made by states under Article 1, Section 10 and the “State War Clause.” I also previously discussed how this interpretation would fail due to the text, intent, and history of the underlying constitutional provision.
The lawsuit had a good-faith basis in challenging the scope of federal preemption and seeking to regain some room for state officials to protect their border. Texas and other states have been reduced to passive observers as the Biden Administration maintains an effective open border. The state is then expected to deal with the massive burden of the influx. While I agree with the Fifth Circuit that it is largely locked into the existing precedent in cases like Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 399 (2012), finding “field preemption” of state immigration laws. The state can now seek a review with the Supreme Court itself.
In the 2-1 opinion, Chief Judge Priscilla Richman upheld the district court’s preliminary injunction, but it is effectively a ruling on the merits since it had to find a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits to rule in favor of the federal government. She found that that the detention and removal provisions conflict with federal laws and policies on granting access and asylum status for immigrants pending review. It is a bitter recognition for the state that the open border conditions are the product of federal laws and policies. The majority noted that:
“The Supreme Court in Arizona spent considerable time and ink in explaining how the removal procedures work under federal law. ‘Removal is a civil, not criminal, matter.’ The Texas and federal laws are not congruent on this score. The Supreme Court also explained that ‘[a] principal feature of the [federal] removal system is the broad discretion exercised by immigration officials.’”
Judge Andrew Oldham dissented and argued that “The people of Texas are entitled to the benefit of state law right up to the point where any particular application of it offends the Supremacy Clause. And Texas state officials should be trusted at least to try sorting those constitutional applications from any potentially unconstitutional ones.”
The rejection of the State War Clause argument is important for future cases in other states. The panel declared:
“Texas has not identified any authority to support its proposition that the State War Clause allows it to enact and enforce state legislation regulating immigration otherwise preempted by federal law. One would expect a contemporary commentator to have noticed such a proposition. Instead, in The Federalist No. 44, James Madison glossed over the portion of the State War Clause at issue here by writing: ‘The remaining particulars of this clause fall within reasonings which are either so obvious, or have been so fully developed, that they may be passed over without remark…’
Thus, we cannot say Texas has persuaded us that the State War Clause demonstrates it is likely to succeed on the merits.”
The State War Clause provides:
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
Texas insisted that the massive numbers coming over the border is an invasion, particularly given the role of cartel gangs in organizing the effort. As I previouslywrote, Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution bars states from conducting foreign policy or performing other federal duties, including the power to “engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
That language was not the manifestation of a new deal with the states. It was largely taken from the much-maligned Articles of Confederation. Despite wanting to strengthen the powers of a federal government, the Framers incorporated the original recognition that a state can always act in self-defense in the face of an invasion. This argument is usually combined with the Guarantee Clause of Article IV of the Constitution that states that the federal government must protect the states “against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.” However, the reference to invasion was clearly used more narrowly to refer to the armed incursion of a state or nation.
In his Report of 1800, James Madison discussed the Guarantee Clause in relation to the enactment of the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. He noted that “[i]nvasion is an operation of war.”
What constitutes an “invasion” in a colloquial sense is highly subjective. When Benedict Arnold took 1,600 men over the northern border into Canada in 1775, it was rightfully called an invasion. Yet when millions pour over the southern border, it is called lax enforcement. The legal difference is obvious. One was an organized national force seeking to take over a country. The other is a collection of people from various nations seeking to join this country. Yet, for border states, the distinction easily can be lost in the costs and the crime associated with runaway illegal immigration.
It is clear that the Constitution’s references to “invasion” meant an organized foreign army. When the Constitution was ratified, the federal government had only a small regular army, and border states were legitimately concerned about an invasion by hostile foreign powers or their surrogates.
The failure at our border is a problem of competency rather than the Constitution. If “invasion” can be defined this broadly, any lack of border security could be defined as an invasion, from illegal drug imports to illegal gang activity. The theory has been rejected by various trial and appellate courts. This issue will again be before the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Abbott, in an en banc review in April.
A large gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall is seen in Otay Mesa, a community in San Diego County, California, on Friday. (Photo: Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal)
A man made his way along a dirt path in Tijuana, Mexico, toward the large gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall Friday morning. He carried a backpack and walked with ease through the more than 100-yard opening into Otay Mesa, a community in San Diego County,California. No Border Patrol agents were in sight. A source working alongside agents in the San Diego Sector told The Daily Signal on Friday that Border Patrol was short-staffed, only having a fraction of the agents needed to cover California’s border with Mexico.
The man who entered through the gap Friday did not appear concerned about whether he was seen entering the country illegally, but also appeared hesitant to encounters strangers, maintaining a significant distance between himself and The Daily Signal reporting team.
🚨WATCH: An individual crosses through the gap in the border wall from Tijuana, Mexico into Otay Mesa in San Diego County. pic.twitter.com/OIVBzXHOsY
If the wall had been completed in Otay Mesa, would the man with the backpack still have found another way to enter the country illegally? In other words, do walls alone stop illegal immigration?
Trump vs. Biden on Border Walls
Construction was underway to extend the border fence 3 miles through the Otay Mountain Wilderness under President Donald Trump, The San Diego Union-Tribune previously reported. And the materials to finish the project, according to local landowners who recently spoke with The Daily Signal, were ready to be used to complete the barrier between Otay Mesa and Tijuana.
But under the Biden administration, construction was halted, and the wall materials were removed from the area. Today, a large gap in the wall remains in the mountainous region.
This is the gap in the border wall in Otay Mesa.
The materials to fill the gap were ready to go, but locals tell me those materials were hauled away under the Biden administration. pic.twitter.com/YQiWzfewKz
On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order declaring that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”
Case Study of the San Diego Sector
The San Diego Sector, one of nine sectors along the southern border, presents an interesting case study on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of border walls and policy related to U.S. border security.
(Photo: Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, generated based on Customs and Border Protection data)
Illegal crossings into the San Diego Sector are not new.
“San Diego Sector’s primary operational area of responsibility consists of 7,000 square miles, including 60 linear miles of international boundary with Mexico and 114 coastal border miles along the Pacific Ocean,” according to Customs and Border Protection.
Throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and into the ’90s, the San Diego Sector consistently experience more illegal crossings than any other southern border sector. In fiscal year 1980, for example, Border Patrol encountered 285,984 illegal aliens in the San Diego Sector. The El Paso Sector, which includes all of New Mexico and a portion of western Texas, had the second-highest number of encounters that same year at 127,488.
In an effort to stem the vast number of illegal crossings into the sector, in 1994, “Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector introduced a new border control plan at Imperial Beach Station,” according to an archived Justice Department document. The plan was called Operation Gatekeeper. Imperial Beach Station is one of eight Border Patrol stations in the San Diego Sector.
According to the Justice Department, Operation Gatekeeper focused on deterring and preventing illegal crossings, and shifted away from an emphasis on apprehensions. Following Operation Gatekeeper’s implantation in the Imperial Beach Station, the plan was rolled out at the other seven stations in the sector.
In 1993, fencing was constructed out of steel landing mats along long stretches of the San Diego Sector border with Mexico starting at the Pacific Ocean, according to the Justice Department report. The report notes that people were still able to climb over the barrier, but “the fencing serves two important functions: It provides a barrier to vehicles crossing the border with aliens and/or drugs, and it defines a clear line of demarcation between the two countries.” Those initial efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the San Diego Sector saw little result.
Border Patrol encountered 565,581 illegal aliens in 1992 before the implementation of Operation Gatekeeper or the building of long stretches of barrier. By 1996, the San Diego Sector was seeing slightly lower encounter numbers, ending the fiscal year with a total of 483,815—still the highest among all nine southern border sectors.
It was not until 2010 that the San Diego Sector began to see a large and sustained decrease in illegal border crossings, following Congress authorizing the building of 700 miles of border wall under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 during the Bush administration.
The construction of the border wall that began under then-President George W. Bush continued under President Barack Obama, including in the in the Otay Mountain Wilderness in California, where a gap remains today. In 2007, total illegal Southwest border crossings between ports of entry began to decline and did not see significant increase again until fiscal year 2019, at which time then-President Donald Trump began implementing new policies to reduce the flow of illegal immigration, such as the Remain in Mexico policy. More fencing was also built under Trump.
Results
Between factors such as changes to Border Patrol policies and the building of border wall during the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, Border Patrol encounters between ports of entry on the southern border fell to 400,651 in fiscal year 2020, the final full fiscal year of Trump’s presidency. In the San Diego Sector, Border Patrol encountered 53,282 illegal aliens during the same year. In fiscal year 2021, most of it under President Joe Biden’s administration, encounters in the San Diego Sector climbed back up to over 142,000, and across the southern border, encounters were more than 1.6 million, levels the Border Patrol had not come close to since before the building of the tall border wall in 2000.
Biden ended Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy and stopped all wall construction, but did not remove sections of previously built wall, yet has seen record high encounter numbers under his presidency. In fiscal year 2022 and 2023, Border Patrol encountered more than 2 million illegal aliens in each 12-month period between ports of entry along the southern border.
Border Patrol data indicates illegal crossings have only declined significantly with both construction of border wall and during times when policies were in place to discourage entering the country illegally.
An appeals court on Saturday reversed a lower court’s decision to block Texas from enforcing a new state law that would make illegal immigration a state crime. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals went against U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra’s order to block Texas’ Senate Bill 4 but also put its own ruling on hold for seven days should the Biden administration want to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The new law allows state authorities to arrest and jail illegal immigrants and would give state judges the power to order deportations. The law was initially set to go into effect on March 5 but will now be put on hold until March 9 unless the Supreme Court intervenes.
Under Texas’ Senate Bill 4, state authorities could arrest and jail illegal immigrants and allow state judges to order deportations. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Ezra, who presides in the Western District of Texas, ruled last week that states “may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, however, maintained that the state “has the right to defend itself” from the invasion at our southern border.”
“Texas will immediately appeal this decision, and we will not back down in our fight to protect our state – and our nation – from President Biden’s border crisis,” Abbott said in a statement at the time.
Asylum seekers cross the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States on Sept. 30, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
The law was one of several moves by Texas to curb the flow of migrants into the state. Abbott has repeatedly accused the Biden administration of failing to enforce immigration laws amid record numbers of migrant entries and encounters at the southern border.
Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
Earlier this month the Senate rejected a “compromise” on the border and sent a bill to the House that funds Israel’s many needs following the 10/7 massacre, Taiwan’s defenses, weapons for Ukraine and a significant spend on America’s defense industrial base. Now Speaker Mike Johnson has to decide what to do with it because he needs more support from his Caucus than the bill as currently written garners from the House GOP caucus. The best strategy for the Speaker? Make everyone an offer they can’t refuse: Build the wall.
The key to getting the Supplemental passed lies in a Washington Post article from February 27, the headline of which tells the story: “The Border Wall Has Never Been More Popular.”
The critical two paragraphs:
“Multiple recent polls have shown support for building a wall along the southern border creating a majority.
“Late last year, it was Quinnipiac University and Fox News polling that showed between 52 and 57 percent supported its construction. On Monday it was a Monmouth University poll that pegged support at 53 percent.”
Those are eye-popping numbers because the wall is former President Trump’s signature issue, but the collapse of security at the border and President Biden’s shrugging of shoulders at the flood of migrants who have crossed the border since he became president has changed public opinion dramatically in Trump’s and the wall’s favor.
Trump had the border under control by the end of his first term and has promised to do so again in a second term.
Biden, in the sharpest contrast of the campaign ahead, abandoned the policies that led to control of the border and eight million people entered the country without permission in Biden’s first three years. That number has likely now passed 9 million total “encounters” at the border —and that number does not include “got-aways”: The illegal immigrants who do not enter through a port of entry and are never “encountered” by law enforcement anywhere. The “get-aways” include the cartels’ worst customers carrying the most fentanyl and the Chinese nationals who don’t want to be fingerprinted and then released.
It’s a mess. It’s a huge burden on all the states and cities flooded with migrants. It’s a threat to every kid who tries one pill because they think they have bought a Xanax online but it’s a knock-off laced with enough fentanyl to kill. And it’s a national security nightmare.
Only 450 Chinese nationals were “encountered” at the border in Fiscal Year 2021. In FY 2022 “encounters” with Chinese nationals soared to 2,176. “In 2023, it ballooned to 24,314,” according to NBC News and in the first quarter of FY 2024, estimates are that another 19,000 have already entered and the surge in this demographic is increasing. That’s a national security issue of the first order. When the Soviet Union existed, do you think Ronald Reagan would have allowed 40,000 Soviets to enter the country and vanish into its interior? Of course not, but Joe Biden has done the equivalent of that by doing nothing.
Migrants are encountered by Border Patrol in the San Diego sector on Feb. 17. (Fox News)
When discussing this Chinese subset of the migrant flood with three former national security officials from the Trump era this past weekend, they guaranteed me that tens of thousands of Chinese nationals don’t slip easily out of the Chinese Communist Party’s control. They are very alarmed that the vast majority of these migrants are military-aged men.
Whatever one thinks about sanctuary cities, or California extending Medicaid to illegal immigrants (at a cost of more than $2 billion annually to a state with a $68 billion dollar deficit) the reality is that Americans of all political perspectives save the hard Left have awakened to the fact that this can’t go on.
The border with Mexico is 1,954 miles long. 900 miles are considered “passable.” When he left office, Trump was adding miles of Wall daily to try and get as much of the 900 miles of Wall needed built. But as soon as Biden was sworn in, construction stopped, and the film of migrants walking around the unfinished Wall or through openings created by the coyotes began playing. Americans noticed. They want The Wall and they want it now.
With funding for most of the Supplemental already enjoying majority support in the House, how to pass the necessary bill? Tack on funding for the wall as well as language that makes it clear that construction is to restart and conclude in a matter of months. That will also require language in the new law that approves that construction “notwithstanding any other law or treaty with any nation or sovereign Tribe.” That language blows past the obstacles to the Wall’s construction posed by the federal Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act while also mandating construction on tribal lands. This is America. We built the Interstate Highway system. We can build the Wall in a matter of months if the will, the money and the clear direction exist in the Congress.
Want the Supplemental? Build the Wall. It is that simple.
Hugh Hewitt is one of the country’s leading journalists of the center-right. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990, and it is today syndicated to hundreds of stations and outlets across the country every Monday through Friday morning. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and this column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his forty years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio show today.
