Leaving the ineffectual resistance of Mexican federal police behind them, thousands of migrants streamed north toward America’s southern border on Saturday.
A caravan of 3,000 people briefly struggled with about 400 police near the city of Tapachula close to the Guatemala border, according to Reuters.
Video showed a brief resistance on the part of the authorities, who broke and allowed the migrants, some carrying children, to dash past them.
Irineo Mujica, who said he is among the caravan’s organizers, said a Mexico City protest is part of the plan, according to Reuters.
Mujica said migrants are protesting the fact that Mexico has tried to detain previous groups that have flooded into Mexico or demanded documents migrants do not have.
The migrants came from Haiti, South America and Central America.
The group is not the only one ready to stream into the U.S.
Should we deploy troops to stop these migrants?
A group of about 20,000 people is currently amassing near the northern Colombian town of Necocli, an unnamed Department of Homeland Security official reportedly told NBC.
Customs and Border Protection has said there were more than 1.7 million migrant encounters in Fiscal Year 2021, according to Fox News — a record high.
The leader of the caravan heading through Mexico had angry words for efforts to stop them and lashed out at Mexico.
“Money is not going to solve the problem, throwing it to governments like Mexico where they put people from the south border to the northern border is not the solution,” Mujica said in a video. “They should give them papers here; they should give them the opportunity to work here.”
“Because a lot of them don’t want to go to the U.S., but the Biden administration, with this administration, it’s like pulling them like cattle,” he said.
Immigration activist, Irineo Mujica says the current administration is in denial when it comes to the crisis at the border, “At least with Donald Trump, we knew what we had— with Biden, we don’t know.” Goes on to call President @JoeBiden “Trump 2.0” #BorderCrisispic.twitter.com/hKiDwWGJHf
“They’re just in denial of their own fault, you know? They haven’t been able to handle immigration,” he said.
“If I tell you the truth, I believe at least with Donald Trump we knew what we had. With Biden, we don’t know. He doesn’t seem to have a clue what to do with immigration because he says one thing and does another.”
More than 7,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested by Texas state agencies since Operation Lone Star began this spring, and thanks to the way the project works, not even the Biden administration can release them.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott created Operation Lone Star as a counterpoint to the feeble attempts by the Biden administration to curb the flood of illegal immigration that’s inundating Texas border communities.
Although immigration violations are the sole purview of the federal government, Operation Lone Star arrests illegal immigrants for the state crimes they commit – from trespassing to drug possession. That means that the Biden administration cannot simply allow these illegal immigrants to be charged and then released into the interior of the U.S.
Operation Lone Star personnel include the Texas Department of Public Safety as well as the state’s National Guard.
“The governor has directed DPS troopers to enforce all federal and state criminal laws, including criminal trespassing, smuggling, and human trafficking, and in July ordered National Guard soldiers to begin assisting DPS with arresting individuals for state charges related to the border crisis,” Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said in a statement Thursday to the Corpus Christi Caller Times.
Guard troops and officers with the Department of Public Safety have apprehended more 73,000 migrants since Operation Lone Star began, filing state charges against 7,700 of them.
Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw told the Center for Immigration Studies for a post published last week that 3,000 fully trained National Guard troops are now helping hold the border. The plan to divide responsibility envisions that the Guard will make arrests and turn those arrested over to the DPS to have charges filed.
“Nobody’s ever really used the guard before in this capacity,” McCraw said. “We’re going to use them to actually secure the border. The governor, the legislature, and the citizens of Texas have made it very clear; they want the border secure. It is good for our federal partner as well. The federal government should be thanking the state of Texas, and it’ll make the rest of the country safer as we increase the level of security.”
“We will soon be in a position to actually deter transnational crime, rather than react to it after it spreads throughout the state and nation,” McCraw said.
Guard members patrol the border fully armed, with training on the use of deadly force.
“It’s not like they’re out there by themselves,” McCraw said. “Our troopers will always be close and provide the necessary support when an arrest is made by a soldier and work closely with the local prosecutor where the arrest occurs.”
Since March, DPS officers with Operation Lone Star have seized over 10,000 pounds of marijuana; over 1,500 pounds of cocaine; over 1,500 pounds of methamphetamine; over 130 pounds of fentanyl; over 34 pounds of heroin and $5.3 million in currency, according to the website BorderReport.
“The Texas National Guard is surging personnel, equipment and capabilities to the Texas and Mexico border region in support of Operation Lone Star,” Brig. Gen. Monie R. Ulis, Operation Lone Star commander, said at a weekly briefing Thursday, according to a news release on the Texas Department of Public Safety website.
“As we build our force, we remain ready to detect, block and apprehend individuals and groups conducting illegal activity,” he said.
At the briefing, Texas DPS officials noted two Oct. 15 arrests. In one case, a previously deported felon who was part of a group of five illegal immigrants was arrested with 32 package of cocaine. In the other, 34 firearms, 3.4 grams of cocaine, 12 ounces of marijuana, 21 ounces of methamphetamine, 8.3 grams of Xanax, 16 ounces of promethazine, 4.5 grams of LSD and 496 grams of THC oils and edibles were seized.
Republican and Democrat presidents alike typically get criticized for the amount of time they spend on vacation or the golf course.
Yet say what you will about Presidents Barak Obama and Donald Trump, if they were ever asked publicly about why they hadn’t made a visit to the scene of say, a mass humanitarian crisis of their own making, there was good chance they would have had a lightning-quick answer that could pass for something resembling a valid excuse.
Not so much for President Joe Biden, bless his heart.
No, even when pressed on his failings by CNN’s kid gloves, he couldn’t come up with a reason why he hasn’t made the short trip down south to visit the border where there is, in fact, a mass humanitarian crisis of his own making. He could only come up with the hollow excuse that he’s been “busy.”
Thursday night’s town hall with Anderson Cooper was the predictable fiasco for the awkwardly incoherent Biden, who struggled with a number of issues, such as completing sentences, remembering what he was doing, and standing like a normal human being.
Meanwhile, when Biden was asked about whether he has plans to visit the southern border, which has been experiencing an influx of migrants throughout the whole of his presidency, the president, unsurprisingly, floundered.
“I’ve been there before, I haven’t, I mean, uh, I know it well,” he articulately began.
“I guess I should go down,” he continued (ya think?), “but the whole point of it is I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down.”
“I’ve been spending time going around looking at the $900 billion damage done by hurricanes and floods and weather and traveling around the world,” he attempted.
BIDEN ON THE BORDER: “I guess I should go down, but the whole point of it is I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down. I’ve been spending time going around looking at the $900 billion damage done by hurricanes and floods and weather and traveling around the world.” pic.twitter.com/mgWLxvf36d
“Now my wife Jill has been down,” Biden continued, brightening. He then gave a general description of Dr. Jill Biden’s visit to the border. FLOTUS saves the day yet again.
Ironically, Biden continued to claim that “you’re not seeing kids with what look like tarps over them,” a rather ironic possible reference to the notorious “kids in cages” photo that lit social media aflame back in 2018, which turned out to have been taken during the Obama — not Trump — administration.
That is, the administration in which Biden served as Vice President.
Is Biden blatantly lying about how he spends his time?
“But there’s much more to be done,” he continued, circling back to the whole reason that he was being asked about the dang border in the first place. Yes, thank you, Mr. President, that’s sort of what the country is looking to you for, and why the guy with the microphone on the stage with the bright lights was asking you about when you’re going to visit said border.
This is, in short, pathetic. A flight to El Paso, Texas, from Washington, D.C., is roughly four hours — not even half a day.
It would take Biden, like, one single day to travel down to a border town, make some comments with local politicians whose name he’d assuredly forget, visit a shelter, talk to reporters for the five seconds his handlers give him to field questions and go home.
He’s the President of the United States, and the crisis is mounting to the point that the mainstream media doesn’t even seem to be willing to cover for him anymore, even with all their fabricated outrage over border agents “whipping” migrants.
Biden doesn’t even have a smart-sounding reason for why he’s supposedly been so busy.
He might have cited his work on the economy, the ongoing negotiations over his Build Back Better agenda or the crisis in Afghanistan, of course, but in perhaps one of the few instances of quick thinking that Biden displayed during the town hall, Biden cited the only examples of work he’s been doing that didn’t draw to mind even more failings on his part.
Here’s the thing: Biden has puttered around the country a bit and has taken exactly one whole entire trip abroad to attend a meeting of the G7 nations in the United Kingdom — where he said he didn’t want to go home when he arrived, mind you — but he’s taken 25 trips to his home in Delaware since taking office.
This is in addition to several vacations.
And yet we’re supposed to believe he’s just entirely too busy to virtue signal interest in the raging border crisis?
According to a Wikipedia list of all of his presidential trips, President Biden has been to California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas once each; Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana and Wisconsin twice each; New York and Ohio each three times; Michigan four times and Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, respectively, six, nine and ten times.
His home in Delaware by far takes the cake, as NPR noted in August, before he observed the fall of Kabul from his vacation at Camp David.
In June, Biden skipped out on work on a Wednesday to enjoy some time off at his Rehoboth Beach estate, despite ongoing negotiations over the infrastructure bill back in the capital.
“Of the first 29 weekends of his presidency, Biden spent just six at the White House,” NPR reported at the time, explaining that Delaware is where the president feels “grounded,” pointing to his famous daily trips back to his home during his time in the Senate to be with his sons following the tragic death of his wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972.
The outlet noted that Delaware was also where he was headed for his vacation that month — go figure.
Later in the month, he would be criticized for remaining at Camp David as Kabul fell to the Taliban, briefly heading back to Washington D.C. to address the nation and then going back to Camp David before finally cutting his vacation short because — sigh — national crisis and all.
In September, as Americans were still trapped in Afghanistan following the full withdrawal of U.S. troops from the nation, which was completed on Aug. 30, Biden was — where else? — back on vacation in Delaware yet again.
NPR compared Biden’s Delaware weekends to Presidents Bush and Reagan spending time on their Texas and California ranches to unwind from the duties of the presidency.
To be fair, it’s certainly understandable that the president would need to unwind, assuming he does so at a better time than in the midst of a national crisis.
However, in Biden’s case, his penchant for unwinding so frequently gets rather problematic. Even beyond the terrible timing of his vacations, their frequency proves that he is not only perfectly capable of and accustomed to regular travel, but he has had plenty of free time to do so since taking office.
When it comes to giving the impression that he’s been working hard, President Biden has quite an uphill battle to face.
He is regularly shuffled around by his staffers, who angrily shoo away reporters so they can set him up in front of a teleprompter so he can halfway attempt to get through a speech without fumbling or forgetting where he is.
The work being done by Biden’s administration has indeed been fraught with failure, and it’s not just the border crisis: It’s Afghanistan, climbing gas prices and overreaching, authoritarian and dubiously constitutional vaccine mandates that are alienating and demoralizing the American workforce.
Yet we’re supposed to believe that the president who takes weekends off from his job and always seems to have time for a vacation, even in the middle of a complete and utter disaster like the fall of Afghanistan, doesn’t have time to visit the border?