There are three walls in the area around McAllen, Texas. Colloquially, they are referred to as “the George W. Bush wall,” “the Donald Trump wall” and the “Greg Abbott wall.” Like so much of what happens at our southern border, the walls make little sense. For one thing, both sides of the wall, in all three cases, are United States land. In other words, if you’re a migrant, and you’ve reached the wall, you’re already on American soil. For another, the walls are all incomplete, with gaps that make them easy to breach. You can simply follow the wall, see where it ends and walk around it.
President Biden and migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. (Getty Images)
I didn’t know any of this when I landed in McAllen, Texas, a few days ago. A safe, bustling city, McAllen sits in the Rio Grande Valley on the American border with Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of migrants come through the city each year.
I was invited on this trip to the border by Americans for Prosperity, “a libertarian conservative political advocacy group.” I have no affiliation with this group other than joining them on this trip. “Is this… a pro-open borders trip?” conservative friends half-joked.
Despite being founded during the “Tea Party” era, AFP has a reputation for having a softer stance on immigration than most groups in the conservative world. As my own opinions on immigration policies are fairly stringent, I was actually interested to hear the argument for open borders, one that even the left has stopped making.
But that didn’t happen. If AFP had been somewhat lenient on illegal immigration in the past, it didn’t come through during this trip at all. The speakers all stressed the severe problems that are caused by allowing masses of unvetted people to enter the country unchecked.
We learned that during the Obama administration his Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, had proclaimed it a real problem when 1,000 people crossed every day and that 3,000 would be a crisis. Yuma Sector’s Retired Chief Border Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem told the group, “Now those numbers would be a vacation for us.”
They brought in Chalmers Carr, a farmer and owner of Titan Farms in South Carolina. “Oh, here we go,” I thought to myself. I imagined Mr. Carr would be making an argument that he needed these illegal immigrants to work his farm. I was wrong. In fact, Carr does not employ any seasonal workers who don’t have a specific work visa.
Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Carr said the migrants entering illegally largely don’t want to work in agriculture anymore. He told us about the Biden administration assault on the H-2 visa process that allows Carr to legally hire seasonal workers from other countries. In a nod to labor groups, the Biden administration has made the process of hiring workers extremely difficult and expensive. They’ve raised the fees on these visas to offset the funding of asylum cases.
I spoke with Chief Clem after the trip and asked him what Americans need to most understand about the border. He stressed, “We’re letting in everybody who crosses into the country and many of them don’t meet basic tenets for asylum.”
He told me that the old system would weed out people who very obviously didn’t have a reasonable case but DHS policy now is to give every single person an asylum hearing before a judge. That can sometimes take years and since we don’t have the capacity to hold people, we’re letting people out into the country and hoping they come back for their court date. It’s unsustainable.
Clem told me if the people crossing the border “saw a judge within 7-14 days after detainment, that would go a long way toward fixing the problems and would be consistent with the way the system is designed.” Most would be found ineligible for asylum and it would act as a “deterrent to people making the dangerous journey with cartels.”
A few days before I arrived at the border, Axios reported, “Biden has considered an executive order that would dramatically stanch the record flow of migrants into the Southwest. This could even happen in the two weeks before the address, allowing Biden to say he took action while Republicans just talk.”
The fact that an executive order was possible the whole time to fix this issue, but Biden has been waiting for the most politically opportune moment while the country buckles under this problem, is unacceptable. It is not pro-immigrant to allow people into our country unchecked. We have strained every resource and Biden could end it all with a pen stroke.
My border trip ended with a visit to Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley Humanitarian Respite Center. An old bar had been repurposed as a mini pharmacy for toiletries and other goods. Signs in English, Spanish and Russian instructed that no medicine could be prescribed here.
On mats on the floor, adults lounged, scrolling on their phones while a dance troop entertained the kids in another room. The migrants stay here 24-48 hours before their families arrange passage for them. If they don’t have family in the United States, they are assisted by other non-governmental agencies.
Perhaps this was the part of the trip meant to pull at the heartstrings but it served as a reminder that if you break the law to come into the United States, there will be a network there to assist you in your journey. For a refugee like me, whose family came to this country legally and with great difficulty, it’s galling to see people so blatantly disregard our laws and be rewarded with easy passage.
On my flight home, there were a few obvious migrant families and several Haitian single men. The men were very well-dressed, in designer clothing and sneakers. Where were they going and what will they be doing? How have we allowed a system that does not specifically answer this question?
In December and January, U.S. Customs and Border Protections had 478,188 encounters at our southern border. Much of the media sells us an image of food delivery men and agriculture workers coming here to do the jobs Americans won’t. Nearly half a million people in two months couldn’t all have become Uber Eats delivery drivers. It turns out they are not working in agriculture. How is this mass of people being absorbed into American life?
A story last week about the northern border, and how it’s growing as a crossing point for migrants who have discovered it’s even easier to get in from Canada than Mexico, contained this tidbit from a resident of a small Vermont town being impacted:
“The Border Patrol actually told us, ‘You guys might want to put a pistol in your backpack’ because nine out of 10 of them are just here for a better life, but there’s that one guy that’s got a rap sheet.”
The CPB puts the total of nationwide encounters for 2023 at 3,201,144. Someone ask the Biden administration to do the math.
Former President Trump blasted Democrat border security and law enforcement policies for the murder of Georgia student Laken Riley at the hands of an illegal immigrant, vowing that “when” elected, he will “immediately seal the border” and begin the “largest deportation operation of illegal criminals in American history.”
Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Augusta University, was found dead on the University of Georgia campus Thursday after her roommate reported to authorities that she had not returned home from her morning run.
The University of Georgia Police Department arrested Jose Antonio Ibarra and charged him with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another, UGA Police Chief Jeffrey L. Clark said during a news briefing Friday evening.
Former President Trump (Spencer Platt)
The suspect is not a U.S. citizen. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday confirmed that the Venezuelan national entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and had previously been arrested in New York City.
“Crooked Joe Biden’s Border INVASION is destroying our country and killing our citizens!” Trump, the 2024 GOP frontrunner, said Monday in a post on his TRUTH Social. “The horrible murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley at the University of Georgia should have NEVER happened!”
Murder suspect Jose Ibarra lived within a five-minute walk of the approximate scene where he allegedly murdered 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on Feb. 22. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital/Laken Riley/Jose Ibarra)
Trump said that “the monster who took her life illegally entered our Country in 2022… and then was released AGAIN by Radical Democrats in New York after injuring a CHILD!!”
“When I am your President, we will immediately Seal the Border, Stop the Invasion, and on Day One, we will begin the largest deportation operation of illegal CRIMINALS in American History!” Trump said.
He added: “May God Bless Laken Riley and her family!!! Our prayers are with you!”
Fox News had previously reported that Ibarra had crossed into the U.S. illegally near El Paso in September 2022 and was paroled into the U.S.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, ICE confirmed he had been encountered by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Sept. 8, 2022, after entering near El Paso and was “paroled and released for further processing.”
A memorial for Laken Riley is seen along Lake Herrick on the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Feb. 24, 2024. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
ICE also confirmed that Ibarra had been arrested by the New York Police Department a year later, on Sept. 14, 2023, and “charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.”
When ICE learns that what it believes to be a removable illegal immigrant has been arrested on criminal charges, the agency will normally lodge a detainer – a request asking local law enforcement to keep the suspect in custody until they can be transferred to ICE and put into deportation proceedings.
In this case, however, ICE’s statement says Ibarra was released before a detainer could be issued. NYC is also a “sanctuary city,” which generally restricts law enforcement from complying with ICE detainers.
Ibarra appeared in court on Saturday morning, when Clarke County Magistrate Judge Donarell Green denied his bond “for today.” Two translators were present. Ibarra nodded when spoken to.
Ibarra’s brother, Diego, was charged Friday with possessing a fraudulent green card and is being held in state custody. The federal arrest affidavit for Diego Ibarra says that in September 2023, Athens-Clarke County Police charged him with drunken driving and driving without a license. He was later arrested for shoplifting and later skipped court.
In its statement, ICE said its Enforcement and Removal Operations office in Atlanta “encountered Ibarra pursuant to his arrest by the University of Georgia Police Department and being charged with murder and other crimes. ERO Atlanta lodged a detainer.”
Clark said “the evidence is robust” against Ibarra.
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz, Bill Melugin and Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.
Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and FOX Business.
After the much-anticipated “bipartisan” Ukraine and border bill finally dropped on Sunday, it took little time to confirm that all 370 pages are worse than intelligent observers predicted. The $118 billion boondoggle is dead on arrival in the House. For Democrats and their accomplice media, however, the legislation and House Republicans’ response to it are going exactly as planned.
Not only did national disgrace Sen. Mitch McConnell (feat. useful idiot James Lankford) work tirelessly with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on this bill to keep America’s borders open, give out amnesty Oprah-style, and write more blank checks to Ukraine and Hamas sympathizers in the Middle East, they also helped the corrupt corporate media run a propaganda operation against House Republicans and the rest of the GOP. Worse, they’re deliberately running it during an election year to boost Joe Biden on the border issue — which the near-dead incumbent has aided and abetted, and voters say is top of mind next to Bidenomics.
The Republican-majority House predictably isn’t going for the bill. Why would they? It would allow nearly 2 million illegal aliens into the country in one year — as long as the numbers stay below 5,000 entries per day for seven consecutive days, or below 8,500 border encounters in a single day — before triggering “emergency authority” for the Department of Homeland Security and closing the border. Even then there are exceptions.
Worse, if Biden decides it’s in the “national interest” to beckon some more Democrat representation padding and likely future voters across the Rio Grande, he can unilaterally suspend the border closure for 45 days per year. There’s more where that came from.
If GOP members of Congress had taken the bait, Democrats would have come out on top, having
convinced their political foes not only to continue funding a no-win forever war in Eastern Europe but also to keep letting illegal aliens into the country virtually unrestricted. Bonus: A codified open border could hamstring “the fixer” Donald Trump if he wins the general election later this year, zapping his political power to rehabilitate U.S. security and sovereignty.
Yet even without the House conceding to the bill, Democrats win anyway. Now Biden and his accomplice media can simply blame Republicans for not solving the crisis this administration caused. That’s exactly what’s happening, starting with Biden pointing fingers at Republicans:
Working with my administration, the United States Senate has done the hard work it takes to reach a bipartisan agreement. Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border?
Biden’s media lapdogs dutifully advanced the narrative, which they’d already been spinning before the text of the bill was even released.
“GOP Blames Biden for Border Crisis That GOP Refuses to Solve,” blared one Daily Beast headline. “Republicans are yelling about a crisis at the border. But they’re also unwilling to do anything to address it for fear that it’d give Joe Biden a political win,” the subheading continued, taking its talking points straight from the president and Senate Democrats like Chris Murphy.
“Why Republicans Don’t Want To Solve the Border Problem — But do want to make deals to cut taxes,” read another headline in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer by Jonathan Chait.
“Republicans Who Screamed About A Crisis On The Border Now Oppose A Plan To Fix It,” said HuffPost, claiming Republicans oppose the border bill not because it’s nightmarish but because they want to hurt Biden. “Border Patrol Supports ‘Strong’ Immigration Deal. Republicans Don’t Care,” wrote Rolling Stone.
Vanity Fair claimed, “Republicans Don’t Want to Lose Their Favorite 2024 Talking Point,” with Bloomberg opting for a simple, “House Republicans Don’t Want to Fix the Border.”
Cable television has been as bad. A host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” said the “bipartisan border deal is doomed to fail … because Republicans have turned on it.” The “Today” show framed the gridlock as Republicans “threaten[ing] to block the border bill they negotiated,” as if McConnell and his sidekick colluding with Democrats behind closed doors amounts to a good-faith bipartisan negotiation.
This run-of-the-mill propaganda is to be expected from the corporate media, but it’s just so brazen considering Republicans’ efforts to secure the border earlier in Biden’s term and Democrats’ subsequent refusal to cooperate.
We’re all old enough to remember less than a year ago when the House passed a stronger border bill that would have restarted Trump-era border wall construction, required aliens to remain in Mexico while waiting out their usually fraudulent asylum claims, restricted asylum eligibility to legal ports of entry, enacted harsher punishments for overstaying expired visas, kept Title 42-esque “expulsion authority” in place, and supplied border authorities with additional grant funding. Senate Democrats wouldn’t lift a finger.
But sure. It’s Republicans “playing politics.”
Kylee Griswold is the editorial director of The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religion, and the media. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., pictured speaking to reporters Jan. 31, represented Republicans in negotiating the terms of a Senate spending bill to increase U.S. border security as well as provide billions more for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images)
The Senate released the text of a $118 billion spending bill Sunday night that includes funding for U.S. border security as well as security-related aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. But House leadership calls the Senate bill “dead on arrival” if it reaches the lower chamber.
“I’ve seen enough,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote on X about three hours after Senate leadership released text of the spending bill.
“This bill is even worse than we expected,” Johnson said, adding that it “won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the president has created.”
“As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes.’ If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival,” the House’s top Republican said.
I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, “the border never closes.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., posted Sunday on X: “The Senate Border Bill will NOT receive a vote in the House.”
“Here’s what the people pushing this ‘deal’ aren’t telling you,” Scalise continued. “It accepts 5,000 illegal immigrants a day and gives automatic work permits to asylum recipients—a magnet for more illegal immigration.”
The Senate’s 370-page bill includes about $20 billion in border-related spending and, as Scalise noted, directs the Department of Homeland Security to close the southern border “during a period of 7 consecutive calendar days, [if] there is an average of 5,000 or more aliens who are encountered each day.”
Over 1.8 million illegal aliens a year still would be permitted to enter the United States under the legislation. The bill also would give the president the authority to “direct the [homeland security secretary] to suspend use of the border emergency authority on an emergency basis.”
Rep. Mark Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a written statement Sunday night that he “will vehemently oppose any agreement that legitimizes or normalizes any level of illegal immigration.”
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., called the bill “the worst idea on border ‘security’— EVER” and “a disaster.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are among those touting the bipartisan nature of the bill, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine and $14.1 billion for Israel.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., led the way in negotiating the terms of the bill with Democrats. Lankford has pushed back on criticism that the bill would allow 5,000 illegal aliens into the country a day.
“The emergency authority is not designed to let 5,000 people in, it is designed to close the border and turn 5,000 people around,” Lankford said.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the lead Democrat negotiator, released a video message Sunday night explaining that the bill “gives the president the power to better manage the border.”
“So, what we did is give the president a limited authority to shut down asylum claims in between the land ports of entry,” Murphy said, “so that when the numbers of crossings are really high, we funnel people who want to apply for asylum to those ports of entry where we can do it in a more manageable, more humane way.”
“We’re never going to shut down asylum processing, but we are going to make sure that it’s done in a more expeditious manner,” Murphy said.
We just announced a bipartisan agreement to fund Ukraine and address our overwhelmed border.
As the author of the border provisions, tonight I want to explain to you why this BIPARTISAN compromise is so important and what it does to fix our broken immigration system. pic.twitter.com/3NMAo9LIav
The Senate bill also proposes to provide hundreds of thousands of work permits to illegal aliens, expand free services for them, and include bailouts for so-called sanctuary cities and states that shelter illegal aliens from federal authorities.
Some of Lankford’s GOP Senate colleagues have gone so far as to call the bill a “betrayal of the American people,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said. The Senate legislation is “an open-borders bill if I’ve ever seen one,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Breitbart that he has “questions and serious concerns” about the bill.
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he “can’t support a bill that doesn’t secure the border, provides taxpayer-funded lawyers to illegal immigrants, and gives billions to radical open borders groups.”
“I’m a no,” Daines added.
The Senate bill also faces criticism from the political Left for being too restrictive.
“After months of a negotiating process that lacked transparency or the involvement of a single border-state Democrat or member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, it is no surprise that this border deal misses the mark,” Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said in a written statement.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said the Senate bill includes “poison pill provisions such as a new Title 42-like expulsion authority that will close the border and turn away asylum-seekers without due process.”
The bill needs 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster by some senators. Even if the legislation manages to pass the Senate, it won’t receive a vote in the House unless Johnson, Scalise, and the rest of Republican leadership there change their position, which appears unlikely.
The Senate was expected to hold a procedural vote Wednesday on the bill.
The House passed a border security bill, HR 2, in May. The Democrat-run Senate has yet to vote on that bill despite repeated calls from House and Senate Republicans for action on it.
If only Biden was as ferocious with Iran as he seems to be fighting against Texas’ border policy.
GOVERNOR GREG ABBOTT TO TUCKER: WE ARE ‘PREPARED’ FOR CONFLICT WITH BIDEN REGIME OVER BORDER – 10 STATES HAVE SENT THEIR NATIONAL GUARDS TO DEFEND TEXAS AGAINST INVASION (VIDEO)
Texas Governor Greg Abbott told Tucker Carlson Friday afternoon that he is fully prepared for conflict with federal authorities and that states have already sent their National Guards and other law enforcement to defend the border.
Tucker started the interview by asking Abbott what he would do if the Regime federalized the Texas National Guard. He responded they would attempt to defy the Regime and continue building barriers, including razor wire, and expand the denial of illegal entry into the state of Texas.
He went on to tell Tucker that 10 of the 25 GOP-led states pledging to defend Texas have sent their national guards to the Texas border, and more will follow soon. He did not specify which states had deployed forces. See and READ MORE
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
A talking point cropping up on social media and press contends that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is “ignoring” or “defying” the Supreme Court by continuing to erect fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border. This is wrong.
Abbott can’t ignore the Supreme Court because Texas wasn’t ordered to do anything. SCOTUS vacated an order against the Department of Homeland Security [sic] that stopped the Feds from cutting down razor fencing along the border. Nothing says that Texas can’t erect the fencing.
Though, you must marvel at the breathtaking audacity of Democrats suddenly treating the court’s (non-existent) words as if they were sacred text. This very week, President Joe Biden again ignored the court, rolling out yet another iteration of his unconstitutional student “loan forgiveness” program. Biden habitually circumvents, ignores, defies, attacks, and demeans SCOTUS — and Democrats cheer him on along the way. Senate leaders and “dark money” fake media organizations like ProPublica have poured millions into delegitimizing and smearing the court to undermine its authority.
Now, it is true that Biden has the power to ratchet up the fight, take federal control of the border, and implement any policy he desires — or, more specifically, any non-policy he desires. The Biden administration is standing in the way of Texas’ efforts to enforce state and federal law. Once that happens, we can have our constitutional crisis.
As a political matter, the case tells us that the border mayhem is not only a matter of historic incompetence but is also driven by ideology. Many Democrats believe limiting illegal immigration is immoral. They believe anyone who wants to walk over the border should be able to do so without any incumbrances.
This week, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that razorwire at the southern border is ineffective and gets “in the way” of law enforcement. I’m no expert on border control, admittedly, but I am relatively certain that any fence is better than what is happening now.
A few years back, Nancy Pelosi distilled the left’s view on physical barriers when she called them an “immorality,” the “least effective way to protect the border,” and too expensive. “I can’t think of any reason why anyone would think it’s a good idea — unless this has something to do with something else,” the then House Speaker said. None of that is true, either. The idea that real fences and walls can’t mitigate the movement of people is undermined by looking at the entirety of history. The least effective way is probably what we’re doing now.
The “something else,” of course, is meant to call you a racist. The reality is that Mexico is the top origin country for legal immigrants. Most Americans still see immigration as a net positive. The lawlessness at the border, and now in major cities, is helping undermine that sentiment.
One of the vital jobs of the federal government is to protect the sovereignty, borders, and citizens of the nation — even more important than creating “book ban” czars or banning Zyn packets. But not only has Biden abdicated his responsibility on that front, he wants to stop others from doing their duty, as well. But sometimes, it seems like the lawlessness is the point.
When it’s seeding time on our farm, we seed. When it’s haying time, we put up the hay. And when it’s harvest time, we bring in the crop. We don’t sit around and hope that somebody else will do the job for us. We handle it the Montana way: rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.
That’s the kind of mentality that small business owners, farmers, ranchers and hardworking Montanans all across our state bring to their jobs every single day. And it’s the type of mentality that my colleagues in Congress and President Biden urgently need to bring to the table to secure our border.
Montanans know that what’s happening at our southern border right now is a serious problem, plain and simple. No matter your political beliefs, allowing anyone to enter the country without being properly vetted or going through a legal process undermines our national security.
Thousands of immigrants, most wearing thermal blankets, await processing at a U.S. Border Patrol transit center on Dec. 19, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
We know that drug cartels are taking advantage of these gaps in our border security to traffic drugs and people across the border. That needs to stop.
For too long, Congress has kicked the can down the road on securing our southern border and some have even refused to fund it. It’s time to stop kicking and get the job done.
When I talk to Montana sheriffs and mayors in communities big and small, they all tell me that the situation at our southern border and the deadly fentanyl crisis are having disastrous impacts on the folks they’re sworn to protect. We can save lives by taking action now.
The stories of those impacted Montana families, local governments’ budgets that are stretched thin, and our national security are front of mind for me when I’ve told President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that what’s happening on our southern border is unacceptable.
That is why I urged Senate leaders from both parties to prioritize a solution to the border crisis, one that I believe we should have stayed in Washington and worked over the holidays to solve.
The lack of urgency from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to address this crisis is frankly disturbing.
When I visited our southern border, I stood at a section of the wall near McAllen, Texas, and spoke directly with Border Patrol agents who told me they need additional manpower and resources to get the job done. That’s why I’ve worked with Republicans and Democrats to introduce bipartisan legislation like my FEND Off Fentanyl Act and my ANTI Drugs Act.
These bills would give law enforcement the tools and funds they need to tackle this crisis head on. But politicians who would rather score cheap political points and play politics with our border blocked our bipartisan efforts.
It’s time for Congress to quit the political gamesmanship, put our shoulder to the wheel, and use commonsense proposals like the ones I’ve put forward, and others, to finally get a border deal done that protects our state and country.
Simply put, protecting our country by securing our southern border shouldn’t be a partisan issue – it’s an American issue. Montanans from all political stripes understand that the current systems in place are broken. They want to know why their elected leaders are so dysfunctional that they can’t seem to fix it.
My message to the president and my colleagues in Congress is simple: It’s time to stop pointing fingers, quit using the border as a political talking point, and roll up our sleeves. I’m committed to working with anyone, Republican or Democrat, to get a deal done that secures our borders and protects our state and our country.
By a vote of 5-4, with two conservative justices joining the liberals, the Supreme Court has ruled that federal agents can cut razor wire installed along the Texas-Mexico border while a lawsuit over the wire continues. The Border Patrol Union and its agents who have spoken to reporters favor the razor wire installation because it is working in that section of the state in keeping migrants, criminals, and fentanyl out, but that apparently doesn’t matter to the court.
While the emergency appeal of a lower court ruling upholding the action by Texas did not require an explanation for their votes, it likely is because the majority felt the Constitution grants power to the federal government over individual states when it comes to border control. The obvious question which the court did not address: why is the federal government not enforcing immigration laws which migrants are breaking to enter the country?
Suppose a Mexican army — no, forget an army — suppose a ragtag bunch of drug dealers decided to invade Texas, the governor acted to stop them — including installing more razor wire — and the Biden administration did nothing to stop them? Would the High Court be OK with that? The effect is the same as if an army of any kind was crossing the border.
How many more murders, rapes and drug deaths are to be tolerated before the administration begins to enforce laws passed by Congress and signed by presidents of both parties? If this is not a violation of Biden’s Oath of Office, what would qualify?
A statement from White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez is laughable: “Texas’ political stunts, like placing razor wire near the border, simply makes it harder and more dangerous for frontline personnel to do their jobs.” Except, as anyone can plainly see from watching pictures of tens of thousands of migrants streaming across the border, they are not doing their jobs because the Biden administration won’t let them.
Even President Biden recently stated the obvious when he said after months of denials by himself and his Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that the bord er is not secure. If his previous statements weren’t lies, we need a new definition of the word.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said in response to the court ruling that the razor wire is an “effective deterrent” to the illegal crossings and “I will continue to defend Texas’ constitutional authority to secure the border.”
Local police and the Department of Public Safety officers have been arresting migrants on trespassing charges, but ultimately they will be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which is likely to continue releasing them into the country. From there they will likely head to already overcrowded cities seeking low-paying jobs, taking playground and other spaces from school children and in the case of New York, depositing human waste in parks, in the streets and in some cases in cups they leave on the doorsteps of local residents.
That this will — and already is — a major issue in this year’s presidential race is clear. According to a new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. “More voters pointed to immigration than to inflation as a top policy concern. The survey found that 35 percent of respondents listed immigration as their paramount concern among an array of issues, with inflation in a close second, named by 32 percent of respondents.”
Beware Democrats. You are on the wrong side of this issue.
More than a dozen Democrats in the House of Representatives formally rebuked President Biden over his border and immigration policies on Wednesday.
Lawmakers passed a Republican-led resolution “denouncing the Biden administration’s open-borders policies, condemning the national security and public safety crisis along the southwest border, and urging President Biden to end his administration’s open-borders policies.”
Fourteen Democratic lawmakers voted with the GOP, including Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas; Jared Golden, D-Maine; Mary Peltola, D-Alaska; Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.; and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.
It’s a largely symbolic move, but a pointed message from the House GOP Conference as talks are underway between the Senate and White House on a border security compromise in exchange for Republican support for sending Ukraine more aid.
Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, who spearheaded the resolution in the House, told Fox News Digital that it sent a clear message of unity to those negotiators.
President Biden’s border policies were targeted in a House GOP-led resolution of disapproval (Photo by Katie McTiernan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images | Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images )
“It shows that we’re in lockstep together to make sure that the president has a clear, unified message from the House Republicans and the Senate has a clear, unified message from the House Republicans, that says border security is of utmost consequence for this nation and its national security,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital.
The vote comes just after the top four Congressional leaders — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — met with Biden at the White House to discuss the status of supplemental aid talks.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., met with Biden on Wednesday (Getty Images)
Democrats are trying to pass a mammoth $110 billion supplemental aid bill that includes money for Ukraine, Israel, and humanitarian causes like aid to Gaza.
Johnson has fixed the House GOP’s position on H.R.2, the comprehensive border security and immigration bill his conference passed back in May. Democratic leaders have called H.R.2 a nonstarter.
“Last May, we passed H.R.2, which provides a lot of the substantive solution that’s necessary to close our borders,” Moran told Fox News Digital. “What we’ve seen since then though, is stonewalling from the Democrats.”
Immigrants from Venezuela walk towards a U.S. Border Patrol transit center after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States on January 08, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
“This resolution is trying to re-sound that alarm to the Democrats and the American public to say we really do have a crisis.”
More than 300,000 migrants were encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border in December, an all-time record.
Elizabeth Elkind is a reporter for Fox News Digital focused on Congress as well as the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and politics. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
An ongoing crisis at the southern border is bad not just for the White House officials and Democrat leaders who failed to promptly stop the surge — but “all of us” on both sides of the border, Rep. Richard McCormick, R-Ga., told Newsmax.
In an interview Monday on “Newsline,” McCormick railed at the human disasters triggered by inaction — specifically calling out Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for “lies.”
“If you look at what’s come across the border as far as fentanyl, the 80% of the women that were raped repeatedly … coming across the border, the amount of child trafficking — the 100,000 children that we’ve lost have come across the border — the fact that people are actually in abject slavery, trying to pay back their jackals for up to 13 years of indentured servitude,” he recounted. “There’s nothing good about this. There’s nothing compassionate about this.”
“They like to spin it that way,” McCormick said of President Joe Biden, Mayorkas, and Capitol Hill Democrats. “But this is bad for them, and it’s bad for us simultaneously.”
Taking pointed aim at Mayorkas, McCormick charged “he’s lied to Congress openly in front of hearings that we can all look at what he’s done, when he’s opened our borders when he’s basically violated our sovereignty as a nation.”
“This all comes through the president’s direction though,” McCormick asserted. “We have to remember that this goes far beyond just what Mayorkas has done, it has to do with the Biden policies that the Democrats seem to have embraced … and actually supported.”
The lawmaker said the “10 million people flooding across the border in the last three years” would basically comprise 13 congressional districts worth “that are unfunded … on the taxpayers’ dockets.”