It’s certainly not time that Biden is lacking. It’s the willingness to do his job.
Thousands of illegal immigrants in a caravan broke through a barricade of Mexican police dressed in anti-riot gear on Saturday, driven to action by what they say are impossible conditions in the overcrowded southern Mexican border city of Tapachula.
Around 400 Mexican interior police attempted to form a blockade to stop a flood of over 2,000 illegal immigrants as they attempted to leave the city, which lies on Mexico’s border with Guatemala.
The protesters easily broke through police lines and made their way north along a highway that leads to the nation’s capital.
There were minor scuffles, as one family was knocked to the ground in the rush of people. Their small child suffered a slight head wound, according to a Reuters video.
The city, which is in Mexico’s poorest state of Chiapas, is swollen with tens of thousands of illegal immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, and other countries, mostly in Central America.
Illegal immigrants have been pouring into Mexico since U.S. President Joe Biden took office, following a promising a more “humane” approach to immigration.
Mexico allows those applying for humanitarian visas or asylum to stay in Chiapas while their case is processed, but those wishing to travel further north into Mexico and beyond must have a visa, or risk being deported to Guatemala.
But many in this caravan are willing to take that risk, said organizer Irineo Mujica. Mujica is an immigration reform activist with the organization Pueblos Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders).
He told Fox News that people in the caravan are calling on the Mexican government to “do their share” with the immigration crisis, adding that many would be content with Mexican papers and “the opportunity to work here.”
“A lot of them don’t want to go to the U.S.,” he said. “But the Biden administration, this administration, it’s like hauling them like cattle. We’re asking the Mexican government to give them papers to have a choice here, because Mexico, it’s a good place to live, to work.”
He said that most in the caravan were, for now, headed for the Mexican capital, although others may continue on to try their luck at the southern U.S. border.
José Antonio, a construction worker from Honduras, said that he was planning to travel with the caravan to the northeastern Mexican city of Monterrey, where he was hoping he would be able to find the work that has been hard to come by in Tapachula.
“They told me I had to wait because the appointments were full,” he said of the visa application process in the overwhelmed city. “There is no work there [in Tapachula], so out of necessity I joined this group.”
“We’ll go on, day by day, to get as far as we can,” he said, adding that he was worried his joining the caravan would negatively impact his visa application.
Illegal immigrants from Central America and Haiti, in a caravan headed to the Mexican capital to apply for asylum status, walk in Tapachula, in Chiapas state, Mexico, on Oct. 23, 2021. (Jose Torres/Reuters)
Mexican authorities have broken up smaller attempts at similar breakouts earlier this year.
One such caravan reached the U.S. border near Del Rio, Texas, in September. In January, a larger caravan was stopped further south in Honduras after it was blocked from entering Guatemala.
Recent caravans have not been as large as those that crossed into Mexico in 2018 and 2019. However, a record-breaking number of illegal immigrants are still reaching the southern U.S. border, with an all-time high of 1.67 million border apprehensions reported for fiscal 2021 by U.S. authorities.
The Biden administration has blamed factors like poverty, corruption, and violence as the root causes of the crisis, and has proposed spending significant taxpayer money in an attempt to combat these issues.
But Mujica said he believes the systemic problems plaguing Central America will be harder to solve. “Money’s not going to solve the problem, throwing it to governments like Mexico where they’re throwing people from the southern border to the northern border,” he said of Mexico’s reaction to the crisis.
Meanwhile, critics of Biden’s immigration policies have pointed to the rollback of Trump-era border policies as the problem—particularly the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which kept asylum seekers in Mexico as their cases were processed.
The Biden administration is currently in the process of restarting MPP due to a Supreme Court order. However, it stressed via a September memo that it is still trying to end the program.
The Biden Administration has been caught red handed flying illegal immigrants across the country in the dead of night, and should this behavior continue over the next three and half years, it will fundamentally alter the course of this country, as well as what it believes and of course, how it votes. Plus, Meghan McCain is speaking out about the ‘toxic’ behavior she received on the set of the view, but was she a part of the problem? Also, Trump has a new social media platform coming out, but will it be ‘the truth’ – or just another conservative echo chamber that lies to the fanbase?
Border Patrol agents apprehended a total of 1,666,167 illegal immigrants along the southwest border in fiscal 2021—breaking all records since 1925 after the agency was formed (when 22,199 illegal aliens were arrested).
An additional 294,352 were stopped after trying to enter at a port of entry without legal papers, bringing the total to almost 2 million (1,956,519) for fiscal 2021, according to new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics.
The CBP doesn’t officially release the number of “gotaways”—illegal aliens who are detected by Border Patrol, but evade capture. However, former CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan told a congressional Republican roundtable on Oct. 20 that the gotaway number hit at least 400,000 illegal aliens this year.
The Biden administration has faced growing criticism for the crisis at the southern border, which started to ramp up a year ago in tandem with election rhetoric.
However, the number of illegal crossings shot up once Biden took office and promptly dismantled many of President Donald Trump’s border security measures.
In January, Biden paused deportations, stopped border wall construction, halted the Remain in Mexico program, repurposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement priorities, and reversed the ban on travel from terror-prone countries.
In December 2020, Trump’s last full month in office, Border Patrol agents arrested almost 74,000 illegal immigrants on the southern border. By July, that had almost tripled to 213,500.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expelling most single adults under the Title 42 health directive policy issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March 2020 that calls for immediate expulsion of all illegal immigrants and non-essential travelers.
However, under Biden, the DHS stopped applying Title 42 to any unaccompanied children, most family units, and some adults.
Border Patrol apprehends illegal immigrants at Penitas, Texas, on May 10, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
The administration has been faced with record levels of unaccompanied minors and family units entering illegally—most of whom are subsequently released into the United States.
The number of unaccompanied children apprehended by Border Patrol in fiscal 2021 (146,925) exceeded last year’s total by four times. At one point in April, more than 20,000 unaccompanied minors were being held in Health and Human Services custody.
The White House confirmed on Oct. 20 that it has been flying unaccompanied children from the southern border to New York in the middle of the night.
“It is our legal responsibility to safely care for unaccompanied children until they can be swiftly unified with a parent or a vetted sponsor,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. “And that’s something we take seriously. We have a moral obligation to come to do that and deliver on that.”
She confirmed that unaccompanied children are also being transported to other parts of the country.
A Border Patrol agent picks up three illegal aliens after Texas state troopers arrested two U.S. citizen smugglers who were transporting them to San Antonio, in Kinney County, Texas, on Oct. 20, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Haitian Crisis
September presented a new challenge for DHS when 15,000 mostly Haitian illegal immigrants formed a primitive encampment under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas.
The administration subsequently released at least 12,400 of them into the interior, with the expectation that they will check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or turn up at their immigration court hearing.
Tens of thousands more Haitians and other migrants are currently heading toward the U.S. border, according to reports.
During the Haitian crisis, Border Patrol was forced to close nearby highway checkpoints, and state and local law enforcement surged to the bridge to provide security.
In general, drug seizures at the border and highway checkpoints have been consistently lower in fiscal 2021 than in the past three years, with September hitting a low point.
Other issues are facing the Border Patrol agency, with morale hitting an all-time low and agents facing a Nov. 22 deadline to get vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine or get fired.
Thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Haitians, live in a primitive, makeshift camp under the international bridge that spans the Rio Grande between the U.S. and Mexico while waiting to be detained and processed by Border Patrol, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Administration Response
The Biden administration has been consistent in its response to questions about its handling of the border, saying it’s focusing on the “root causes” of illegal immigration and that it is seeking a “fair, orderly, and humane” immigration system.
Administration officials have avoided calling the border issue a crisis, but DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was caught on leaked audio telling border agents that the situation is “unsustainable.”
“A couple of days ago I was down in Mexico, and I said look, you know, if, if our borders are the first line of defense, we’re going to lose and this is unsustainable,” Mayorkas said on Aug. 5, according to audio a Border Patrol source leaked to Fox News.
“We can’t continue like this, our people in the field can’t continue and our system isn’t built for it.”
On Oct. 21, Biden was asked by Anderson Cooper during a CNN town hall if he plans to visit the southern border.
“I guess I should go down. But the—but the whole point of it is: I haven’t had a whole hell of lot of time to get down,” Biden said.
Vice President Kamala Harris visited El Paso, Texas, in June, but was criticized for avoiding the two busiest sectors in the nation, also in Texas.
RENO, Nev.—A Salvadoran immigrant told a judge Thursday he killed four people in northern Nevada, beginning a two-stage legal process that the judge and prosecutors said will avoid two death penalty trials and put the 22-year-old man in state prison for the rest of his life.
Wilber Ernesto Martinez Guzman pleaded guilty, after intense questioning by Washoe County District Court Judge Connie Steinheimer in Reno, to two counts of first-degree murder in the January 2019 deaths of Gerald and Sharon David in their Reno home.
Steinheimer acknowledged the plea took the death penalty off the table and told Martinez Guzman he will have to enter formal guilty pleas in Douglas County to the killings of two women in Gardnerville during his two-week string of crimes.
Martinez Guzman told police he committed the series of break-ins, thefts and shootings because he needed money to buy methamphetamine.
Steinheimer said that if Martinez Guzman fails to plead guilty in Douglas County, prosecutors there and Washoe County can void his plea deal and again seek the death penalty.
Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks and and Douglas County District Attorney Mark Jackson planned to meet with reporters following the two-hour court hearing.
Hicks said in a statement before proceedings began that they expected Martinez Guzman will receive “maximum sentences” that would run consecutively.
Hicks and Jackson initially planned one death-penalty trial for Martinez Guzman, but the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Sept. 30 that the defendant would have to be tried separately in the two county jurisdictions.
Authorities said Martinez Guzman stole a .22-caliber handgun from the Davids’ southwest Reno home on Jan. 4, 2019; shot and killed Constance Koontz, 56, and Sophia Renken, 74, in separate attacks in their Gardnerville homes several days later; and returned to the Davids’ house to rob and kill them Jan 15.
Gerald David, 81, and his 80-year-old wife were prominent in the Reno Rodeo Association and had employed Martinez Guzman as a landscaper the summer before.
Martinez Guzman was arrested in Carson City during a manhunt that had investigators track an Apple watch stolen from Koontz to Martinez Guzman’s mother.
Martinez Guzman has been held without bail at the Washoe County Detention Facility in Reno.
Washoe County sheriff’s Detective Stefanie Brady told a grand jury several weeks after Martinez Guzman’s arrest that he initially denied wrongdoing but later acknowledged through a Spanish interpreter he had “done something that’s unforgiveable.”
“He said he needed the money for the meth,” Brady testified.
The case drew attention at the time from then-President Donald Trump, who said it showed the need to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The attorneys general of Texas and Missouri teamed up to sue the Biden administration on Thursday, seeking to resume construction of the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a lawsuit (pdf) against President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the U.S. district court in Victoria, challenging the administration for refusing to spend money appropriated to continue construction of the border wall amid a worsening “border crisis.”
They argue that the president’s refusal to use the more than $1.3 billion appropriated for “construction of barrier system along the southwest border” is a violation of the separation of powers and the Take Care clause of the Constitution.
“[It] is arbitrary and capricious, and fails to spend appropriations mandated by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 and 2021,” the attorneys general, both Republicans, said in a news release.
“Time and again, the Biden administration has refused to take concrete action to quell the worsening border crisis, inviting the cartels and human drug smugglers to take advantage of our porous border,” Schmitt said in a statement. “Without a border wall, illegal immigrants, coyotes, and bad actors can simply march across our southern border and into the interior. The border wall needs to be built, the funds have been appropriated to continue to build the wall, and yet the Biden Administration outright refuses to do so.”
Schmitt noted that the same amount of funds was also appropriated by the FY2021 DHS Appropriations Act.
“The Biden Administration’s flat refusal to use funds that have already been set aside by Congress to build the border wall is not only illegal and unconstitutional. It’s also wrong, and it leaves states like Texas and Missouri footing the bill,” Paxton said in a statement.
He added, ”I will not sit idly by while this Administration wreaks more havoc on our state.”
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House and DHS for comment.
Since taking office in January, Biden has signed dozens of executive orders rescinding President Donald Trump’s policies, including border wall construction and the “remain in Mexico” protocols.
In issuing an order suspending border wall construction—a project that has been long championed by Trump—Biden described it as wasteful and ineffective, although DHS has spent funds on repairing some areas along already-built wall sections.
The Biden administration in recent weeks has faced mounting criticism for its handling of border security and a surge in illegal immigration along the southern border.
Late last month, thousands of illegal aliens of Haitian origin created a makeshift encampment underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. Later, Mayorkas said that about 12,000 of the Haitians were released into the interior United States with pending court dates.
The crisis triggered calls from Republicans and even some Democrats to restart the construction of the border wall, which was a major campaign promise of Trump’s during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Biden’s pick to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Chris Magnus, acknowledged during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that the influx of illegal immigration at the southern border is an urgent matter.
Federal officials “have lost complete control” of the southwest border under President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, three former high-ranking immigration enforcement officials told a panel of Republican senators on Oct. 20.
“We have lost complete control of the border. I’ve talked to several Border Patrol chiefs who tell me they have lost operational control of the border under this president,” former Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Thomas Homan told three Republican senators during a roundtable discussion of the situation on the U.S.–Mexican border.
“They’ve also lost respect for the commander-in-chief and the [DHS] secretary,” Homan told Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Rick Scott of Florida.
Johnson said in his opening statement that he convened the roundtable discussion after Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, declined to convene a hearing on the border crisis.
A committee spokesman for Peters didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment on Johnson’s claim. Johnson had preceded Peters as committee chairman prior to Democrats’ gaining control of the chamber in the 2020 election.
Homan’s intense criticism of Biden and Mayorkas was affirmed by Mark Morgan, who was chief of the U.S. Border Patrol during the Obama administration, and Rodney Scott, who served in the same role under both Biden and his predecessor, President Donald Trump.
Morgan told the senators that “what happens at the southwest border does not stay at the southwest border.”
“Every town, city, and state in this country is a border town, city, and state. If you have a drug overdose from fentanyl, take it to the bank that the fentanyl came from the southwest border,” he said.
“Almost every day I get up, as an American, angry. Why? Because I know because I’ve been there, this administration is way beyond not being transparent. They are lying to the American people.”
With “400,000 ‘gotaways’ this fiscal year, 1.9 million total enforcement encounters, an all-time record high, so if the secretary were sitting in front of me right now, I would say ‘Mr. Secretary, stop lying to the American people,’” Morgan said.
Morgan was referring to Mayorkas’s comment to a House committee in September that “the border is secure. We’re executing our plan,” and that the border today “is no less secure than it was” under Trump. “Gotaways” are illegal immigrants who come into the United States and are not apprehended by U.S. law enforcement officials.
A White House press office representative didn’t immediately respond to request for a response to Morgan’s comment.
Scott said he agreed to appear before the panel because he wanted “to bring attention to the irresponsible and reckless policies that are being implemented by the current administration on the border despite being advised otherwise by professional border security personnel that have been involved in this for decades.”
The immigration aspect of the issues involved in border security is only one area of a broader scope of issues that involve national security, he said.
“It’s just like your home; it’s exactly like your home. If we don’t know and can’t control who and what is in our home, we have no security. If we don’t know who and what are in our country, then we have no homeland security,” Scott said.
“When I left as [Border Patrol] chief, there were 15o nationalities mixed in. It’s not just the Haitians you hear people talking about, or just the South Americans, it’s 150 different nations, many of which are directly involved in or ignoring terrorism threats.”
The Biden transition team was briefed “by border security professionals … that if they rescinded the commonsense policies that were put in place recently, if they stopped building the border wall, we all predicted that there would be a mass migration,” Scott said.
The roundtable also heard testimony from two mothers, one of whom lost a daughter to fentanyl and the other who lost a son in a traffic accident caused by an illegal alien driving without a license.
Virginia Krieger of Cleveland, Ohio, president of the Fentanyl Awareness Coalition, told the senators that her 27-year-old daughter, Tiffany, died in 2015 as a result of ingesting what she thought was a Percocet capsule but, in fact, was a highly toxic dose of fentanyl.
“Tiffany didn’t seek to use fentanyl. Tiffany didn’t really have any issues at all before that day,” Krieger said. “And now, we have an entirely new population of young people dying, being affected by the fentanyl crisis that we have never before seen in this country. And they are the non-addicted victims.”
Krieger said young people “are getting counterfeit pills, either given to them by a friend or being purchased from an online platform like Snapchat that make these pills available to anyone with a smartphone, including children as young as 12.”
Mexican drug cartels smuggle billions of dollars worth of illegal drugs, including fentanyl, into the United States every year, with 95 percent of it coming across the southwest border, Morgan said.
Similarly, Sabine Durden-Coulter of Riverside, California, said her son, Dominic, was on his way to work as a 911 communications officer when he was killed in 2012.
“He was killed by an illegal alien, repeat offender, a felon with armed robbery convictions, no driver’s license, and two DUIs he received that he received probation for,” Durden-Coulter told the panel.
“The man made a deal with the judge and was charged with vehicle manslaughter without gross negligence and received nine months, with five years probation. And he served 35 days.
“If the immigration laws that were on the books would have been upheld the first time they had him, the second time, the third time, I wouldn’t be here and my son would still be enjoying his beautiful life and thousands of other families like mine wouldn’t know this grief and pain.”
LOS ANGELES—A Riverside-based federal judge’s order requiring the release of illegal immigrants from detention centers where COVID-19 risks were high was overturned Oct. 20 by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appellate panel ruled 2-1 that U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal overstepped when he granted a preliminary injunction in April 2020 to modify the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainment practices nationwide to reduce COVID-19 exposure risks.
Judge Daniel Bress, writing for the majority, said that Bernal’s order was misplaced, and there was no justification for making the agency appear to be engaged in “reckless disregard on a national basis.”
Bernal’s directive had been in response to petitions from illegal immigrants’ rights attorneys seeking to have their clients released from crowded federal detention facilities while their asylum applications were pending.
Immigrants’ rights groups argued that the detainees were being subjected to mistreatment by having them in locations where the spread of the contagion was greater.
ICE representatives stated at the time that the judge was basing his determination on speculation, and that permitting untold numbers of border crossers to walk away from custody would set a bad precedent with lasting repercussions.
Bress said the plaintiffs did not make a compelling case for an immediate overhaul of ICE procedures.
In her lone dissent, Judge Marsha Berzon countered that Bernal was urging ICE to adjust its policies while leaving the agency with ample latitude to decide how and when to grant releases.
It was unclear how many releases were permitted based on the injunction.
Border Patrol agents in Texas arrested three criminal illegal aliens on Oct. 20, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). All three are gang members.
One man, from El Salvador, is an MS-13 gang member with pending charges for homicide, fraud, and trespassing in New York. He was encountered about 60 miles north of the U.S.–Mexico border.
Another Salvadoran man was found in the brush, ostensibly trying to skirt the Border Patrol highway checkpoint in Falfurrias, about 80 miles north of the border. He’s an MS-13 gang member with a criminal arrest for homicide in El Salvador.
Closer to the border, on the same day, an 18th Street gang member from El Salvador was arrested after being discovered among a group of 61 illegal aliens near Hidalgo. The man had been removed from the United States last month.
Border Patrol personnel have arrested 325 illegal alien gang members in fiscal year 2021 through August, according to CBP statistics. Border Patrol is the law enforcement arm of CBP within the Department of Homeland Security.
Border agents have encountered more than 12,000 illegal alien criminals and those with outstanding warrants in the same time period, according to CBP. A further 4,474 illegal alien criminals were encountered at U.S. ports of entry.
CBP commissioner nominee and former Tucson, Arizona, Police Chief Chris Magnus refused to say the border was in a crisis during a nomination hearing in front of the Senate on Oct. 19, despite preliminary numbers showing 1.7 million apprehensions at the border—breaking all previous records.
In response to a question about the record volume of drugs entering the United States, Magnus said: “Of course, if there was a ready-to-go plan to address all the problems that you’ve just described, my guess is that not only CBP, but you all as a body would have seen to it that it was implemented.”
He said a key part of his strategy as commissioner would be to build relationships and collaborate with policymakers.
Former CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said at a congressional Republican roundtable on border security on Oct. 20 that Border Patrol had detected but not caught at least 400,000 illegal aliens this year.
“If you open up your borders to one threat or one crisis, you’re opening your borders up to the vast, complex set of threats,” Morgan said.
“If you expand illegal immigration, you’re pulling essential resources off the line, opening those borders up to criminal aliens, to gang members, increased human smuggling, human trafficking, and drugs pouring into this country.”
The former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spoke out Thursday against President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection, calling him the “perfect choice” for open borders advocates.
Tom Homan, who led ICE during part of the Trump administration, shared his remarks during an interview on “Fox & Friends,” following a Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing for Chris Magnus, Biden’s pick for CBP commissioner.
“I was a little disappointed in the hearing. I thought he should have gotten hammered more. If it were the Trump nominee, they would have been all over them,” Homan said.
Homan also revealed that Magnus, currently chief of police in Tucson, Arizona, has not cooperated with ICE officers and agents in the past.
“He is pro-sanctuary cities, refused to work with ICE when he was the chief in Tucson when I was the director, he refused to work with a lot of special agents and officers and even though his officers wanted to and they tried to behind the scenes, he ordered them not to assist immigration authorities,” Homan added.
Homan noted Magnus remains an avid critic of former President Donald Trump who has called the former president’s policies “inhumane.”
“He went against Donald Trump from day one, said his policies were inhumane, and bottom line, he fails to recognize that Donald Trump created the most secure border in my lifetime,” Homan said.
He sarcastically noted that Magnus is ideal for the Biden administration if it intends to push for open borders.
Is a nominee who supports open borders automatically unfit to lead the CBP?