“Our children will have to pay an interest loan on this — on funding 13 congressional district worth of people that cannot work legally,” he said. “Their entire subsistence is money we provide for their food, for their housing, for their medical, for education.”
He added: “One person being born costs about $4,000, that’s all unfunded, and that’s being done to the Biden administration, done by Myorkas and his lies and what he’s not doing for us.”
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Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and more than 60 House Republicans are visiting the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday in an attempt to raise awareness of the ongoing migrant crisis under President Joe Biden. Johnson and his fellow conference members will visit Eagle Pass, Texas, and are expected to demand that Biden and the Democrats agree to strict new immigration policies to stop the flow of migrants into the country, The New York Times reported.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics show that in November there were 242,418 migrant encounters. That’s the third-highest official number since the crisis began in late January 2021. A CBP source told Newsmax on Monday that in December there were about 302,000 encounters at the southern border, surpassing the monthly record of 269,735 set in September.
The lawmakers’ visit to the border comes as Senate Republicans and Democrats struggle to reach an agreement on an emergency spending bill that would send more than $50 billion in military assistance to Ukraine.
House Republicans and some GOP Senate members have demanded sweeping immigration changes in exchange for their support of the supplemental legislation.
“This situation requires significant policy changes and House Republicans will continue advocating for real solutions that actually secure our border,” Johnson said Tuesday in a post on X.
A spokesperson for the speaker said Biden has been “derelict in his duty to protect” the border.
“While the president requests more funds — not to stop illegal immigration — but to process more illegal immigrants through their ‘catch and release’ policy, he has undermined security at every turn,” spokesperson Raj Shah said, Politico reported.
“From his decision to rescind the Remain in Mexico policy to the widespread abuse of the parole and asylum systems, there is a direct line between this administration’s reckless policies and the record 300,000 illegal immigrants encountered at the Southern border last month.”
The White House, meanwhile, is placing blame for the migrant surge on the GOP. Biden’s team has argued that Republicans have rejected a supplemental funding package that included money to hire new border agents, asylum officers, and immigration judges, as well as technology to combat the flow of fentanyl, Politico reported.
“On Day One, President Biden proposed a comprehensive immigration reform plan and followed up by delivering record border security funding every single year of his term,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.
“House Republicans have obstructed his reform proposal and consistently voted against his unprecedented border security funding year after year, hamstringing our border security in the name of extreme, partisan demands.”
However, a Pew Research Center survey late last year found that only 32% of U.S. adults were confident in the president’s ability to make “wise decisions about immigration policy.”
A.F. Branco Cartoon – Fetterman breaks with his party sounding more like Trump on the border crisis, saying we need to restrict the flow of migration coming through the south.
John Fetterman Stuns Supporters on Left by Declaring “I’m Not a Progressive”
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) stunned supporters on the left with a pronouncement made in an interview with NBC News published Friday that “I’m not a progressive.”
Since being treated (apparently successfully) for clinical depression earlier this year following last year’s debilitating stroke, Fetterman has emerged as an articulate, moderate Democrat on issues like securing the border, supporting Israel in its war with Hamas and calling on corrupt Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ) to resign.“I’m not a progressive,” Fetterman told NBC News. “I just think I’m a Democrat that is very committed to choice and other things. But with Israel, I’m going to be on the right side of that. And immigration is something near and dear to me, and I think we do have to effectively address it as well.” Fetterman insisted he can be pro-immigration while also favoring policies to restrict the flow of migration to manageable levels, disagreeing with… READ MORE…
According to the Minneapolis crime dashboard, the City of Minneapolis has seen a significant spike in homicides in the month of December.
Since Dec. 1, 10 people have been murdered in Minneapolis. On Dec. 20 alone, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) announced that one man was killed in a shooting, another man passed away from injuries sustained in a Dec. 16 shooting, and a suspicious death on Dec. 18 has now been ruled a homicide.The homicide rate has risen significantly in Minneapolis since 2019 when the city reported 48 homicides. In 2023, 70 homicides have occurred in the city so far. Last year, Minneapolis reported 77 homicides with the previous… READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Migrants attempting to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border on Nov. 12, 2023, in Jacumba, California. (Photo: Nick Ut/Getty Images)
Federal authorities recorded 240,988 migrant encounters at the southern border in October, sustaining record highs seen under the Biden administration, according to Customs and Border Protection data released Tuesday. The number of encounters along the southern border in September totaled 269,735, marking the highest month on record. CBP recorded 232,963 and 183,479 encounters in August and July, respectively, according to agency data.
“In conjunction with our resumption of removal flights to Venezuela consistent with delivering consequences for those who cross the border unlawfully, CBP saw a 65 percent decrease in southwest border encounters of Venezuelans in the second half of October, compared to the second half of September,” Troy A. Miller, senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, said in a statement regarding the new data.
“In October, CBP also saw an overall decrease of 14 percent between ports of entry, as well as an overall decrease of family units. We continue to enhance our border security posture and remain vigilant,” Miller added.
The number of encounters of illegal migrants exceeded 188,000 at the southern border in October, while the number of migrants encountered at ports of entry surpassed 52,000, according to CBP data. Of those processed at ports of entry, 44,000 used CBP One, a phone application the Biden administration allows migrants to use to book appointments to enter the U.S.
“CBP’s narcotics seizures in October highlight our work on the frontline in the fight against fentanyl and other dangerous substances entering the United States—but we need more resources to sustain and increase these efforts. The President’s supplemental budget request is critical to funding the frontline, and would provide much-needed personnel, resources, and technology to go after transnational criminal organizations, enhance border security—including the enforcement of consequences for those who break the law—and support state and local partners, all to keep Americans safe,” Miller added.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted in a September report that foreign terrorists are exploiting the Biden-manufactured border crisis to illegally enter the United States.
Released last month by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the “Homeland Threat Assessment” for fiscal year 2024 includes an admission by the agency that international terrorists are looking to capitalize on the Biden administration’s open border policies and the resulting influx of illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border to enter the American homeland. Under the section titled, “Border and Immigration Security,” the report specifically noted how “[t]errorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.”
The agency further acknowledged “individuals with potential terrorism connections” are actively attempting to enter the U.S. thanks to the ongoing crisis. Months before the 2023 fiscal year ended, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had already encountered approximately 160 individuals on the Terrorist Screening Data Set (TSDS), or “watchlist” — more than the 100 or so encountered in the entirety of the 2022 fiscal year. According to the report, “Inclusion in the TSDS ranges from known associates of watchlisted individuals, such as family members, to individuals directly engaged in terrorist activity.”
Despite proclaiming support for a “secure” border, President Joe Biden and his administration have routinely dismantled policies that helped stymie the ongoing crisis. In addition to auctioning off border wall construction materials, Biden moved to gut the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy shortly after taking office. That policy required illegal border crossers seeking asylum to stay in the Latin American country until their court hearing.
It’s estimated that nearly 7 million illegal immigrants have been “encountered” at the U.S.-Mexico border since Biden took office, according to the New York Post. And that doesn’t even include the potentially millions of “gotaways” who evaded capture by CBP agents.
Last month’s DHS assessment was issued weeks before Hamas — an Iranian-backed terrorist organization operating out of Gaza — launched a series of unprovoked and barbaric attacks against Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The attacks have since prompted concerns that foreign-based terrorist organizations could exploit America’s open border to illegally enter the U.S. and launch similar operations.
In response to possible threats, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the state’s public safety division to coordinate with local and federal law enforcement on “heightened public safety measures,” with a particular focus on raising awareness of possible threats against the state’s Jewish community by Iranian-backed terrorist groups.
In its new threat assessment, DHS specifically highlighted Iran — the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism — and its “intent to plot attacks against current and former US government officials.”
“Iran relies on individuals with pre-existing access to the United States for surveillance and lethal plotting—using dual nationals, members of criminal networks, and private investigators,” the report reads, adding that Tehran has even attempted to carry out plots “that do not require international travel for operatives.”
The report also listed Hezbollah — another Iranian-backed terrorist group operating out of Lebanon — as another source of potential foreign terror threats.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
In a speech last week in Washington, U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman—seen here leaving the weekly Cabinet meeting on May 9 in London—warned of the existential danger of unchecked immigration. (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The phrase “Climate change denier” has wormed its way into the modern lexicon to shame those who have a different view of the science supporting—or not—the idea that the world is in danger of burning up in weeks, months, or years. (They can’t seem to decide on the timing.)
There is another form of denial that one can clearly see.
It is a denial that the southern border is “secure.” With pictures showing—and Border Patrol agents confirming—that tens of thousands of migrants are crossing into the U.S. every day without authorization, it is a lie to say the border is secure.
Sometimes it takes a person from outside the country to wake us up to threats we face. Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn did that in a 1978 Harvard commencement speech, in which he warned that the West suffered from “a decline in courage.”
The left hated the speech, but he was right in his indictment.
Last week, U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman delivered remarks at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. She warned of the dangers of uncontrolled immigration without assimilation that now threatens America, Britain and other prosperous nations.
She called it “an existential challenge for the political and cultural institutions of the West,” adding, “it’s a basic rule of history that nations which cannot defend their borders will not long survive.”
Braverman noted the majority of migrants are motivated by economic incentives, not persecution in their home countries. That, she said, does not fit the international definition of “refugee.”
“A nation-state,” she said, “is one of humanity’s great civilizing forces. It creates a shared identity and a shared purpose. And that does not need to have a racial component. Typically, it binds people of different racial backgrounds together.” She also said that a spirit of togetherness and unity produces patriotism, heroism and kindness: “It is the belief that we have specific obligations to others, precisely because they are our fellow countrymen.”
Then came a statement that should be obvious to all but the deniers: “Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the past few decades.” She referenced a 2010 speech by then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel in which Merkel admitted German multiculturalism had utterly failed.
Failure is never a reason for some to change their ideologies.
Noting she is a child of immigrants, Braverman said: ” … there has been more migration to the UK and Europe in the last 25 years than in all the time that went before. It has been too much, too quick, with too little thought given to integration and the impact on social cohesion.”
The costs are staggering in the U.K. and U.S. and cannot be sustained as even more come.
“Seeking asylum and seeking better economic prospects are not the same thing,” Braverman said. “Seeking refuge in the first country you reach, or shopping around for your preferred destination, are not the same thing. Most are simply economic migrants, gaming the asylum system to their advantage.”
As with uncontrolled crime, an uncontrolled border is an invitation for more of the same. The solution is not difficult: Finish the border wall and deport all but legitimate asylum seekers who fled their nations under political or religious persecution.
The latest stopgap government funding bill, passed late Saturday night, contains no money for border security. What does that tell you?
Our constitutional republic is fragile and must be renewed by each generation. We are unlikely to get a second chance.
Those who deny there is a problem and are fine with an open border likely have motives beyond compassion. These might include a visceral hatred of the U.S. and a desire to see our nation, in the words of former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden, “fundamentally transformed.”
Cal Thomas is a syndicated columnist, author, and broadcaster. He has authored several books, including “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States.” Readers can email him at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
“The border is not open,” a lie repeatedly told to the American people by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. But that isn’t what I witnessed last week in Brownsville, TX, the epicenter of this crisis the night that Title 42 was lifted. The scene was bleak, morale was low, and there was no sign of this crisis ending anytime soon.
Across the Rio Grande Valley intake centers there’s room for 4,500 migrants. However, when we arrived the number of migrants at the RGV facilities had already hit 7,300 and was steadily rising. The day before the border patrol had recorded 11,000 illegal migrants crossing the southern border, with more than 3,000 “got-a-ways.”
We visited ‘Camp Monument,’ a small makeshift intake center that is completely overwhelmed. According to border patrol, the cartels know exactly how to exploit this weakness. Quickly after processing, these migrants will communicate back to those waiting across the border when to make their move. A cycle that never ends.
Migrants stand across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, in December 2022. (Border Patrol)
To my shock, the Mexican officials, and I assume the cartels indirectly, are in communication with our border patrol and are notified when CBP has room and space for the next wave to be processed.
Brownsville is a hot spot for illegal crossings; thousands continue to pour into our country – unvetted – given shelter, supplies, food and, in many ways, freedom. There is no fear of the consequences from crossings. Our systems are so backed up that our court orders are largely a joke, and the smugglers know this. We’re telling migrants to show up for a court date five years later, in 2028, to assess their crime. By then, they will be long gone.
Border patrol officers shared with us the harsh realities of this crisis and how they feel abandoned by this administration. They have lost all operational control and are forced into an impossible situation.
Officers admitted to us only 10% of the agents are tasked with securing the border – while 90% are running the refugee camp, acting as nurses and social workers, processing and transporting migrants to their next destination.
The magnitude of this crisis at our border should concern every American. The data we received, and the briefings given to us by border patrol, law enforcement and CBP do not reflect a border that’s “closed” but rather a border that has been erased by failed leadership in the White House.
We heard the heartbreaking stories of repeated sexual assaults young women are enduring to come here, the massive drug smuggling operations the cartels are running with lethal fentanyl and confirmed our biggest fear – the cartels are calling the shots.
The situation in Brownsville, the Rio Grande Valley and beyond is dire. A fifth-generation rancher told us the border crisis is the worst he has ever seen. A local Marine told us he was safer fighting in Afghanistan than living in Brownsville.
Officers admitted to us only 10% of the agents are tasked with securing the border – while 90% are running the refugee camp, acting as nurses and social workers, processing and transporting migrants to their next destination.
Each day that this crisis continues, the national security threat grows. In the Rio Grande Valley alone, they are averaging 90 Chinese military-aged nationals crossings every day. The largest number of Chinese nationals we’ve ever seen.
As we saw this week, with the arrest of an Afghani on the terror watchlist in California and CBP announcing that 16 people on the FBI’s terror watchlist were arrested by border patrol at the southern border in April alone, these “got-aways” undoubtedly include terrorists, convicted criminals and the cartel’s drug smugglers.
At what point does President Joe Biden look in the mirror and address the mess he’s created? Biden’s policies have created a draw for people worldwide to risk their own lives and their families as they put their care and safety into the hands of the cartels. We witnessed the impacts of a 3,000-mile journey for many: dehydration, malnutrition, injuries, disease and pestilence.
Is this the America they were promised by this administration? Advertising freedom but instead living in the shadows owned by the cartel for years to come, even after they arrive?