“He is the perfect choice for this administration if this administration wants open borders. He’s the worst choice for the men and women of CBP who simply want to do their job and secure the border,” Homan said.
The Magnus nomination process comes as CBP data obtained by The Washington Post showed that 1.7 million people were detained along the border during the federal 2021 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. Arrests by Border Patrol agents hit their highest level ever recorded, according to the report.
The data set includes the final months of the Trump administration.
Since President Joe Biden took office, 1.3 million illegal immigrants have been detained, the report said.
On Tuesday, Magnus responded the spike in immigration numbers represented a “significant challenge” and “the numbers are very high.” He repeatedly avoided characterizing the surge at the border as a “crisis” despite persistent questioning, Fox News reported.
In response to the illegal immigration crisis and the Biden administration’s lack of action, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has drafted what he called the “Stop the SURGE Act,” legislation that would open up new ports of entry in Democratic strongholds, so those areas could share in what Texas border towns are experiencing.
The locations are in Delaware, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and California.
“For the past ten months, President Biden and his administration have willingly surrendered the United States’ southern border to dangerous criminal cartels, with no thought given to the South Texas border communities like McAllen and Del Rio, which are running low on resources from dealing with this massive influx of illegal immigrants,” Cruz said in a statement released Tuesday.
“That’s why today I am introducing this crucial legislation to alleviate the massive overload at the southern border by establishing new ports of entry in Democrat-led communities such as North Hero, Vermont, where Bernie Sanders spends his summers, and Martha’s Vineyard, where Democrat elites host their cocktail parties.
“If Washington Democrats had to endure even a fraction of the suffering South Texas families, farmers, ranchers, and small businesses have had to face, our nation’s immigration laws would be enforced, the wall would be built, and the Remain in Mexico policy would be re-implemented. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stop ignoring the plight of South Texas communities and act swiftly to end this horrific humanitarian crisis.”
Leftist politicians are blind to the ways their policies destroy lives — or, they simply don’t care.
Democrats have a pathological need to let every lawbreaker off the hook, routinely advocating ideas like abolishing police, emptying prisons and opening borders to all comers.
These are sold as compassionate and humane alternatives to the problems of society, but the alleged brutal rape of a woman on a Philadelphia train last week reveals that the philosophy of the left instead brings misery and suffering.
The victim was riding a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority commuter train near Upper Darby Township around 10 p.m. on Oct. 13 when a man, later identified as Fiston Ngoy, 35, tore off her clothes and forced himself on her right there in the train car.
Bystanders allegedly did nothing to stop the attack, a haunting fact considering that doing anything — calling the police or intervening on her behalf — could have stopped it.
However, the groundwork for more crimes just like that one to occur was laid years ago by leftists in government.
Ngoy had been in the country on an expired student visa since 2015. The Congo national had previously pleaded guilty to sexual assault in Washington, D.C., in 2017 and would have been deported if not for the Board of Immigration Appeals declaring in 2019 that Ngoy’s offense was not a “serious crime.”
Despite the expired visa and the crime, Ngoy was permitted to stay in the country as long as he reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and remained under the agency’s supervision.
Not that it would have mattered much to Philadelphia authorities anyway — back in 2018, a federal judge cemented the City of Brotherly Love’s “sanctuary city” status, Philadelphia magazine reported at the time.
Do you think Democrats are responsible when criminals they let off the hook reoffend?
In 2017, the Trump administration had attempted to withhold roughly $1.5 million in grant funding for law enforcement by imposing new rules that required recipients to cooperate with ICE.
The city sued then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and won the right to receive the money despite releasing suspects that also had ICE detainers — and Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney and Chief of Staff Jane Slusser couldn’t help but dance and high-five each other.
Make no mistake: The ruling didn’t directly affect Ngoy, as there was no ICE detainer out for him and he had been explicitly allowed to stay in the country. But it is disturbing how Democrats have set the stage for a radically higher number of illegal aliens to commit those same crimes by pushing pro-sanctuary city policies. But not only have they set the stage; they’ve celebrated sanctuary city victories.
This video captures Democrats dancing after a ruling guaranteeing federal funding despite their flaunting anti-sanctuary city laws. That means Democrats have celebrated policies that will allow this kind of brutal violence, allegedly at the hand of illegal aliens, to continue.
“Philadelphia mayor dances as city declared a sanctuary city,” conservative activist Mike Cernovich tweeted with the clip that was first shared on June 6, 2018, the day a federal judge ruled in the city’s favor.
“Recent news revealed that the violent rape on a train in Philadelphia was committed by an illegal immigrant who had previously committed violent crimes, and wasn’t deported.”
Philadelphia mayor dances as city declared a sanctuary city.
Recent news revealed that the violent rape on a train in Philadelphia was committed by an illegal immigrant who had previously committed violent crimes, and wasn’t deported.
A man like Ngoy should never have been in the country to commit this horrific crime, but cities like Philadelphia do all they can to prevent ICE from apprehending illegal aliens.
These Democrat-run havens roll out the red carpet for them to stay without fear of deportation, and that so often has horrific and predictable results as criminal illegal aliens go on to re-offend — but the problem goes beyond even that.
America’s cities are experiencing a crime surge thanks to other terrible leftist policies that have gutted police forces, ranging from defunding police to vaccine mandates to the relentless anti-police rhetoric that destroys morale.
Even when there are enough officers to make the arrests, Democrats are eager to release prisoners using whatever excuse is handy at the time, creating a revolving door that is demoralizing to the brave men and women risking their lives to make these arrests.
Democrats like Kenney create protections that embolden lawbreakers and leave citizens vulnerable to the whims of society’s bottom feeders — all while pretending it’s the compassionate thing to do.
Regardless of what the left claims, arresting and jailing criminals is not racist, nor is deporting illegal immigrants xenophobic; maintaining law and order is the bedrock of civilization, and our nation will not survive without it.
It’s shameful enough to witness Democrats dismantle that foundation brick by brick, but it’s appalling to watch a modern-day Nero like Kenney literally dance while he does it.
If President Joe Biden isn’t going to do his job, there are plenty of hardworking Americans out there willing to do it for him.
Perhaps the most neglected of Biden’s many presidential responsibilities has been his duty to protect the country’s southern border.
The problem has deteriorated exponentially, with detention facilities filled to the brim and large caravans of migrants continuing to cross over.
Sam Hall, the founder and president of a militia group called Patriots for America, has decided to take it upon himself to right Biden’s border wrongs.
According to a Tuesday report from The Epoch Times, Hall will be dispatching his militia of roughly 100 men to Kinney County, Texas, in order to “operate as a deterrent in areas of high traffic.”
Kinney County shares a mere 16 miles of the border with Mexico, but — given its location between Del Rio and Eagle Pass — it serves as a prime destination for migrants to cross over illegally.
The Times reports that over the past several months, ranchers in the county have been faced with “a relentless stream of illegal aliens traversing their property, cutting fences, breaking into their homes, and threatening them.”
“What we’ve seen is an invasion of this county,” Hall said, according to The Times. “What we’ve seen is residents that are scared to death right now, and they don’t feel like they have support from the state.”
Is Biden to blame for the crisis at the southern border?
As the militia sets up in Kinney County, reports indicate as many as 85,000 migrants — reportedly made up of mostly Haitians — are on their way to the border.
“As a militia, we can’t detain or arrest people. We can disrupt and frustrate until the county or DPS can get there,” Hall said.
Hall further stressed that his men aren’t there to hurt anyone, but rather to simply “keep people safe.”
“We’re not leaving as a militia until we know that this county is safe,” Hall said.
Hall isn’t the only American that has taken it upon himself to help curb Biden’s border crisis.
On Monday, Sheriff Brad Coe — also of Kinney County — announced he would be putting together a small team to help tackle the problem.
“As far as taking it into our own hands, the border patrol … we didn’t have much a choice,” Sheriff Coe said, according to The Gateway Pundit.
“The border patrol was completely overwhelmed at the time, thousands of people coming, just turning themselves in, that wanted to get caught, created this problem.”
Americans aren’t going to stand by any longer — as Biden neglects his presidential duties.
Instead, they’re going to do what any good American should do. Rather than rely on big government, they’re going to find a solution themselves.
The attack on America’s southern border has reached a level never before seen, according to a new report.
Customs and Border Protection data obtained by The Washington Post shows that 1.7 million people were detained along the border during the federal 2021 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, meaning arrests by Border Patrol agents hit their highest level ever recorded, according to the report.
This data includes the final 3.5 months of the Trump administration.
Since President Joe Biden took office, 1.3 million illegal immigrants were detained, the report said.
According to Border Patrol data, that would mean that in the first 8.5 months of the Biden administration, more illegal immigrants were detained than in the final two full years of the Trump administration.
In the final full year when former President Donald Trump was in office, 405,036 illegal immigrants were arrested.
The Post noted that President Joe Biden had said one of his goals as president was to avoid having “2 million people on our border.”
Although Biden gave Vice President Kamala Harris the job of dealing with root causes of illegal immigration from Central American countries, the data implies that any effort Harris makes would miss the real target.
The 2021 data, according to the Post, shows that of those detained, 608,000 were Mexican nationals.
Will we ever regain control of the southern border?
A catch-all group that included “Haitians, Venezuelans, Ecuadorans, Cubans, Brazilians” and others made up 367,000 of the total arrests.
Then came Honduras, 309,000; Guatemala, 279,000; and El Salvador, 96,000.
The report said that 61 percent of those entering illegally were expelled, which would mean about 650,000 illegal immigrants have entered the country to stay.
On Tuesday, Chris Magnus, the police chief from Tucson, Arizona, who has been nominated to run Customs and Border Protection, said the numbers represented a “significant challenge” and “the numbers are very high.”
In response to the illegal immigration crisis and the Biden administration’s lack of action, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas drafted what he called the “Stop the SURGE Act” that would open up new ports of entry in Democratic strongholds, so those areas could share in what Texas border towns are experiencing. The locations are in Delaware, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and California.
“For the past ten months, President Biden and his administration have willingly surrendered the United States’ southern border to dangerous criminal cartels, with no thought given to the South Texas border communities like McAllen and Del Rio, which are running low on resources from dealing with this massive influx of illegal immigrants. That’s why today I am introducing this crucial legislation to alleviate the massive overload at the southern border by establishing new ports of entry in Democrat-led communities such as North Hero, Vermont, where Bernie Sanders spends his summers, and Martha’s Vineyard, where Democrat elites host their cocktail parties,” Cruz said.
“If Washington Democrats had to endure even a fraction of the suffering South Texas families, farmers, ranchers and small businesses have had to face, our nation’s immigration laws would be enforced, the wall would be built and the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy would be re-implemented,” he continued.
“From my time this year on the ground in Laredo and Del Rio, it is abundantly clear that President Biden has all but abandoned our border patrol agents and processing facilities, and left Texas communities to fend for themselves. President Biden and Democrats need to step up to defend our southern border and support our heroic Customs and Border Protection officials,” he said.
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd on Wednesday addressed a disturbing report about migrants with terrorist ties, calling it a “worst-case scenario” for the country due to President Joe Biden’s open-border policies.