Migrants who have been processed by U.S. Border Patrol and have been released from their center, are given assistance from the Regional Center for Border Health to relocate to areas outside of Yuma, on Friday, May 12, 2023, in Somerton, AZ. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
On the night of our visit, as the clock ran out on Title 42, across the river thousands of migrants waited for their turn to cross the Rio Grande. We heard music, laughing, singing and cheering from these campsites. To me, that’s an obvious indication of how little they think of our border security measures – these migrants thought the worst part of their journey was over, and now, they just wait for their turn to cross.
For our country to continue to be the best in the world, we must prioritize our safety, security, and restore law and order. That requires secure borders.
But there is a solution. Every time I have visited the border, I asked the border patrol officers what they needed to keep our border secure. In the past, they have said more resources. This time their tone was different; they said very deliberately they do not need more resources; they need policies that we know work reinstated by this White House. Our agents on the front lines of this crisis need the president to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy and eliminate the catch-and-release policies.
This could all be accomplished quickly. Biden created this crisis, and he could end it with a stroke of his pen.
Republican Roger Marshall, M.D., represents Kansas in the U.S. Senate. Previously he was the congressman for Kansas’ 1st District. Prior to Congress, Dr. Marshall was a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Great Bend, Kansas. He received his M.D. at the University Of Kansas School Of Medicine in 1987.
To say that our border is about to be overwhelmed with the end of Title 42 is an understatement. Our border and the heroic men and women who patrol it have been overwhelmed for more than two years now. Now the dam – long spilling over – is about to break, and communities in border states are going to experience chaos and lawlessness like this country has not yet seen.
As a mother of young children living in Los Angeles County, I can tell you that soft border policies are in direct conflict with any parent seeking to keep their children safe. This isn’t the Los Angeles of yesteryear.
We have already seen the footage of the streets of El Paso, Texas, completely overrun. You have seen the images of massive amounts of people lining up at our border on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande Valley. Border Patrol intelligence revealed more than 700,000 migrants were waiting in Mexico for Title 42 to expire – this figure is larger than the population of El Paso, (600,000).
The only way to end this crisis, and to head off the much worse one literally waiting on America’s doorstep, is to change policy.
Even worse than the visible tsunami of people showing up to claim asylum, numbers of known “gotaways” are also already through the roof, according to Homeland Security’s own statistics. These are the ones who do not surrender themselves to law enforcement or try to apply for asylum; they’re the ones who have to run and avoid authorities to get into the United States. As former Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan explains, these are the worst of the worst actors, and include murderers, sexual predators and gang members, to name a few.
I live in a city close to the border – one overrun by a crime wave that has only worsened during the course of this manmade disaster. Unless the proper steps are taken, what my family and other southern Californians have experienced for more than two years will become the new daily reality for cities, towns and neighborhoods across America.
From 2020 to 2022, homicides, robberies, assaults and car thefts all increased by double-digit rates amid Soros-backed District Attorney George Gascon’s efforts to shield illegal aliens from prosecutions, in a city where 1 in 5 people are either here illegally themselves or live with someone who is. With more people pouring over the border, with Border Patrol even more overwhelmed, and with more bad actors using this crisis to evade authorities, things are going to get much, much worse in the City of Angels.
Meanwhile, more Americans died from fentanyl in 2021 than during the entire course of the Vietnam War. Fentanyl deaths among American children and teens have also spiked, a heartbreaking reality of our border crisis. More chaos means more cover for traffickers, and that will mean more weapons-grade poisons on our streets, in our neighborhoods, and at our kids’ schools.
Now, without even this remnant of a Band-Aid solution, this crisis is only going to get worse. U.S. authorities will be more overwhelmed than ever before, and bad actors are going to escape past them into the interior.
The reality is that the Biden administration has been using Title 42 – a public health measure used during the pandemic – as a stopgap measure to mitigate the impending chaos of his own disastrous open-borders policies. Biden’s own administration asked the courts to prolong Title 42 just a few months ago.
Our Border Patrol agents have been stretched further than ever thought possible for the duration of this crisis. With Title 42 gone, it only makes sense to wonder if there are any agents left to arrest bad guys and seize deadly drugs like fentanyl, or if the entire agency is going to be overwhelmed with the influx of paperwork.
President Biden made headlines recently by announcing that his administration would send 1,500 troops to the border. Anyone with sense knows this is for show. Biden could mobilize the entire 82nd Airborne Division and it would not make any difference as long as our policies encourage lawlessness, empower cartels, and enable the industrial-level trafficking and smuggling operation that has been a reality in border states every single day since Biden took office.
The only way to end this crisis, and to head off the much worse one literally waiting on America’s doorstep, is to change policy.
That means ensuring that the laws duly passed by the American people are faithfully enforced. It means giving American authorities the tools they need to confront and destroy the cartels enriching themselves off this crisis through incalculable human suffering. It means finishing the wall – including other necessary infrastructure such as access roads.
Last week, House Republicans delivered on their promise to pass a strong border bill; now it’s time for them to use the power of the purse to bring Biden and Senate Democrats to the table on this issue. They have already shown it can be done on the debt ceiling, thanks to the backbone of the House Freedom Caucus. Just like we have to fix federal spending so that we don’t drown our children in debt, we have to secure our border to protect our children’s safety.
The preamble to our Constitution outlines some of the most critical duties of any good government, and among them is the duty to “establish Justice and insure domestic Tranquility.”
American families deserve better than chaos and confusion. Our kids deserve better than to grow up unprotected from overdoses and smugglers. Migrants deserve better than a reckless promise of exploiting the American asylum process only to be exploited themselves in return.
In order for America to be truly free, the rule of law must prevail. In order to be a place worth living, our streets and communities must be safe for American families to raise their children.
President Joe Biden is fueling the raging fentanyl epidemic, a true national public health emergency warranting immediate action. As a new wave of the Biden border crisis is boiling over with the end of Title 42, this administration has shown little interest in actually solving it. One thing is clear: America needs new leadership.
Across this great country, I hear time and time again the pain of families who have lost a loved one to fentanyl. Every community has felt the impact of the grueling epidemic, and it’s something that has hit close to home for me. A friend of mine, Alan Shao, buried his 27-year-old son and namesake who died from fentanyl earlier this year. Alan’s painful story serves as a stern reminder there is no family in this nation that is immune to this tragedy.
The epidemic does not discriminate. In Biden’s America, every town is a border town and anyone at any time can fall victim. President Biden’s failure to secure our border is directly responsible for the escalating number of deaths the American people are facing due to fentanyl.
This problem will only be magnified as the Biden administration allows Title 42 to expire, something even Secretary Mayorkas admitted in 2022 will only cause the number of migrants showing up along our southern border to surge. The administration’s inaction will not only result in more fentanyl being flooded into our communities, but it will also put more felons, human traffickers, drug dealers, and known terrorists on the streets and among our families’ neighborhoods – a tragic story we’ve witnessed before on President Biden’s watch.
The reality is bleak under his leadership, but we have an opportunity to change course right in our own hands. It’s time for us to take bold and decisive action. It starts with securing our border and dismantling the criminal cartels trafficking fentanyl into our country. Here’s how we do it:
First, let’s pass my legislation – the Alan T. Shao II Fentanyl Public Health Emergency and Overdose Prevention Act – to utilize powers similar to those under Title 42 and apply them in response to the new public health emergency: the fentanyl epidemic. Today, more Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 die from fentanyl than from COVID-19, car accidents, cancer and suicide combined, making fentanyl the leading cause of death among adults. To treat this with any less rigor than our COVID-19 response would be an injustice to grieving families and loved ones.
Next, let’s pass my Securing Our Border Act. This important piece of legislation redirects $15 billion the Biden administration previously designated to hire an army of 87,000 IRS agents and instead funds critical border security initiatives. These funds would give our border agents the tools and incentives they need to do their job effectively, finish construction of the southern border wall, and end the Biden administration’s disastrous catch-and-release policy.
March 29, 2023: Border Patrol agents encounter over 1,000 migrants in El Paso, Texas (Customs and Border Protection)
Finally, Congress must pass the FEND Off Fentanyl Act to curb the flow of money powering these cartels by tapping into the economic security tools at our disposal and empowering law enforcement to do their job. It would enact the toughest sanctions regime on criminal cartels in American history, freeze the cartels’ collective and individual assets, and curb their ability to conduct their dealings in the United States and abroad.
Together, my three bills form a three-pronged approach to address and finally solve our border crisis and fentanyl epidemic.
The solutions are right there in front of us. It’s time for a president to implement them. With new leadership, guided by an optimistic vision of what America can be, I know we get the job done to keep our streets safe, secure our southern border, and put this country on a path towards a better and brighter future.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced a new Texas Tactical Border Force ahead of the expiration of the Title 42 public health order, which helped block migrants from entering the U.S. In response to “Joe Biden’s reckless border policies,” the Texas National Guard is loading Black Hawk helicopters and C-130s to deploy specially trained National Guard members to “hotspots along the border to intercept, to repel and to turn back migrants who are trying to enter Texas illegally,” Abbott said at a press conference from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
In a statement, the Texas National Guard said it activated 545 more service members at locations around the state Monday to “reinforce the border mission in anticipation of the end of Title 42 immigration restrictions.”
Gov. Greg Abbott shakes hands with members of the Texas National Guard as they prepare to deploy to the border in Austin, Texas, Monday, May 8, 2023. The Title 42 policy is set to expire Thursday. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
“These additional forces will bolster the thousands of Texas National Guard service members already assisting local and state law enforcement agencies to secure the border; stop the smuggling of drugs, weapons and people into Texas; and prevent, detect, and interdict transnational criminal behavior between the ports of entry,” the Texas National Guard said in a statement Monday. “We have expanded our capabilities to include boat teams that patrol hundreds of river miles, drones and helicopters that detect illicit activity from the air, and brush teams, security points and roving patrols that block and interdict illegal smuggling (drugs, weapons and people) into Texas.”
Abbott was joined by Texas Border Czar Mike Banks, Texas National Guard Adjunct Gen. Thomas Suelzer and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw in making the announcement.
Members of the Texas National Guard install barbed wire on the border between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on May 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)
“President [Joe] Biden is laying down a welcome mat to people across the entire world saying that the United States border is wide open, and it will lead to an incredible amount of people coming across the border illegally. President Biden’s open border policies is going to cause a catastrophic disaster in the United States,” Abbott said.
“According to the Biden administration itself, they anticipate about 13,000 people coming across the border illegally every single day,” the governor added. “If you extend that out over the course of a year, it means it will be about 4,700,000 people coming across the border a year. That will mean there will be more people coming across the border illegally than there are residents of the massive city of Chicago.”
Gov. Greg Abbott holds a news conference as members of the Texas National Guard prepare to deploy to the border. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
The Texas Tactical Border Force is meant to bolster Operation Lone Star, which Abbott said has turned back 37,000 people who already came across the border illegally, arrested about 27,000 dangerous criminals, including “cartel gang members” who are wanted for crimes like murder, and seized “enough fentanyl that would have been enough to kill every man, woman and child in the United States.”
Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on Twitter: @danimwallace.
Venezuelan and Haitian migrants wait to be registered at Canaan Membrillo village, the first border control of the Darien Province in Panama, on October 13, 2022. – The clandestine journey through the Darien Gap usually lasts five or six days at the mercy of all kinds of bad weather: snakes, swamps and drug traffickers who use these routes to take cocaine to Central America. | LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images
A growing number of Chinese migrants are journeying through a dangerous mountain jungle in Necoclí, Colombia, an area that has become a “breeding ground” for illegal migration, drug trafficking, rapes and robberies to get to the United States, according to a recent report. Chinese migrants now comprise the fourth-largest people group making the trek through 66 miles of the Darién Gap, a region between the borders of Colombia and Panama, to reach the U.S.-Mexico border. Unlike the incalculable number of migrants from countries like Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, Indonesia and elsewhere, the Chinese migrants have money, a lot of money, and stay in luxury hotels.
“That’s one of the big changes that we’re seeing now,” said Newsmax war correspondent Chuck Holton in an interview with Greta Van Susteren during her recent trip to Panama to investigate the U.S. border crisis and surge in illegal immigration.
“There are a tremendous number of Chinese coming through that we haven’t seen until recently,” Holton said. “They’re now the fourth-largest group of people coming through the Darién Gap. That’s very strange because the majority of the people you see here are destitute. … The people coming from China pay up to $30,000 a person for the same crossing. They have tons of money, and they’re staying in luxury hotels and they have iPhones.
“Some of them tell me that it’s because of the extreme COVID measures in China. They just can’t take being welded inside their house anymore,” he added. “But talking to some of the merchants here … they have told me that many of the Chinese were prisoners” sent away with money.
According to Holton, in Panama, many of the Chinese are indentured servants who get their money from the Chinese mafia. Once they reach Panama or wherever else the mafia wants them to go, they work for the rest of their life to pay off their debts. “So, it looks like they have a lot of money, but in reality, that money is debt that they have taken on to get here,” he added.
In April, the Biden administration, alongside government officials representing Panama and Colombia, announced a campaign to end the illegal movement of goods and people through the Darién Gap and into the United States. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Panamanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Janaina Tewaney and Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Álvaro Leyva Durán led the delegation in Panama City.
Holden elaborated on the government officials’ plans to close for 60 days the part of the Darién Gap migrants have been trekking through. The war correspondent noted that the area is a jungle, and many migrants can work around this plan by journeying through a different part of it.
While some migrants opt to stay in Ecuador, Holden said the reason most migrants are choosing to cross the border now is because they’ve heard from people they know who live in the U.S. that entering the country and finding a job will be easy. The correspondent also speculated that with Title 42 set to expire on May 11, that is another reason why many migrants are heading to the U.S. border.
In October, the Biden administration used Title 42 to remove most Venezuelan asylum seekers from the U.S. While the Department of Homeland Security policy gave some Venezuelans a pathway to stay in the U.S., others were ordered to remain in Mexico until their asylum claims were heard.
According to Voice of America, there were nearly 90,000 illegal crossings through the Darién Gap in the first three months of 2023. Holden, who started reporting on the issue in 2012, noted that at the time, 45,000 people attempted to use the route. Last year, however, that number reached nearly 250,000.
One group that takes advantage of the flow of migrants, Holden added, is drug traffickers. These traffickers disguise themselves as migrants seeking asylum and carry backpacks full of cocaine. In October, the Panamanian news outlet Nex Noticias reported that authorities had arrested over a dozen people in Darién for their involvement in drug trafficking.
“I think it’s very instructive to Americans to understand what a gap there is in our thinking, in our way of life and what our expectations are from life and what theirs are,” he said. “Because so many people you talk to here, you ask them about facing the dangers of the Darién Gap, and they say it can’t be any harder than where I just came from. It can’t be any harder than living in Haiti or living in Venezuela or Cuba. And they are inured to that kind of hardship.”
According to VOA, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported that 4,366 migrants from China encountered border agents from October 2022 to February 2023 after illegally crossing the southern border.
Texas rancher Debi Douglas spoke out Thursday about the escalating danger at the border after four Americans were kidnapped, and two killed, by a cartel in Mexico. Douglas’ ranch is located in Brownsville, a city that sits along the Mexico border adjacent to Matamoros, where the kidnapping took place. Douglas said on “Fox & Friends First” that living conditions in her area are only getting worse, and she doesn’t believe anything will improve even if the cartel members are arrested.
“The Mexican government is afraid of the cartel,” she reasoned. “If Biden does not do something, this is going to come more into our country.”
Douglas said the community is largely unaware of the severity of the danger, and she believes the two individuals killed in Mexico didn’t take the threat “to heart” when they traveled across the border. Douglas said she believes it’s only a “matter of time” before cartels attempt to take over border towns in her state.
Mexican National Guard prepare a search mission for four U.S. citizens kidnapped by gunmen at Matamoros, Mexico, on Monday. (AP)
“And unless we do something, everybody had better get ready,” she told co-hosts Todd Piro and Ashley Strohmier.
The Biden administration has called the death of Americans “unacceptable” and said U.S. officials will work with the Mexican government to pursue justice. Douglas, however, said the Democratic administration’s plan to address the problem is a “joke.”
“The Mexican government is either partially paid off by the cartels or they fear the cartels. So the fact that Biden is saying he’s going to work with them is absolutely a joke and an insult to the American people,” she said.
“Our administration is never going to wake up,” Douglas said, arguing that Biden does not care about the American people. “He’s a puppet, and he has been protected in this country. And with him not in turn protecting the people of this country, he basically is a traitor.”
She called Biden a “weak” individual and said she believes he wants “all these illegals” to enter the country. Douglas claimed Democrats want to allow illegal immigrants to vote to keep the party in power.
“If the border was even shut down today, we have an extreme problem with the illegals that are already in this country,” she said. “They are a lot of criminals, that’s been proven. There’s child molesters. There’s murderers.”
“It’s going to take the FBI, the CIA, ICE, everybody. Number one, shut the borders and then let’s get on this. Let’s deport them all,” Douglas said.
Douglas said she’s “more vigilant” now in protecting herself following the kidnapping of Americans.
“I’ve always been vigilant since the illegals have been pouring in,” she said.
EXCLUSIVE: Texas law enforcement arrested an Iranian illegal immigrant at the southern border last week whose name and date of birth were initially flagged as a match on the FBI’s terror watchlist, but who a DHS official tells Fox News was ultimately determined not to be a match on the database after further vetting.
Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) arrested 29-year-old Alireza Heidari last week after a traffic stop involving a human smuggler at the border in Val Verde County, Texas as part of Operation Lone Star. Heidari was being smuggled in the vehicle along with four other illegal immigrants. He was located in the trunk. Fox is told that Heidari was handed over to Border Patrol custody and later determined to be a match of the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB).
Fox reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Thursday and multiple times since. Only on Tuesday did DHS refer Fox to the FBI, which declined to comment. The FBI’s website says it does not confirm anyone’s status on the watchlist.
However, on Wednesday, a DHS official told Fox News that after further vetting, Homeland Security officials determined that Heidari was not a match on the TSDB.
Jan 23, 2022: Authorities stop a human smuggler in Val Verde County, Texas.
The FBI’s TSDB contains information about the identities of those who are “reasonably suspected” of being involved in terrorism or related activities. There were 17 people stopped by Border Patrol in December alone whose names matched on the list. That brings the total of individuals arrested at the southern border between ports of entry to 38 since October.
There were 98 terror watchlist arrests in FY22, 15 in FY21 and just three in FY 20 at the southern border caught between ports of entry. At the ports of entry at the northern and southern borders, meanwhile, CBP’s Office of Field Operations has encountered 125 people on the TSDB so far this fiscal year. In FY 2022 there were 380 apprehensions, 157 in FY21 and 196 in FY20.
The increase in apprehensions between ports of entry has raised concerns that, amid a historic spike in illegal immigration across the southern border, illegal criminals and terrorists could be slipping by overwhelmed Border Patrol agents.
So far this fiscal year, nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants have evaded Border Patrol, with an average of 2,450 a day in the last 120 days, sources told Fox News last week.
In fiscal 2022, there were nearly 600,000 gotaways. There were 389,155 gotaways at the border in fiscal 2021, and fiscal 2023 is on track to easily outpace those numbers. Last week, agents told Fox News there have been more than 1.2 million gotaways during the Biden administration.
Jan 23, 2022: Illegal immigrants are caught in the back of a vehicle at the border.
Tom Homan, a former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, told Fox News on Saturday that the number should “scare the hell out of every American” and said there was a reason these migrants are not turning themselves in to Border Patrol to be processed and released into the U.S.
“Why would they not take advantage of the program? Because they don’t want to be fingerprinted, and there’s a reason for that.”
Fox News’ Griff Jenkins contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
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Republican congressmen introduced a resolution earlier this month to authorize American military action against the terroristic drug cartels that have overwhelmed Mexican government forces and trafficked the number one killer of adults 18-45 into the United States. That resolution is fast gaining support in the House.
Reps. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) introduced a resolution on Jan. 12 to “authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for trafficking fentanyl or a fentanyl-related substance into the United States or carrying out other related activities that cause regional destabilization in the Western Hemisphere.”
Unmitigated crisis
TheBlaze previously reported that fentanyl is the leading killer of adults ages 18-45. 10% of the significant drop in life expectancy recently noted in the U.S. has been attributed to the corresponding spike in opioid overdoses, which exceeded 80,000 in 2021. Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) said in September that “It’s equivalent to one 737 (jet) every day going down, no survivors. It’s a mind-boggling number of deaths.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 2019 to 2020, opioid-involved death rates increased by 38% and synthetic opioid-involved death rates went up by 56%. The Congressional Joint Economic Committee concluded last year that the financial damage of the opioid crisis, after adjusting for inflation, carried a cost to the U.S. economy in 2020 of approximately $1.47 trillion, representing a $487 billion increase over 2019 and a 37% increase from 2017.
“Not only are these paramilitary transnational criminal organizations responsible for killing an unprecedented number of Americans, but they are actively undermining our sovereignty by destabilizing our border and waging war against U.S. law enforcement and the Mexican military,” added the Florida Republican.
Crenshaw claimed that the cartels are at war with the U.S., “poisoning more than 80,000 Americans with fentanyl every year, creating a crisis at our border, and turning Mexico into a failed narco-state.”
“It’s time we directly target them,” said Crenshaw. “We cannot allow heavily armed and deadly cartels to destabilize Mexico and import people and drugs into the United States. We must start treating them like ISIS – because that is who they are.”
The “Authorization for Use of Military Force Cartel Influence Resolution” would enable the president to lay waste to the cartels. According to the legislation, the criminal groups fit for annihilation include the: Sinaloa cartel; Jalisco New Generation cartel; Gulf cartel; Los Zetas cartel; Northeast cartel; Juarez cartel; Tijuana cartel; Beltran-Levya cartel; and La Familia Michoacana or Knight Templar cartel.
Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines told Fox News earlier this week that some of these Mexican cartels effectively control vast stretches of the U.S. southern border.
“Unless this situation changes and we take back control from the cartels, for the trafficking coming across our border, it will only get worse,” said Lines.
The cartels whose drugs have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans are getting increasingly brazen, especially as the efforts by Mexican military and police force repeatedly prove wanting, despite receiving billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. since 2006.
The Council on Foreign Relations noted in a report last year that Mexico has seen over 360,000 murders since 2006, when the government declared war on the cartels.
At least 10 Mexican military personnel and one Culiacan policeman were slain earlier this month after authorities arrested the son of Sinaloa drug cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Parts of the country were transformed into warzones.
Sinaloa Cartel firing a .50 Cal Barrett anti-materiel rifle at a plane of the Mexican Air Force near the Culiacán Airport following the arrest of El Chapo’s son Ovidio pic.twitter.com/tF7PX6aeDE
Waltz told Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” earlier this month, “They are defeating the Mexican army. These are paramilitary entities with billions and billions at their disposal.”
Extra to dealing in death and violence, the cartels have also exacerbated the crisis at the border. Arizona Republic reported in December that cartels “have increased their involvement in migrant smuggling over the past decade, transforming the operation into a multibillion-dollar enterprise.”
They have played a significant role in violating American sovereignty by helping to smuggle illegal aliens into the U.S. U.S. Customs and Border Protection indicated that so far, this fiscal year, over 717,660 illegal aliens have stolen across the border. 2.37 million were encountered crossing the border last year, and another 1.7 million were reported crossing the year before.
Recognizing the need to put these cartels in the ground, Reps. Jake Ellzey (R-Texas) and Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) signed on to cosponsor the legislation on Jan. 17. Just the News reported that Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) will similarly cosponsor the resolution. To go into effect, the resolution must be passed by both the House and the Senate and then signed by the president.
It is unclear what impact this war measure will have on China, America’s preeminent adversary, which is reportedly involved with the cartels’ manufacture of fentanyl. According to Craig Singleton, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “since approximately 2013, China has been the principal source of the fentanyl flooding America’s illicit drug market.” The Republican Study Committee in the previous Congress indicated that “a significant portion of China’s fentanyl manufacturing … moved to Mexico where cartels set up their own operations to produce fentanyl using precursor chemicals from China.”
President Biden has finally found a solution to address the surge in illegal crossings at the southern border: tell the tens of thousands of aliens unlawfully entering the United States from Mexico that they can come to America “legally” if they instead fly to a port-of-entry in the interior of the country.
Seriously, for all the Biden administration’s spin, that’s his plan — and it is illegal.
Of course, when Biden announced his administration’s newest policy on Thursday in advance of his midterm inaugural trip to the southern border on Sunday, the press release heralded the plan as a “new border enforcement action.” But as National Review’s Andrew McCarthy exposed in his weekend column, it’s a scam.
The scam, though, is layers thick, both legally and politically. And to reach the core truth — that Biden refuses to faithfully execute his duties as the president of the United States by defending our sovereign border — one must first unpeel the specifics of the newest plan buried in the Department of Homeland Security’s official notice of the changes, while also analyzing the relevant immigration law.
The Plan
Today’s edition of the Federal Register, which serves as “the Daily Journal of the United States Government,” contains the details of DHS’s supposed “new border enforcement action,” in four separate “notices,” titled respectively: “Implementation of a Parole Process for Cubans,” “Implementation of a Parole Process for Haitians,” “Implementation of a Parole Process for Nicaraguans,” and “Implementation of Changes to the Parole Process for Venezuelans.”
Each notice summarizes the Biden administration’s supposed “solution” to the flooding of the southern border, which in short consists of allowing, on a monthly basis, a total of 30,000 aliens to enter the United States “legally” if they are Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, or Venezuelan nationals. To qualify, aliens must have a “U.S.-based supporter,” which could be “non-governmental entities or community-based organizations,” and must “provide for their own commercial travel to an air [port-of-entry] and final U.S. destination.” National security and public safety vetting are also required, as well as any additional public health requirements, such as vaccinations.
But how is it that illegal-alien border crossers can become lawful noncitizens by just jumping through a few hoops and flying to the interior of the country, rather than sneaking over the southern border? They can’t. And in crafting its latest immigration plan, the Biden administration is again acting lawlessly.
Biden’s Lawlessness
The Biden administration maintains it has the authority to allow aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the United States legally under section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA. That section provides the secretary of homeland security the authority to “parole” noncitizens “into the United States temporarily under such reasonable conditions as [the secretary] may prescribe only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.”
“parole” for purposes of the INA is a “legal fiction” in which “a paroled alien is physically allowed to enter the country,” but the alien maintains the same legal status as if he or she were held at the border waiting for an application for admission to be granted or denied. But besides obtaining the legal right to be present in the United States, an alien paroled into the United States may obtain employment authorization to work here lawfully.
As the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently explained, “Parole began as an administrative invention that allowed aliens in certain circumstances to remain on U.S. soil without formal admission, with Congress codifying the practice when it initially enacted the Immigration and Nationality Act (the ‘INA’) in 1952.” At that time, Congress gave the attorney general “discretion to parole into the United States temporarily under such conditions as he may prescribe … any alien applying for admission to the United States.”
However, “throughout the mid-twentieth century, the executive branch on multiple occasions purported to use the parole power to bring in large groups of immigrants,” prompting Congress twice to amend the INA “to limit the scope of the parole power and prevent the executive branch from using it as a programmatic policy tool.” First, as the Fifth Circuit explained, in 1980, Congress added a requirement that the executive branch only parole refugees where “compelling reasons in the public interest with respect to that particular alien,” exist. Then, in 1996, Congress amended the INA to provide “parole may be granted ‘only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.’”
While the DHS’s just-announced parole plans claim the department is making parole decisions on a case-by-case basis, the qualifications set forth by the DHS establish that the Biden administration is illegally using parole power “as a programmatic policy tool,” rather than as designed by Congress, for example, by “paroling aliens who do not qualify for an admission category but have an urgent need for medical care in the United States and paroling aliens who qualify for a visa but are waiting for it to become available.”
The Biden administration’s lawless use of its parole power should come as no surprise, though, as since November of 2021, the president’s team has relied on Section 212(d)(5)(A) to release “family units” at the border to supposedly deal with “capacity constraints.” Florida has challenged the Biden administration’s granting of such carte blanche parole, as well as the president’s failure to detain illegal aliens as mandated under the INA, and trial is set to begin on both those claims later today in a federal court in Florida.