In a Republican National Committee podcast posted to YouTube on Monday, Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales said he’d met recently with Panama’s foreign minister, Erika Mouynes, and was told that the country had detained 52 migrants linked to the al-Qaida terrorist group.
The Biden administration is not doing its job, Gonzales said.
“She goes, ‘There’s no one home. I’m here talking to you because the administration is just absent,’” Gonzales said, according to The Washington Times.
(The podcast interview can be seen here. The terrorism discussion starts about the 18:55 mark.)
In a “Fox & Friends First” interview Wednesday, Judd explained what that kind of news could mean.
“This is the worst-case scenario because we just don’t know the number of people who are getting away,” Judd said.
“This is the worst-case scenario”:
National Border Patrol President Brandon Judd speaks on the potential for terrorists to enter the U.S. because of President Biden’s open border policies.https://t.co/GACKIdh2Kh
“And when you consider that that many people have already been spotted in another country with ties to terrorism, and then you look at the number of people who are crossing our border with ties to countries like Russia, Romania, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Gambia, Senegal, these countries generally tend to have animosity towards the United States and they’re coming in,” he added.
Are the Biden administration’s policies leaving the country open to a terror attack from the southern border?
The number of illegal immigrants encountered by the Border Patrol this year is already on a record-setting pace, but Judd noted that with the number of those who get through without being caught, neither the government nor anyone else can know for sure who is entering the country.
“Then you look at the number of got-aways and the people that have been able to cross our border illegally… We just don’t know what’s coming across the border and that is scary,” he said.
“It needs to be a point of emphasis for this administration in order to protect the American public, but they just don’t seem to have the will to do what is necessary, to secure our borders, to make it safe for the citizens of this country,” Judd added.
When Judd was asked if he considered the border situation a national security crisis, he didn’t hold back.
“It is, and it always has been, when you look at what we deal with and what we face on a daily basis. Regardless of whether you consider it just people from countries of special interest or countries that want to do us harm, when you look at drugs on top of that as well, this has always been a national security interest,” Judd said.
“It needs to be something that is looked at very, very hard,” he added.
Last week, illegal migrants from at least eight different nations, including Uzbekistan, crossed the southern border at Yuma, Arizona, in a single day as the migration crisis continues to escalate in the area.
Jorge Ventura, a reporter with the Daily Caller, shared a video of a family from India illegally entering the U.S. through a route known as “The Gap.”
My first time encountering migrants from India crossing illegally into Yuma at ‘The Gap’. So far I’ve encountered migrants from 8 different countries today in Yuma pic.twitter.com/IujT57ACTu
“Group of 80 migrants from Georgia, Venezuela, Brazil, Uzbekistan and El Salvador apprehended by [Border Patrol] in the Yuma sector,” Ventura tweeted.
Group of 80 migrants from Georgia, Venezuela, Brazil, Uzbekistan and El Salvador apprehended by border patrol in the Yuma sector pic.twitter.com/2fsKPqVOJZ
One sex crime didn’t result in much more than a slap on the wrist for this illegal immigrant.
And now, Fiston Ngoy, 35, is accused of raping a woman last week on a Philadelphia commuter train — as other passengers did nothing to stop it.
A report from Fox News after an investigation by “Tucker Carlson Tonight” revealed that Ngoy has been in the country illegally since 2015 when the student visa he used to enter the U.S. from the Congo was terminated.
Fox reported that Ngoy had “multiple arrests and two misdemeanor convictions, one for controlled substances and one for sexual abuse.”
Police say the suspect, 35-year-old Fiston Ngoy, is facing rape and several other charges. Investigators say the sexual attack happened while others were standing around on the train and “did nothing.” @MattPetrillo reportshttps://t.co/DnKjTMxNfO
In 2017, according to Fox, Ngoy pleaded guilty to sexual assault in Washington, D.C., and was sentenced to six months in prison followed by 90 days probation.
Ngoy was put in immigration detention in January 2018, which meant he would have been deported.
But the system ground on in its inscrutable fashion and in March 2019, the Board of Immigration Appeals decided that a misdemeanor sex offense was not a “serious crime,” Fox reported.
Have the open borders activists made life in America unsafe?
The Board of Immigration Appeals then decided Ngoy could stay in the country as long as he reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement under an order of supervision.
He is now accused of raping a woman Wednesday night as other passengers either watched the attack or recorded it on their phones.
“He should have been deported. This should never have happened. He should not have been here. And the only reason he was is because he had a lot of people like him have been invited here and allowed to stay by the people who run the country, but who don’t ride the train,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in a commentary Tuesday night.
“So why aren’t the people who allowed him to remain here in jail themselves? They certainly should be,” Carlson said.
“So to recap, you can walk into our country at the invitation of our leaders at public expense. You can overstay your visa and in so doing, mock our laws. Then you can get busted for drugs and a sex crime, not deported, allowed to stay. And then you go on — probably inevitably at this point — to rape a woman on a train in full view of a crowd that does nothing to stop it,” he said.
Police said the crime was witnessed by multiple riders who did nothing.
“As many as 10 people actually saw some part of the attack on this rider,” said Thomas Nestel III, Transit Police chief for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, according to the Daily Mail.
Nestel said authorities reviewed video surveillance cameras.
“We were watching to see if somebody put a phone up to their ear indicating they might be calling 911. Instead, what we saw was people holding their phone up as if they were recording or taking pictures,” he said.
The attack was reported by an off-duty SEPTA employee.
Ngoy was charged with rape, sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault without consent, and other crimes, according to The New York Times.
He was being held at the Delaware County Jail on $180,000 bail, the Times reported.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a bill on Tuesday that would create new ports of entry in locations like Martha’s Vineyard, where illegal immigrants would be sent to hold President Joe Biden and Democrats accountable for ignoring the “man-made” border crisis.
The bill, called the Stop the SURGE Act, would create 13 new ports nationwide where illegal immigrants encountered in Texas would be transferred to relieve overwhelmed Border Patrol resources.
“I’m introducing crucial legislation to alleviate the massive overload at the southern border by establishing new ports of entry in Democrat-led communities such as Martha’s Vineyard, where Democrat elites host their cocktail parties,” Cruz tweeted with the announcement of the legislation.
I’m introducing crucial legislation to alleviate the massive overload at the southern border by establishing new ports of entry in Democrat-led communities such as Martha’s Vineyard, where Democrat elites host their cocktail parties. #BidenBorderCrisishttps://t.co/3cX9i8NPlk
In a statement, the senator announced the bill was being introduced “to demand President Biden, his administration, and Congressional Democrats address the unprecedented man-made crisis on the South Texas border and their political decisions that directly created it.”
“For the past ten months, President Biden and his administration have willingly surrendered the United States’ southern border to dangerous criminal cartels, with no thought given to the South Texas border communities like McAllen and Del Rio, which are running low on resources from dealing with this massive influx of illegal immigrants,” Cruz said.
“That’s why today I am introducing this crucial legislation to alleviate the massive overload at the southern border by establishing new ports of entry in Democrat-led communities such as North Hero, Vermont, where Bernie Sanders spends his summers, and Martha’s Vineyard, where Democrat elites host their cocktail parties,” he added.
Cruz’s goal is to end “this horrific humanitarian crisis” along the nation’s southern border.
Should new entry ports be created for immigrants to hold Democrats responsible for the border crisis?
“If Washington Democrats had to endure even a fraction of the suffering South Texas families, farmers, ranchers, and small businesses have had to face, our nation’s immigration laws would be enforced, the wall would be built, and the Remain in Mexico policy would be re-implemented,” Cruz said.
“I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stop ignoring the plight of South Texas communities and act swiftly to end this horrific humanitarian crisis.”
The Texas senator accused Democrats of “completely ignoring” the crisis over the past 10 months.
“My Democrat colleagues have hosted hearing after hearing on amnesty and federalizing elections while completely ignoring the crisis at our southern border. From my time this year on the ground in Laredo and Del Rio, it is abundantly clear that President Biden has all but abandoned our border patrol agents and processing facilities, and left Texas communities to fend for themselves,” Cruz added.
He concluded with strong words of support for the Customs and Border Protection officials who defend our nation’s borders: “President Biden and Democrats need to step up to defend our southern border and support our heroic Customs and Border Protection officials.”
The senator also appeared on Fox News on Tuesday to discuss the new legislation. “Democrats need to face the disaster of their policies and the humanitarian misery they are causing,” he said.
Democrats need to face the disaster of their policies and the humanitarian misery they are causing.
That’s why I’ve introduced a bill to create new ports of entry in places like Greenwich, Martha’s Vineyard, Rehoboth Beach, and Palo Alto. #BidenBorderCrisispic.twitter.com/VaqYlbqXuT
Martha’s Vineyard, one of the proposed ports of entry, was the location of former President Barack Obama’s star-studded 60th birthday party earlier this year.
Another proposed port of entry is Palo Alto, California, located near tech giants Facebook and Google.
Other ports of entry include well-known destinations such as Greenwich, Connecticut, and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Cuts proposed as southern border faces a decades-high surge of illegal immigrants
Senate Democrats are moving to slash the budget for Customs and Border Protection by half a billion dollars in the midst of an immigration crisis, putting more strain on an agency with nearly exhausted resources.
The appropriations bill, released Monday by Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.), allocates just $14.5 billion to CBP for the 2022 fiscal year, down from $15 billion the year before and $80 million less than what President Joe Biden requested in his budget. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would receive $7.9 billion, a cut of $40 million from the previous year and $58 million less than what Biden asked for.
Democrats also proposed reduced funding for family detention centers, while pumping more money toward constructing new migrant processing centers along the U.S.-Mexico border. The measure indicates that Democrats don’t see the surge ending anytime soon. The new processing centers, they say, will reduce migrant time in custody. The bill forbids Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from enforcing immigration laws. It instead directs the agency to only focus on “the disruption of transnational crime,” such as drug trafficking or money laundering.
The proposed cuts come as the southern border faces a decades-high surge of illegal immigrants attempting to enter the United States. Immigration authorities expect to report nearly two million migrant encounters at the border this fiscal year, the first time the number has exceeded one million since 2006.
“It’s time for the Department of Homeland Security to make investments in what protects us, not what divides us,” Murphy said in a statement. “The ineffective and inhumane border policies and political vanity projects of the Trump Administration didn’t make our nation safer, and it’s time to turn the page to fund policies that meet the actual threats presented to this nation.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Senate Democrats in a summary of the billsaid cuts to detention centers were warranted by “lower overall detention numbers due to the pandemic and related-litigation.” Between January and August, however, the number of illegal aliens detained by ICE increased by 70 percent, according to data provided by the agency.
The Senate Democrats’ proposal represents another blow to an agency already frustrated by the White House’s apparent lack of interest in funding border security and migrant processing measures. A senior DHS official who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon sounded the alarm on the president’s initial budget request to Congress, citing inflation and lack of manpower at CBP as challenges that need to be addressed.
“We were already going to have less money next year under Biden’s plan,” the official said. “This is not a party serious about enforcing immigration law.”
For most of 2021, the border crisis has owned the political spotlight. Not long after Joe Biden took office in January, the numbers of encounters and arrests at the border quickly skyrocketed.
Since then, the situation has evidently worsened. The Del Rio bridge mess represents the most recent failure of policy, but border authorities say the crisis is a daily problem.
But Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has a solution — and it’s bound to annoy Democrat leaders.
Given the seemingly endless flood of migrants simply walking into our country, the question now becomes: where do we send them all?
If we’re not willing to deport or even detain them, and we refuse to enforce existing border and immigration laws, we have to figure out how to house them. And that’s where Cruz’s idea comes in.
He’s proposing a new bill that would send migrants directly into Democrat playgrounds.
He first slammed President Biden’s administration for “willingly surrendering the U.S. southern border to dangerous criminal cartels.” And of course, Cruz’s home state of Texas bears the brunt of the onslaught.
So, the Senator believes Democrats should feel what Texas feels every day.
From Fox News:
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced a bill to bring processing centers for illegal immigrants to where the ‘Democrat elites host their cocktail parties.’
Fox News exclusively obtained a press release announcing Cruz’s new bill, the Stop the Surge of Unsafe Rio Grande Encampments (SURGE) Act.
The bill not only makes a strong point, it also takes an obvious jab at leftist elites in D.C.
Cruz is saying that so many of them live in wealthy communities, all of which are a long way from the Texas-Mexico border. As a result, they have no idea just how much the migrant surge damages the country.
That’s where this bill comes in. According to Sen. Cruz, it’s designed:
…to alleviate the massive overload at the southern border by establishing new ports of entry in Democrat-led communities such as North Hero, Vermont, where Bernie Sanders spends his summers, and Martha’s Vineyard, where Democrat elites host their cocktail parties.
Cruz cited the “families, ranchers, and small businesses” in South Texas that suffer due to the extreme border failure.
And he believes that if the D.C. Democrats “had to endure even a fraction of the suffering,” maybe they’d realize just how dangerous the situation really is.
Cruz said that if they did experience it, they’d be quick to build the wall and re-implement former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which border officials said was effective.
The Republican leader also wanted to make it clear that Democrats have talked about amnesty, while “completely ignoring the crisis.”
The SURGE Act would open 13 new immigration processing centers around the nation, and that does include high-end locales like Martha’s Vineyard and Governor’s Island in New York.
On top of that, the undocumented travelers would be “transferred to these new ports for processing,” and the “insulated communities” will have to help deal with the crisis.
As far as Cruz concerned, it’s only fair.
Democrats seem to think there’s nothing wrong with countless unregistered foreigners flooding into the country, and that it’s just “racist” to claim there’s a problem.
Except states like Texas know exactly how big of a problem it is — and Sen. Cruz simply wants rich Democrat elites to experience it for themselves.
Key Takeaways:
Sen. Ted Cruz has introduced the “SURGE Act,” which would open 13 new processing centers for undocumented travelers.
This brings those unregistered migrants to several Democrat playgrounds, including Martha’s Vineyard.
Cruz believes the Democrat elites should help “shoulder the burden” of the crisis, which has caused a lot of strife and suffering in Texas.
Sheriff Brad Coe of Kinney County, Texas, has taken it upon himself to handle President Joe Biden’s border crisis — a crisis that continues to spiral out of control.
The United States’ southern border has indeed seen an unprecedented surge in traffic, mostly due to illegal aliens attempting to cross over in record numbers.
Coe has decided if Biden’s not going to put together a team to handle the crisis, the sheriff will do it himself.
During an interview with The Gateway Pundit on Monday, Coe announced he would be deputizing 10 local citizens to help rescue his county from the crisis.
To fill out the 10 spots, Coe is looking for “those that have some kind of either police or military experience.”
Coe further pointed out that the federal government’s failures have left local law enforcement at the border with no choice but to take the matter into their own hands.
“As far as taking it into our own hands, the border patrol … we didn’t have much a choice,” Sheriff Coe told The Gateway Pundit.
“The border patrol was completely overwhelmed at the time, thousands of people coming, just turning themselves in, that wanted to get caught, created this problem.”
The last few months have seen the border crisis continue to deteriorate.
In August, the use of catch-and-release policies used for illegal immigrants under the Biden administration was up 430,000 percent from the previous year.
In August of 2020, the Trump administration caught 47,000 migrants at the southern border and released only 10 of them into the United States immediately.
Conversely, in August of 2021, the Biden administration detained 195,000 migrants and released 43,941 of them into the United States.
The increase from 10 to 43,941 is staggering and fails to account for the many illegal immigrants the Biden administration fails to catch due to its lax border enforcement policies.
Biden’s border crisis has also allowed drugs to filter over into the United States from Mexico.
According to Sheriff Mark Dannels of Cochise County, Arizona, “This fiscal year we’ve had 10,000 pounds of fentanyl, 180,000 pounds of meth, 86,000 pounds of cocaine, 5,000 pounds of heroin and 311,000 pounds of marijuana” enter the country through the southern border.
With his empty words and inaction, Biden has made it clear his administration will not be stopping this border catastrophe any time soon.
If there is any hope in stopping this crisis, that hope lies with Sheriff Coe and other local officials doing their best to protect their people.
While Americans sleep, the fly-by-night tactics of the Biden administration are delivering illegal immigrants to communities across the country, according to a new report.
Ever since President Joe Biden took office, the southern border has been flooded with illegal immigrants, which the Biden administration allows to remain in the U.S. As the influx of migrants continues to grow and the border crisis worsens, more and more of the Biden administration’s policy has been revealed.
In May, WCRB-TV in Chattanooga, Tennessee, reported on the surreptitious strategy taking place there, in which migrant children who were flown in overnight were later bused to cities in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. In August, neighbors of the airport in Abilene, Texas, reported to KTAB-TV that Biden administration officials were using it as a jumping-off point to fly illegal immigrants to points unknown across the country.
And now, the New York Post has released two of destinations migrants are being transported to — the upscale New York City suburbs of Westchester County and Jacksonville International Airport in Florida.
The Post reported that the Texas-based flights to New York began in August, one of the many months when more than 200,000 illegal immigrants tried to cross into America. Its analysis estimates that more than 2,000 illegal immigrants have landed at Westchester County Airport since Aug. 8.
Tipped off about the flights, the Post said its reporters saw flights largely composed of children and teenagers, with some young adults, landing in Westchester County. One flight had 100 people aboard, the outlet reported.
Do you think the communities they are placing these migrants in should be notified?
After landing, some were taken to New Jersey and others to Long Island. Others were sent to locations in New York City or Connecticut. Some children went away in cars one by one, the Post said.
The Post also had sources at the Jacksonville airport that saw a group estimated at 10 to 15 people who landed and were taken by bus to the Twin Oaks Academy, a juvenile detention center near Tallahassee, Florida.
A spokeswoman for Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis bristled at the revelation.
“If the Biden Administration is so confident that their open-border policy is good for our country, why the secrecy,” spokeswoman Christina Pushaw said.
She continued, “Why is the Biden Administration refusing to share even the most basic information about illegal alien resettlement in communities throughout our state and the entire country?”
“Washington, DC, sets immigration policies that do not affect them, and states — that lack information about migrant resettlement and do not have the authority to change federal immigration policy — are expected to bear the brunt of Biden’s reckless open-borders agenda,” she said.
The Post said that a woman who lives near the Westchester airport said one plane arrived “around 3 or 4” on the morning she was interviewed “and it was shaking the house” so much it woke up her eight-month-old son.
“He’s been waking up for the last month around 2, 3, 4 because of the noise,” said the woman, whose name was not used. “I got used to the regular airport noise, but these planes or jets sound different. Lower, more bass. And they’re coming in the middle of the night!”
Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican exploring a run for governor of New York, said explanations have been in short supply.
“The Biden administration is systematically spreading the southern border crisis to communities all around the country, often shrouded in secrecy and under the cloak of darkness,” he said.
Astorino went on to explain that he himself saw “at least 50 to 75 migrants” boarding a bus after departing a flight. “No one has explained where they’re going and who they are,” he said.
A Biden administration spokesman claimed the flights were legit.
“It is our legal responsibility to safely care for unaccompanied children until they can be swiftly unified with a parent or a vetted sponsor. Our Office of Refugee Resettlement facilitates travel for the children in its custody to their family or sponsors across the country,” said Jorge Silva, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.
“In recent weeks, unaccompanied children passed through the Westchester airport en route to their final destination to be unified with their parents or vetted sponsor,” he said.
Former police chief Chris Magnus in 2020 rejected federal grant for border towns
President Joe Biden’s pick to lead Customs and Border Protection, while working as police chief in Tucson, Ariz., rejected funding for a border security program championed by the Obama administration, the latest example of the White House’s commitment to undo years of immigration policy once thought of as a consensus between Democrats and Republicans.
Chris Magnus, a champion of softer policing tactics, rejected a federal grant in January 2020 that assisted border towns, arguing the program, first implemented by the Bush administration in 2006, was inconsistent with the Tucson Police Department’s priorities “and the expectation of the community we serve.”
His opposition to the grant was partially rooted in the Trump administration’s refusal to let Tucson spend part of the grant money on humanitarian aid. Magnus’s request went far beyond the parameters of the program, called Operation Stonegarden, which “funds investments in joint efforts to secure the United States’ borders.” A description of the latest iteration of the program under the Biden administration does not say whether funds may be used for medical treatment or housing illegal immigrants.
Operation Stonegarden was championed by former president Barack Obama, who injected millions more dollars into the program than was allocated by the Bush administration as part of a broader effort to deter narcotics trafficking and cartel violence. Former Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano called the grants “critical” and said they would “ensure that our first responders are equipped with the resources they need to confront the complex and dynamic challenges that exist along our borders.”
As the southern border sees a record number of crossings, the Biden administration remains committed to liberalizing the nation’s immigration system with a range of new policies, including relaxed asylum rules, stricter deportation protocols, and fewer raids against suspected illegal immigrants. Magnus appears prepared to oversee these policies. In 2017, he wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times that he was “deeply troubled” by the Trump administration’s opposition to local sanctuary policies, a practice by Democrat-controlled cities that sharply limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Magnus’s decision to reject the funds in 2020 sparked outrage from his own department, with the Tucson Police Officers Association calling the decision “bad for public safety in our community.”
“The Stonegarden deployments have resulted in hundreds of arrests that would not have occurred without this federal money. Additionally, the Stonegarden deployments have taken countless guns and drugs off the streets of Tucson,” the association’s president, Tony Archibald, said at the time. “Without these federally funded overtime deployments, an already understaffed police department will have a hard time addressing these crime issues.”
Toward the end of his second term, Obama instituted a policy that denied Department of Justice grants to any jurisdiction that refused to enforce federal immigration law. His Justice Department also released a rule in February 2016 that made it harder for sanctuary cities to help illegal aliens in federal custody avoid deportation.
That move was applauded by Republicans, with former Texas representative John Culberson (R.) saying he was “deeply grateful.”