The ‘Standing’ Problem
A similar legal challenge to the Biden administration’s recent parole plan seems likely, although by requiring applicants to secure a vetted “supporter” who will commit to providing for the parolees’ financial needs while they are present in the United States, it will be challenging for anyone to show “standing” to challenge DHS’s plan.
For instance, in the Florida case, while the Biden administration argued the state lacked “standing,” or the right to sue, the court rejected that argument, reasoning Florida “plausibly alleged that the challenged policies already have and will continue to cost it millions of dollars, including the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens and the cost of providing a variety of public benefits, including unemployment benefits, free public education, and emergency services to aliens who settle in Florida after being ‘paroled’ into the country.”
But other than providing “free public education,” the same types of monetary harms are lacking in the case of the Biden administration’s latest parole proposal. And it is questionable whether a court will find that providing free public education to children paroled under DHS’s plans will be enough to establish standing.
Absent a plaintiff with standing to challenge DHS’s plan to parole some 30,000 aliens into the United States every month, the only way to fight the Biden administration’s latest lawless move will be politically. Here, those seeking to secure the southern border have ample ammunition, including highlighting the fact that the Biden administration’s plan does nothing to address that portion of the 200,000-some individuals crossing the southern border every month that herald from countries other than Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Further, while converting 30,000 illegal border crossers into parolees at ports of entry in the interior of the country may provide a reduction to the problem on paper, it does not secure the border nor promise any reduction in the number of individuals attempting to enter via Mexico.
The parole plan presumes, though, that there will be an even greater reduction in illegal border crossings than the 30,000 who enter as part of the parole process. The parole plan, according to the Biden administration, creates a disincentive for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter illegally at the southern border because the DHS’s new policy also provides that aliens who bypass the parole process and enter the United States without authorization will be subject to an expedited removal to Mexico or their country of origin.
If so, then why not just institute a policy of expediting the removal of individuals who enter illegally at the southern border?
Biden’s Border Disaster
According to the figures included in last week’s DHS notices, prior to the surge at the southern border that followed the Biden administration’s change in enforcement policies, there weren’t even 30,000 aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela crossing the border illegally on an annual basis.
For instance, the notice reported that for fiscal years 2019 and 2020 respectively, DHS encountered only 3,039 and 4,431 Haitian nationals at the southwest border, but by 2021 the number exploded to 43,484.
From 2014 to 2019, DHS encountered 589 Cubans on average every month, but by 2022, the average monthly encounter at the land border totaled 17,809, and in October and November of 2022, some 62,000-plus Cuban nationals attempted to cross the border.
From fiscal 2014 through 2019, border agents encountered a monthly average of 127 Venezuelan nationals, but by fiscal year 2022, the average number of Venezuelans crossing the border illegally on a monthly basis totaled 15,494 and rose to more than 33,000 in September of that year.
For Nicaraguan nationals, in 2022, DHS encountered an estimated 157,400 aliens, or an average of 13,113 per month, compared to an average of 316 per month from fiscal years 2014-2019.
These figures show the Biden administration does not need a parole policy: It needs an enforcement policy.
No End in Sight
There is a telling admission hidden in the DHS notice from last week that announced changes to the parole plan established for Venezuela in October of 2022. As originally established, the Venezuela plan capped the number of “parolees” at a total of 24,000 beneficiaries. But, as the DHS acknowledged in its notice modifying that plan, just two months in, “demand for the Venezuela process has far exceeded the 24,000 limit.”
“Absent immediate action,” the DHS notice explained, “there is a risk that DHS meets the 24,000 cap, which would in turn cause the [government of Mexico] to no longer accept the return of Venezuelan nationals and end the success of the parole process to date at reducing the number of Venezuelan nationals encountered at the border.” Further, should it reach the 24,000 limit, thereby making prospective migrants no longer eligible for parole, the “DHS anticipates that we would then see increased irregular migration of Venezuelans.”
In other words, the Biden administration is allowing aliens to come to America “legally” because if it doesn’t, foreign nationals will just start crossing the border illegally again.
Further, while the Biden administration’s current plan caps the number of parolees at 30,000 per month, the DHS notices indicate it may revisit that figure if necessary. What then, is there to stop the Biden administration from increasing the 30,000 cap two-fold or ten-fold? Or what is there to prevent the administration from expanding parole to aliens from countries beyond the four — maybe 14, or even 40?
While the intricacies of immigration law are detailed and often convoluted, the bottom line of the Biden administration’s parole plan should be clear to all Americans: Joe Biden has no intention of securing our border or faithfully executing his duties as the president of the United States.
Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
Immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally sleep on a sidewalk near a migrant shelter on January 06, 2023, in El Paso, Texas. President Joe Biden visited El Paso on Sunday for his first-ever visit to the border in his decades-long career in politcs. U.S. Border authorities took into custody some 2.5 million illegal migrants in 2022, the highest number on record. | John Moore/Getty Images
Critics of the Biden administration’s handling of the immigration crisis at the U.S. southern border say President Joe Biden’s trip to Texas and Mexico amounted to a “photo-op” and expressed concern that the administration’s policies will only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.
President Joe Biden visited the southwest border for the first time Sunday, as concerns grow about the high volume of illegal immigration negatively affecting U.S. citizens and border communities. Statistics compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol show there were 465,034 encounters between migrants and law enforcement officials at the southwest border in the first two months of fiscal year 2023, which began in October. By comparison, just 339,682 encounters occurred during the same period in fiscal year 2022.
Biden’s border visit occurred against the backdrop of his administration’s efforts to abolish Title 42, which enables border officials to quickly turn away migrants seeking entry into the U.S. due to public health concerns posed by the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Title 42 to remain in place as the justices are slated to hear a case involving the matter later this year. The abandonment of Title 42 is expected to cause the number of illegal border crossings to increase to an even higher figure.
The president announced his intention to visit the border city of El Paso, Texas, in a press conference last week. During the address, Biden laid out actions his administration was taking to address the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, including the expansion of a parole program allowing Venezuelan migrants with sponsors in the U.S. to come to the country for two years and receive work permits as long as they pass a background check to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.
The president predicted that expanding the parole program to three additional countries will “substantially reduce the number of people attempting to cross the southwest border without going through the legal process.” He contended that since the establishment of the existing parole program, “the number of Venezuelans trying to enter America without going through a legal process has dropped dramatically from about 1,100 per day to less than 250 per day on average.”
When Biden arrived in El Paso, Gov. Greg Abbott gave him a letter declaring that “your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late.”
Abbott added, “Your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies.”
Hand-delivered a letter to President Biden today during his first visit to the border.
His trip is billion too little & 2 years too late.
“Even the city you visit has been sanitized of the migrant camps which had overrun downtown El Paso because your Administration wants to shield you from the chaos that Texans experience on a daily basis,” he wrote. “This chaos is a direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted.”
Abbott elaborated on the consequences of mass illegal immigration at the southwest border, including the emboldening of the drug cartels engaged in “trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings.” He told the president “when you finish the photo-ops in a carefully stage-managed version of El Paso, you have a job to do.”
The Texas governor urged Biden to “comply with the many statutes mandating that various categories of aliens ‘shall’ be detained, and end the practice of unlawfully paroling aliens en masse,” stop “sandbagging” Title 42, “aggressively prosecute illegal entry between ports of entry, and allow ICE to remove illegal immigrants in accordance with existing federal laws,” immediately resume the construction of the border wall separating the U.S. from Mexico and “designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.”
Newly elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., issued a statement of his own, characterizing Biden’s visit to the border as a “photo-op,” suggesting that any calls for border security from the administration ring hollow as long as the president continues “pushing for amnesty for millions of immigrants who have crossed into the U.S. illegally.” McCarthy vowed that “House Republicans will hold him and [Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro] Mayorkas accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history.”
Biden is making his first border visit of his life—a photo op—while pushing for amnesty for millions of immigrants who have crossed into the US illegally.
House Republicans will hold him and Mayorkas accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history.
Ahead of Biden’s visit to the border, the Democratic mayor of El Paso declared a state of emergency, citing the impacts of the migrant surge on his city. Critics of the Biden administration previously attributed the rise in illegal border crossings, which began at the beginning of his presidency in 2021, to the abandonment of the Migrant Protection Protocols that required those seeking asylum in the U.S. to remain in Mexico while their asylum claims were adjudicated.
During his speech last week, Biden touted the CBP ONE app, which enables migrants “to schedule an appointment at a port of entry and make their asylum claim there without crossing the border unlawfully.” Additionally, the White House released a fact sheet last week outlining additional actions the administration was taking to reduce illegal immigration at the southwest border.
Specifically, the fact sheet proclaimed that “… individuals who attempt to enter the United States without permission, do not have a legal basis to remain, and cannot be expelled pursuant to Title 42 will be increasingly subject to expedited removal from their country of origin and subject to a five-year ban on reentry.”
“DHS and DOJ are surging asylum officers and immigration judges to review asylum cases at the border more quickly — with the aim of reducing initial processing times from months to days,” the document added. The administration also intends to mobilize “faith-based and nonprofit organizations supporting migrants, including those providing temporary shelter, food, and humanitarian assistance.”
Well, the Jan. 6 committee has produced its long-awaited report. In a surprise move, the committee referred former President Donald Trump for criminal prosecution, accusing him of inciting insurrection, among other crimes.
In fairness, Jan. 6, 2021, was the day that Trump announced he would open our southern border and allow nearly 5 million unvetted illegal immigrants into our country, whereupon they would be flown to various cities around the U.S. and given full access to all our welfare programs.
Obviously, this constitutes insurrectionary behavior. The committee had no choice but to demand criminal charges.
LATE BULLETIN: It was NOT the former president who did this, but the current president, Joe Biden. In another development, it turns out that engineering a foreign invasion of our country has been redefined as a “humanitarian mission.”
When will this “humanitarian mission” end? Apparently, never — not until all 7 billion humans living in places less luxe than America have moved here, at which point America won’t be so hot anymore, so no one will want to come.
Thus, The New York Times quoted Jennifer Quigley, of Human Rights First, saying of our intervention in Afghanistan: “We can’t claim mission accomplished. There are still too many vulnerable people abroad.”
After spending billions of dollars trying to build a semblance of civil society in that stone-age culture, evidently now we’re supposed to open our doors to everyone who lives there. Even granting that absurd notion, I can’t help but notice that Quigley seamlessly shifted from “Afghanistan” to “people abroad.”
So we have to take in every “vulnerable” person who doesn’t already live in the U.S.? Is there any other way to interpret her statement?
CNN demands that we fly Afghans here directly, not content to wait for these future Nobel Prize-winners to take the air-land route from Afghanistan through Central America into our country — which they are also doing.
For the last few weeks, CNN has aired a story almost every hour about how Afghans “risked their lives” to save Americans, so now we owe them permanent residency in our country. It’s unclear whom we were ever fighting, inasmuch as everyone in the country seems to have been a “translator.”
CNN hosts triumphantly produced a letter by “retired diplomats,” warning that if the U.S. doesn’t “support its allies” [by allowing them to move here], “in the future our allies will be less likely to support the U.S. missions.” (And then who will teach third-worlders about feminism, gays and George Floyd?)
Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan must be relieved to hear liberals admit that how we treat those who put their lives on the line for our country will determine how we are willing to do so in the future. Whelan, you’ll recall, is rotting in a Russian prison, because a lesbian, Women’s National Basketball Association star (but I repeat myself) took precedence over him in a prisoner trade. We’re looking for a few good men. Anybody? Anybody?
We’ve already taken in 76,000 Afghans since Biden’s smooth withdrawal last year. (Please, God, tell me we rescued the Afghans who helped paint the George Floyd mural.)
And look at what a blessing they’ve been!
Mohammad Haroon Imaad was among the first batch of beloved Afghan “translators” brought to America last year. He was still living on the Fort McCoy military base in Wisconsin when he was charged with beating and choking his wife. She explained that he beat her all the time back in Afghanistan, once blinding her in both eyes.
Obviously, the Imaad household is going to be a real boon to our country. Yeah, we’re gonna have to raise the Social Security retirement age and start means-testing, but on the bright side, we’ve provided housing to Mrs. Imaad and paid for her astronomically expensive eye operations.
On the very same military base, another cherished Afghan ally, Bahrullah Noori, committed multiple forcible sexual assaults on children within weeks of arriving. Other Afghans flown to Fort McCoy showed up with child brides and multiple wives.
Just weeks after the Afghan-of-the-Month competition at Fort McCoy, another Afghan on our “must-have” list, Zabihullah Mohmand, was accused of raping a woman in Missoula, Montana. How long had he been here? A week? But the good news is, Mohmand was fully vetted by our government, according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. If you can’t trust those guys …
In response, the media promptly stopped reporting those stories. Perhaps a better idea would be for CNN to have a word with the 76,000 “translators” already deposited on our shores. Hey, guys! Remember, for the next few months, NO RAPING!
Again, these were the most-favored Afghans, the ones who qualified for the first round of emergency admissions. And they just keep coming.
Now, that’s what most people call an “insurrection.”
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Peter Doocy reports on growing crisis with Title 42 expected to end. Video footage obtained by Fox News shows a Border Patrol facility in El Paso, Texas, overwhelmed with migrant arrivals. State Rep. Tony Gonzales shot the video at the Border Patrol Central Processing Center on Friday. At that time, around 4,600 migrants were in federal custody despite capacity being only 1,040.
In a video taken Friday from Rep. Tony Gonalez, R-Tex., a Border Patrol Central Processing Center is seen at over four times its capacity with migrants. (Representative Tony Gonzalez)
The footage shows migrants crammed into the processing facility, many of them sprawled out on mattresses on the floor.
Migrants crammed into a processing facility. (Representative Tony Gonzalez)
A voice of the intercom can be heard calling out names while the migrants wait.
El Paso, like many towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, continues to witness an influx of migrants into its community. The city is also expecting a surge of migrants when Title 42, a Trump-era immigration policy that reduced the number of asylum seekers the U.S. would allow under the COVID pandemic, expires on Dec. 21.
Fox News’ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
Bradford Betz is a Fox News Digital breaking reporter covering crime, political issues, and much more.
Despite a general lack of concern among Democrats and corporate media, the U.S.-Mexico border continues to spiral out of control, setting new records for illegal border crossings nearly every month now. In October, more than 230,000 illegal immigrants were arrested along the southwest border, the third-highest monthly total in U.S. history, according to new data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Only May and April of this year have been worse than October, with 235,785 and 241,136 arrests, respectively.
Prior to the Biden administration, monthly arrests at the border rarely exceeded 100,000. In October 2020, for example, roughly 45,000 illegal border-crossers were arrested by CBP. But now it has become commonplace. Every month since March, arrests have surpassed 200,000.
For some historical perspective on the October 2022 numbers, consider that in all of 2017 there were only about 303,000 border arrests, total. And just 46,000 in October of that year.
Since President Joe Biden has taken office, more than 5 million illegal immigrants, including so-called “gotaways” whom Border Patrol wasn’t able to arrest, have crossed the southern border. And unlike previous years, there is no sign of a seasonal ebb and flow at the border. At a time of year when crossings are typically slow, we are now seeing a massive surge.
Apologists for President Biden’s border crisis in the corporate press tend to dismiss these shocking figures and attempt to explain them away by claiming the high monthly totals represent the same people crossing illegally, being expelled under Title 42, and attempting to cross again.
What they don’t mention is that border data has always reflected this phenomenon. Of the 230,000 arrests last month, about 19 percent “had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months,” according to CBP. This is only a 5 percent rise compared to the average 14 percent reencounter rate from 2014 to 2019.
Despite these outrageous statistics, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has doubled down on his claim that the border is “secure.”
Asked recently whether he “continue[s] to maintain that the border is secure” by Rep. Dan Bishop, R- North Carolina, Mayorkas responded, “Yes, and we are working day in and day out to enhance its security.”
Sophia is an intern at The Federalist and a student at Le Moyne College. She majors in English and intends to pursue a career in journalism.
U.S. Border Patrol has seen a massive spike in southern border encounters with people on the U.S. terror watchlist between ports of entry, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics.
CBP personnel came across individuals on the watchlist 78 times in those areas between October and August, the data reveals. There have been more than 2,000,000 migrant encounters on the southern border so far this fiscal year, a record-breaking surge.
CBP reported only fifteen southern border encounters with people on the watchlist between ports of entry in FY2021. No such incidents were recorded in FY2019.
There’s been dramatically less coverage of the 78 illegals on the terror watchlist than the 48 illegals who spent a night at Martha’s Vineyard https://t.co/FN531qGLjm
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz conceded under oath in late July that the southern border was in crisis. Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar said Sept. 9 that the border was not closed, arguing the administration was “not on the same page” when it claimed otherwise.
The White House and CBP did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
The Daily Caller’s Jorge Ventura joined Laura Ingraham to discuss the crisis at the southern border Tuesday night, noting agents are overwhelmed as the situation worsens.
“Here in the Yuma sector we have migrants coming from outside of the northern triangle countries,” Ventura explained. “We’ve met so far migrants from Belarus, Russia, even Afghanistan, India, Peru, Brazil, all coming here. And another kind of issue here as well is the role that the Mexican government plays. You know, most of these migrants, they cross to Guatemala and the first time they reach it Tapachula, Mexico, and they’re in Tapachula. They’re actually technically not legally allowed to travel throughout Mexico.”
Ventura recently reported that Mexican authorities do little to nothing to prevent migrants from attempting to cross the border.
Ventura previously captured exclusive footage for the Daily Caller appearing to show one agent processing dozens of migrants. Ventura told Ingraham one of the biggest hurdles for border patrol agents is that agents lack the manpower to both process migrants and stop the flow of illegal drug trafficking.
“While border patrol agents are busy dealing with family units and unaccompanied minors, we then have the single males running drugs” into the states.
Agents at the southern border encountered a record-breaking number of illegal migrants at the southern border in May, according to CBP. Agents encountered 239, 416 migrants with roughly one quarter of those having been previously encountered. Authorities say 69% of those migrants were adults.
Republican U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack said that “pallets” of baby formula are being delivered to an illegal immigrant detention center in Texas while Americans’ chances of finding formula on supermarket shelves grow more slim by the day. Cammack, a Florida lawmaker who was elected in 2020, indicated in a pair of Facebookvideos Wednesday that a Border Patrol agent at the Ursula facility in McAllen sent her photos showing pallets of baby formula and other food for infants that had been delivered to the detention center.
“They are sending pallets — pallets — of baby formula to the border,” Cammack said. “Meanwhile, in our own district at home, we cannot find baby formula.”
The first photo is from this morning at the Ursula Processing Center at the U.S. border. Shelves and pallets packed with baby formula.
The second is from a shelf right here at home. Formula is scarce.
— Kat Cammack (Text KAT to 50138) (@Kat_Cammack) May 11, 2022
“The first photo is from this morning at the Ursula Processing Center at the U.S. border. Shelves and pallets packed with baby formula,” she wrote in a related Twitter post. “The second is from a shelf right here at home. Formula is scarce. This is what America last looks like.”
Cammack added in her first video that “we literally are struggling to find baby formula around the country; moms are struggling, going from store to store to store and then the stores are actually capping the amount of baby formula they will sell them.”
The congresswoman called it “unconscionable” and said the administration of President Joe Biden is responsible for the “open border policy” that is “crushing the middle class.”
“They hate everything about [former President] Donald Trump so much … they’re willing to hurt their own citizens,” Cammack added, saying it’s “absolutely outrageous.”
Cammack posted a second video later Wednesday and was no less outraged, saying the Border Patrol agent told her, “Kat, you would not believe the shipment I just brought in.”
She went on to say that “he has been a Border Patrol agent for 30 years, and he has never seen anything quite like this. He is a grandfather, and he is saying that his own children can’t get … baby formula.”
While she wasn’t happy that the baby formula was going to “illegals that are crossing into the United States,” Cammack said “it is not the children’s fault at all.”
Rather what is “infuriating” is “that this is another example of the America last agenda that the Biden administration continues to perpetuate,” she added.
“I don’t know about you, but if I am a mother in anywhere, any-town America, and I go to my local Walmart or Target or Publix or Safeway or Kroger or wherever it may be that you shop, and you are seeing their shelves, and you are seeing signs that you are not able to get baby formula, and then you see the American government sending by the pallet thousands and thousands of containers of baby formula to the border, that would make my blood boil,” Cammack also said.
Cammack told her viewers that Republicans in Congress are doing what they can about the issue, but “we have zero leverage.”
The federal Office of the Administration for Children & Families — which oversees the Office of Refugee Resettlement — on Thursday didn’t immediately respond to TheBlaze’s request for comment on Cammack’s claims.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Andriy Dubchak
Amid the media’s 24/7 UKRAINE UPDATES, perhaps some enterprising journalist could write an article explaining how our esteem for that country’s borders benefits a single American — other than President Joe Biden.
Our own border has become a transmission belt for the third world, bringing in rapists, murderers, future welfare recipients and left-wing activists. The Democratic Party’s brilliant policy of defunding the police and emptying the prisons has, oddly enough, led to a breathtaking surge in violent crime. Our schools have been taken over by lunatics who teach white kids that they are evil — and probably transsexual. Inflation has hit a 40-year high.
U.S. media: Whither Ukraine?
Midterms must be coming!
In 2020, Democratic data scientist David Shor advised his party: “Talk about the issues [voters] are with us on, and try really hard not to talk about the issues where we disagree. Which, in practice, means not talking about immigration.” (Emphasis mine.) After the election, he said that the main way the media’s COVID hysteria hurt Donald Trump was by preventing anyone from “talking about Hunter Biden or immigration.”
Evidently, the only issue where voters don’t vehemently disagree with Democrats this year is the precise border of a country they’d never given a moment’s thought to until five minutes ago.
What Republicans should be doing: talking about the issues Democrats are trying to avoid.
What Republicans are doing: talking about Ukraine.
Whenever you see any media talking about Ukraine, your Pavlovian response should be, Oh, I see. They don’t want me to think about immigration or crime.
It’s not only the Democrats drawing benefits from the media’s sudden Ukraine obsession. There’s also the military-industrial complex.
President Dwight Eisenhower led Allied troops in World War II, but in his farewell address from the White House, he warned of the “unwarranted influence” on the government by “the military-industrial complex.” In the 60 years since, these bloodsuckers have been bleeding our country dry, solely to make themselves rich.
As Americans discovered to their dismay when the pandemic hit, we can’t make our own masks, pharmaceuticals or aspirin. We can’t make our own computer chips, razors, bicycles, toys, sneakers, Levi’s jeans and on and on and on. But boy, do we make weapons! In our ruling class’s ideal country, there will be nothing but defense contractors, Black Lives Matter activists and Latin American gardeners.
Just five companies receive the lion’s share of taxpayer money for “defense” weaponry. In 2020, the U.S taxpayer doled out $75 billion to Lockheed Martin, $28 billion to Raytheon, $22 billion to General Dynamics, $22 billion to Boeing and $20 billion to Northrop Grumman. Since 2001, these five companies alone have cost the taxpayer $2.1 trillion.
To put this in perspective, the annual budget of the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development is a little more than $50 billion. (And we should zero-out that whole budget, too.) During the COVID pandemic, when the government ordered people not to work, the entire supplemental food budget was about $70 billion.
Ronald Reagan’s victory in the Cold War should have been a sad day at Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing. Instead, it was the beginning of endless paydays. Today, the American taxpayer spends more on “defense” than during the Reagan buildup that crushed the USSR; more than during the Vietnam War, more even than the War on Terror after 9/11.
Worse, we’ve added a “think-tank industrial complex” — an army of useless, camera-ready blowhards to explain why our incessant meddling around the globe is always in America’s “vital national security interest.”
Why does NATO still exist? This alliance was the West’s response to Soviet aggression during the Cold War. Once the USSR collapsed (thanks to Reagan) and the Warsaw Pact disbanded, that should have been the end of it. Instead, we keep adding countries to the alliance — with a requirement of admission being that they buy their weapons from American defense contractors.
Everyone acknowledges that Vladimir Putin’s main concern is that Ukraine will be asked to join NATO. How about, as a compromise, the U.S. will pull out of NATO? (Another of Trump’s broken promises.)
Nope! Can’t shut down this utterly anachronistic organization, requiring America to defend the likes of Latvia, should some other pipsqueak nation violate its precious borders. (Why isn’t Latvia down in Texas right now, defending our borders?)
Far from unwinding NATO, our country’s leaders are constantly trying to expand it, thus increasing the odds that Americans will be forced to go to war over some other country’s sacred sovereignty. Pointless wars are the lifeblood of defense contractors! We pay the price and defense contractors get the money.
(Ike should be on Mount Rushmore for his “military-industrial complex” speech.)
This year, the worshipful reverence for Ukraine’s borders has the added bonus of blocking Americans from thinking about immigration and crime. Republicans ought to be talking their heads off about the unprecedented crisis at our border, Afghan “refugees” raping little kids in our country, illegal aliens hauling meth and fentanyl into our country, rampant shoplifting, carjacking and assaults destroying neighborhoods in our country.
Luckily, the GOP is too smart to fall for the media’s latest subject-changer.
Oh, wait —
@newtgingrich: “The Biden Administration talks and Putin acts. This is such a clear replay of Chamberlain trying to deal with Hitler that it is more than a little frightening. Putin is pushing day by day and has no fear of NATO because he has no fear of the United States or its President.”
GOP 2022 Contract With America: “Putin’s like Hitler.”
A little over four months after President Joe Biden officially ended his predecessor’s “remain in Mexico” policy, his administration is set to put the controversial policy back into effect after a federal judge said Biden’s termination of the program violated the law.
Administration officials told the press Friday that Migrant Protection Protocols — a policy requiring migrant asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings — will be temporarily reinstated in mid-November as the administration prepares another attempt to end the program.
Former Republican President Donald Trump implemented the MPP policy in 2019 as a means of ensuring that migrants who traveled to the southern border claiming to seek asylum did not enter the country illegally and then disappear before their court hearings. An estimated 68,000 migrants were returned to Mexico under Trump’s policy, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Biden, a Democrat, campaigned against MPP, claiming it was inhumane. Shortly after he took office in January, Biden paused the program as part of a wider effort to reverse many of Trump’s immigration policies.
In April, Missouri and Texas sued the Biden administration, arguing that pausing MPP led to a surge of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border that inflicted costs on the states. The Department of Homeland Security attempted to officially rescind the policy in June, when DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said it did not “adequately or sustainably enhance border management.”
Then in August, a federal judge blocked the Biden administration from enacting its plan to end the “remain in Mexico” policy. The Biden administration appealed its case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to take it up in a 6-3 decision, leaving the lower court’s ruling in effect.
Now, according to Reuters, the Biden administration is in the tricky position of having to restart the “remain in Mexico” program while also trying to end it:
The administration has said it will comply with Kacsmaryk’s ruling “in good faith” while continuing its appeal in the case. The administration also plans to issue a fresh memo to terminate the program in the hopes it will resolve any legal concerns surrounding the previous one, officials said.
“Re-implementation is not something that the administration has wanted to do,” a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a call with reporters. “But in the interim we are under this obligation of the court.”
In a court filing late on Thursday the administration said that “although MPP is not yet operational,” they are taking all the steps necessary to re-implement it by next month.
Those steps include preparing courts, some housed in tents, near the border where asylum hearings could be held. The administration said in the filing that these facilities will take about 30 days to build, costing approximately $14.1 million to erect and $10.5 million per month to operate.
The Biden administration is communicating with Mexico on how to reinstate the policy. Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that it has a “number of concerns” over MPP, including due process for migrants, legal certainty, access to legal aid, and the safety of migrants.
The DHS added in a statement that Mexico must agree to accept the return of asylum seekers into its custody in order to implement MPP.
“Significantly, Mexico is a sovereign nation that must make an independent decision to accept the return of individuals without status in Mexico as part of any reimplementation of MPP. Discussions with the Government of Mexico concerning when and how MPP will be reimplemented are ongoing,” the DHS said.
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![Jorge Ventura joins The Ingraham Angle to discuss the border crisis [Screenshot Fox News]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screen-Shot-2022-06-22-at-8.13.30-AM-e1655900211866.png "Jorge Ventura joins The Ingraham Angle to discuss the border crisis [Screenshot Fox News]")
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