Biden reversed the Obama-era policy and his Justice Department has sought dismissal of any Supreme Court cases concerning sanctuary cities.
On the campaign trail, Biden chided his former boss for overseeing a “long-broken and chaotic” immigration system. In a debate with former president Donald Trump, he said the Obama administration “made a mistake” by deporting hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. He promised to make amnesty a centerpiece of his administration.
Last month, Obama granted an interview to ABC News where he offered veiled criticism of the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant crisis. As thousands of Haitian migrants were stranded under a bridge on Del Rio, Texas, the former president said the scene was a “painful reminder that we don’t have this right yet and we’ve got more work to do,” before rejecting the idea of open borders as “unsustainable.”
“And the question is now: Are we gonna get serious about dealing with this problem in a systemic way, as opposed to these one-offs where we’re constantly reacting to emergencies?” Obama said. “And I think that that’s something that every American should wanna put an end to.”
Magnus’s confirmation hearing will be held in the Senate Finance Committee on Oct. 19.
Aaron Stevenson, DHS Insider and Intelligence Research Specialist for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: “An email sent out by the Director of USCIS, which notified us about a rule change coming forward, is going to shift the adjudicative authority of defensive asylum away from immigration judges and giving it to asylum officers, which are USCIS.”
Ur Jaddou, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: “The proposed system seeks to reduce processing times by transferring the initial responsibility for adjudicating certain protection claims from immigration judges to USCIS asylum officers. This rule would simplify the adjudication process for certain individuals who are encountered at or near the border, placed into expedited removal proceedings, and determined to have a credible fear of persecution or torture.”
Stevenson: “This is going to be the biggest change to immigration policy in my lifetime. It’s being done without anybody knowing what’s going on about it and there’s been no coverage for the American people to know what’s going on.”
Stevenson: “[This new policy] leaves very little accountability to the public when this kind of operation exists. And when you couple that with giving the adjudicative authority away from an immigration judge to an asylum officer, you are removing any type of public pressure that they could apply on policies that they’re creating.”
Stevenson: “If the asylum officers get this ability, I will say it’s going to be a rubber stamp of immediately getting ‘credible fear’ or ‘reasonable fear’ [asylum seekers] to be able to stay in the country if they’re going to be deported…also their path to citizenship.”
Stevenson: “I will lose my job” for going public.
[WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oct. 18, 2021] Project Veritas released a new video today featuring an interview with current U.S. Department of Homeland Security [DHS] insider Aaron Stevenson, who serves as an Intelligence Research Specialist for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services [USCIS].
Stevenson decided to go public with information about a “reasonable fear” loophole that exists in the federal government’s immigration policy, which could allow potentially dangerous migrants to stay in the United States under false pretenses. He had previously sat down with Project Veritas for an interview in the shadows.
“An email sent out by the Director of USCIS, which notified us about a rule change coming forward, is going to shift the adjudicative authority of defensive asylum away from immigration judges and giving it to asylum officers, which are USCIS,” Stevenson said.
“If the asylum officers get this ability, I will say it’s going to be a rubber stamp of immediately getting ‘credible fear’ or ‘reasonable fear’ [asylum seekers] to be able to stay in the country if they’re going to be deported…also their path to citizenship,” he said.
Stevenson explained why he is so concerned with this latest federal government policy. He said that USCIS asylum officers are far less accountable to the American people than immigration judges.
“[This new policy] leaves very little accountability to the public when this kind of operation exists. And when you couple that with giving the adjudicative authority away from an immigration judge to an asylum officer, you are removing any type of public pressure that they could apply on policies that they’re creating,” he said.
“This is going to be the biggest change to immigration policy in my lifetime. It’s being done without anybody knowing what’s going on about it and there’s been no coverage for the American people to know what’s going on,” he said.
Project Veritas founder and CEO James O’Keefe asked Stevenson what kind of retaliation he expects as a result of going public while blowing the whistle on the federal government:
James O’Keefe, Project Veritas founder and CEO: “So, what do you think they [federal government] are going to do to you in response to you speaking to me?”
Aaron Stevenson, DHS Insider: “I will lose my job.”
O’Keefe: “Are you afraid of that?”
Stevenson: “No, because I think this is more urgent for people to realize — because this policy change is going to continue to drive in any alien that they [federal government] deem fit. This will drive a massive swing in immigration law.”
The DHS whistleblower also said that the public can go to www.regulations.gov to make their voices heard on immigration issues such as these.
If more federal government employees have information that the public should know about, particularly encompassing vaccines and immigration issues, contact VeritasTips@protonmail.com.
About Project Veritas
James O’Keefe established Project Veritas in 2010 as a non-profit journalism enterprise to continue his undercover reporting work. Today, Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society and to engage in litigation to: protect, defend and expand human and civil rights secured by law, specifically First Amendment rights including promoting the free exchange of ideas in a digital world; combat and defeat censorship of any ideology; promote truthful reporting; and defend freedom of speech and association issues including the right to anonymity. O’Keefe serves as the CEO and Chairman of the Board so that he can continue to lead and teach his fellow journalists, as well as protect and nurture the Project Veritas culture.
Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)3 organization. Project Veritas does not advocate specific resolutions to the issues raised through its investigations. Donate now to support our mission.
Senate Democrats want to pass a new “voting rights” bill that would limit laws requiring voter identification and produce a federal framework for voting.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been skeptical of such a bill, as he is wary of a federal takeover of voter laws. Voting law has traditionally been a province of states, not the federal government.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced the new bill on Thursday, and he is planning a vote on it for next week.
One positive sign for Republicans is Schumer saying that if Republicans have ideas “on how to improve the legislation, we are prepared to hear them, debate them, and if they are in line with the goals of the legislation, include them in the bill.”
Voter identification laws, though, are critical to maintaining a fair voting system.
The Bill of Rights Institute identifies several reasons that voting identification procedures by the states are a good idea:
“In general, it is a good idea to verify a voter’s identity in order to ensure a one-vote-per-person system.
“There are many cases in which people registered in multiple states vote multiple times.
“There are many cases in which deceased registered voters cast a ballot-someone is fraudulently claiming to be the deceased voter.
“Non-citizens vote in large numbers, though they do not possess the legal right to do so.”
Voting identification laws are a fundamental way that states can use to require free and democratic elections.
Furthermore, as states have traditionally been in charge of elections, this latest bill represents an attempt at federal overreach.
Our federalist system depends on having a certain balance of power between the federal government and the state governments, which this bill threatens to make worse.
The balance of power has long been eroded by increasing the power of the federal government, and this bill represents another step backward in the balance of power.
There is a strong chance that this voting rights bill will fail, as there is a 50-50 party division in the Senate and 60 votes are required to overcome a filibuster.
Some Democrats contend that new voting rights laws in Texas and other states are a return to Jim Crow-era laws. However, this new bill in the Senate would prevent the kind of good voter identification laws that are needed in this country.
Let us hope that the Senate Republicans do not allow this bill to pass. It would be a step backward and a sign of a dangerous federal government becoming even more powerful.
Morale among Border Patrol agents has plummeted to an all-time low as they struggle to process unprecedented volumes of illegal immigrants, while knowing they’re unable to secure the border against cartel activity. Many blame their own leadership for enabling it.
“Day after day, they just look like they want to eat their gun,” an agent told The Epoch Times, referring to some local agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, who he says are bearing the brunt of it. “They just look like hell. It’s hard to put it—you just start seeing the life leaving people’s faces.”
The agent, Jose (not his real name), spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.
U.S. authorities have apprehended more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants since January, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
“It’s a very, very hopeless feeling for the Border Patrol,” Jose said. “Of course, we’re all still doing our jobs as best we can. Nobody is giving up, but it’s definitely more of a hopeless feeling just in general.”
During August, the average daily number of illegal immigrants in Border Patrol custody along the southwest border was just shy of 10,000, according to CBP. Agents are spending most of their time processing illegal immigrants rather than being on the front line along the border.
“None of us signed up to be secretaries for these family units coming in,” Jose said.
Border Patrol agents have been especially overwhelmed in the two busiest sectors—the Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio in Texas.
In one week in September, border agents scrambled to deal with an influx of nearly 15,000 mostly Haitian illegal aliens in Del Rio alone. The effort left highway checkpoints closed and hundreds of miles of the U.S.–Mexico border unpatrolled.
“If we went back to actually doing our jobs, it would be amazing,” Jose said. “But right now, the common thought on this is that we’re just aiding and abetting illegal aliens—furthering their illegal activity. Many border agents are spending the majority of their time taking care of the humanitarian needs of illegal aliens rather than out on the border stopping criminal activity.
“And that’s not what any of us signed up for.”
Thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Haitians, live in a primitive, makeshift camp under the international bridge that spans the Rio Grande between the U.S. and Mexico while waiting to be detained and processed by Border Patrol, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Leadership
The Biden administration has said it’s concentrating on the “root causes” of illegal immigration and views it as a race issue.
“Immigration, we consider, is part of racial equity—which is a broad issue, but that’s how the president has spoken about that crisis over the past several months,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in the early days of the Biden presidency.
President Joe Biden was quick in January to dismantle many of former President Donald Trump’s border security measures, which, along with his campaign rhetoric, has resulted in record surges of illegal crossings this year.
The president tapped Vice President Kamala Harris in March to address the growing border crisis, and she has since traveled to Central America and Mexico to discuss the issue with leaders from those nations.
Harris was outspoken against Border Patrol and ICE agents (comparing them to the KKK) in 2019 during the last surge of illegal immigrants, and again in 2020, when specialized border agents were deployed to Portland, Oregon, to defend a federal courthouse from Antifa and other rioters.
And Border Patrol agents haven’t forgotten.
“We knew Kamala Harris didn’t like us in the very beginning. She attacked us, called us storm troopers … in Portland, and she hated us and we knew it,” another agent, Alex, told The Epoch Times, on condition of anonymity.
“So then, she becomes our vice president and is now a border czar of the very agency she hates.
“From top down, when you have complete leadership that fundamentally does not like you; when you have agents that you don’t know if they’re working for the cartel; if you have half of America that thinks you’re the enemy and you put kids in cages and kill them, all because of propaganda, it weighs on you.”
Border Patrol apprehends illegal immigrants at Penitas, Texas, on May 10, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Alex said his children are bullied at school because he’s a Border Patrol agent.
“They’re asked if I kill kids, put kids in cages,” he said. “The border encompasses everything. So that’s why it weighs down. Because I have to think my choice to be a Border Patrol agent is negatively impacting my family’s emotional state and well-being as well. So that’s also a pretty heavy weight.”
He said it’s not a simple fix to find another job. He’s not prepared to get the COVID-19 vaccine at this stage and federal agencies are mandating it. Border Patrol agents have until Nov. 22 to be fully vaccinated or else face being fired. Several agents The Epoch Times has spoken to fall into that category. Some are submitting their retirement paperwork, while others are counting the days until they’re eligible. Agents can retire at age 50, but often stay on until mandatory retirement at 57.
“We’re not making any difference. Zero, nothing. I always say, today’s turnback is tomorrow’s gotaway,” Alex said, referring to illegal aliens that turn back to Mexico before being apprehended and those who get away from Border Patrol and enter the United States.
Then-head of the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector Austin Skero said on June 24, as illegal immigration continued to escalate: “None of us really feel good about the current situation we’re in. So it has taken a toll on morale. Our agents are frustrated. They’re frustrated, but they’re highly motivated.”
Focus
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s three-part plan to address illegal immigration is to invest in the countries that people are leaving, to build “safe, orderly, and humane pathways” for migration, and to rebuild the asylum system and refugee program. So far this year, illegal immigrants have hailed from more than 160 countries.
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said in a June 24 community meeting in Del Rio that the agency’s focus is to streamline the processing of illegal immigrants.
Border Patrol drops van loads of Haitians who crossed the U.S. border illegally at local NGO Border Humanitarian Coalition to catch a bus to San Antonio or Houston, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 22, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
This year, the administration released hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into the United States with a notice to appear, which indicates the scheduled date of their immigration court case.
However, the border agencies got so swamped that agents were directed to speed things up by handing out a “notice to report,” which is a request for the illegal immigrants to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within 60 days.
It’s unclear how many subsequently reported to ICE. The Epoch Times has submitted a freedom of information request for that data, but hasn’t received a response.
On Oct. 8, the Biden administration announced its intention to cancel existing border fence contracts in the Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio border sectors. Harris, in 2019, had called Trump’s border wall project his “vanity project” and the surge of illegal aliens an “emergency of his own creation.”
During the last crisis in 2019, Border Patrol agents were accused of running state-sanctioned concentration camps and putting “kids in cages” at the overwhelmed facilities along the border.
The Border Patrol agency took a hit in morale at the time, but this year is much worse, agents say.
“It’s definitely much more profound,” Jose said.
“We’re not securing the border anymore. We’re not fighting the incursion, we’re just rolling over and taking it. It’s just being a secretary. It’s not fixing anything, it’s not helping America.”
Well, the Biden administration may deny that there’s a crisis at the southern border and that its withdrawal from Afghanistan was a horrific failure, but the convergence of those very real issues could soon put American lives at risk.
Rep. Tom McClintock of California, the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, is warning that terrorists could try to breach our country at its weakest point thanks to the release of Islamic State prisoners by the Taliban in Afghanistan and our “porous southern border.”
I don’t care what you think about mean tweets and massive egos. I become more convinced with each passing day that former President Donald Trump will be remembered by history as having been absolutely right about the border.
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday, McClintock expressed his “grave concern” about “the security risks posed by the release of 7,000 terrorists, including members of the Taliban, ISIS-K, and Al-Qaeda, from Bagram Air Base combined with the porous southern border.
“Shortly after the president ordered the unconditional surrender of Bagram Air Base to the Taliban, Taliban forces took control and released the terrorists that had been in U.S. custody,” he wrote. “Days later 13 U.S. servicemembers were murdered by a suicide bomber at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.”
The lawmaker noted that the Islamic State Khorasan suicide bomber behind the attack was one of the terrorists released by the Taliban from Bagram Air Base.
“The whereabouts of the [other terrorists] is unknown,” McClintock said. “It is possible, if not likely, that many will attempt to enter our country through Mexico with the purpose of committing similar terrorist attacks.
“In fact, we already know that aliens found in the Terrorist Screening Database have been apprehended on the southern border this year,” he continued. “The release of thousands of terrorists back into Afghanistan and the criminal cartels’ control of human smuggling on the southwest U.S. border, mean the terrorist threat is urgent.”
The Biden administration has confirmed that thousands of terrorists were released from the prison facilities at Bagram in the days leading up to the Kabul bombing, including Islamic State Khorasan fighters known to the U.S. to be dangerous.
The U.S. abandoned Bagram in July without bothering to do a thing about the known terrorists housed there, so when the Taliban swooped in after our hasty departure, what do you think they did?
They released a horde of Islamic extremists who have pledged their lives to waging war against everyone they view as an enemy to their mission to establish an Islamic state — and you’d better believe that includes the United States of America and its citizens.
As we know, it was only days later that one of these terrorists targeted U.S. troops facilitating the escape of American citizens and at-risk Afghans from the clutches of the new Islamic regime.
Nothing — least of all our southern border — will stop these ruthless killers from trying to destroy American lives.
McClintock asked Mayorkas to “help us understand the ongoing terrorism-related threats at the southwest U.S. border and how the Biden administration’s failures in Afghanistan affect border security.”
The Republican congressman gave Mayorkas until Monday to provide his panel with information about foreign nationals encountered at the border this year and the countries they are coming from.
It’s a rather tall order, considering this administration is handling the surge of illegal migrants about as well as it did the Afghanistan withdrawal.
It’s up for debate whether Biden can blame his predecessor for the Afghanistan debacle, but there’s no escaping the fact that he made a point of reversing border policies put in place by Trump within hours of taking office. Now, overwhelmed border officials are bearing the brunt of his disastrous approach to national security and immigration.
The Biden administration has admitted 160,000 illegal aliens into the country since March and released over 94,000 of them into the U.S. interior, a crippling influx that is causing massive logistical and security challenges for communities along the southern border.
Thanks, Joe. No, really — this week, illegal immigrants who had just managed to cross our border personally thanked Biden for their easy entry into the country.
Last week, 30 lawmakers sent a letter to Biden declaring that the American people are “fed up with false reassurances that the border is closed.”
The administration’s word that the border is secure is mud — so how can we possibly trust that it’s prepared for the eventuality that Islamic terrorists waltz across it?
A year after presidential candidate Joe Biden attacked then-President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy, President Joe Biden will be putting it back into action.
“This is the first president in the United States of America that said anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That’s never happened before in America,” Biden said last October in the second debate between him and Trump, according to U.S. News and World Report.
“They’re shaking in squalor on the other side of the river,” he said.
Now, however, Biden, who tried to end the policy but has been stymied by the courts over the way he went about it, is going to embrace it beginning next month, according to CNN.
In August, 208,887 illegal immigrants were apprehended by Customs and Border Protection agents, according to ABC News. It said that was more than three times the August 2020 level of 62,707.
The “Remain in Mexico” policy, known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols, required migrants seeking asylum to await their hearings in Mexico.
The order came in response to the reality that many illegal immigrants who claimed asylum and were given court dates would never appear, instead drifting into the United States never to be found and deported.
Biden tried to end the policy, but in August, in response to a lawsuit from Texas and Missouri, a U.S. district judge ruled the administration did not lay sufficient administrative groundwork to end the program, according to The Washington Post.
The Biden administration appealed the decision to the Supreme Court but lost.
Ah, it appears the Biden Admin is realizing that telling migrants to come to the US then having no plan to screen them, process them, house them, covid test them, etc doesn’t work. Governing is hard. https://t.co/6hP0F8UGPT
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement late Thursday that it is “taking necessary steps to comply with the court order, which requires us to reimplement MPP in good faith,” the Post reported.
The statement blamed any delays in implementation on Mexico.
“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,” DHS said. “Discussions with the Government of Mexico concerning when and how MPP will be reimplemented are ongoing.”
The “Remain in Mexico” policy faded after the COVID-19 pandemic began as the Trump administration used Title 42 of the public health law to send illegal immigrants back without an asylum hearing.
The Biden administration has continued to use Title 42 to expel those illegal immigrants it does not admit.
As the Biden administration works to comply with the courts and restore the Migrant Protection Protocols, other parts of the president’s team are laying the administrative groundwork so that he can ax the policy.
A DHS memo outlining the basis for ending the policy will be “finalized shortly,” CBS News reported Friday.
However, for now, the administration is still bound to implement the policy under terms of the court ruling.
Leaked Border Patrol documents accessed by Fox News revealed that from March onwards, the Biden administration has let over 160,000 illegal immigrants into the United States.
According to Fox, the documents showed that since August the Biden administration has used limited parole authorities, in a broad way, to ensure that at least 30,000 undocumented migrants could be eligible to work in the country.
The Biden administration, since March 20, released over 94,570 illegal aliens into U.S. with Notices to Report.
Individuals who have these notices only have to make their presence known at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office when they reach their final destination.
One who checks in at an ICE office, as the policies surrounding such notices require, will not face deportation or detainment for the duration of their immigration proceedings.
NEW/THREAD: According to Border Patrol documents provided by a source, the federal gov has released over 70,000 illegal immigrants into the U.S. since August 6, including 31,977 released via parole (temp legal status, eligible for work permits). 94,570 released via NTR since 3/20 pic.twitter.com/ag5OMsYw27
On top of the notices, Fox uncovered that the Biden administration has also let around 32,000 undocumented migrants into the country by granting them parole.
Being granted parole gives an illegal alien somewhat of a legal status, which includes the ability to sign up to obtain a work permit.
Fox reported that Federal law permits parole authority for “urgent humanitarian purposes” and in situations that bring “significant public benefit” on a case-by-case basis.
An example of when this authority was used was when the Biden administration granted parole to several Afghan refugees who were flown into the country as part of Operation Allies Welcome, according to Fox.
But, the documents the news outlet accessed showed that the Biden administration has been using this legal provision a lot.
“By law and regulation a parole shall only be granted on a case by case basis and only for significant humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. Neither of these appear to apply to the current situation,” Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told Fox after taking a look at the documents.
Scott believes that the Biden administration is misusing its parole authority.
“As a field chief, I don’t believe I ever approved more than 5 or 10 paroles in a year,” Scott said.
“When I did, I ensured that the alien was monitored continuously and was detained or removed as soon as the circumstances allowed.”
Should these not be enough, Fox also learned that from Aug. 6 on, the Biden administration released 40,000 undocumented migrants “on their own recognizance.”
Furthermore, the Biden administration let 128 single adult illegal immigrants inside the country without Alternatives to Detention.
ATD usually includes “tracking by an ankle monitor or phone,” Fox reported.
Speaking to Fox, a Customs and Border Protection official said that things like using NTRs, paroling and signing up illegal aliens in ATD “[provide] mechanisms to require family units released from CBP custody to report to ICE within a specified time.”
“The documents give a partial snapshot into how the Biden administration has been releasing enormous numbers of migrants into the U.S., often with little to no oversight, supervision or immediate risk of deportation,” the Fox News report stated.
BRACKETTVILLE, Texas—Locals fed up with groups of illegal immigrants trespassing on their land and breaking into their homes and vehicles attended a town hall meeting to share their frustration with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his staff on Oct. 11.
The first questions from the audience reflected the boiling point many have reached and the prevailing feeling that they’re being left to fend for themselves: “Can we shoot back if shot at from Mexico?” “When can a property owner use force?”
“If you’re in imminent danger, I think the answer is probably yes,” said Joshua Reno, Paxton’s deputy attorney general for criminal justice, in response to the first question.
“You still have the same rights to defend yourself. This is a really difficult question, though. … The consequences, I think, are something that’s going to be very dire—we’re talking about shooting across the border to another country.”
As for using force against intruders, Reno said there’s a myriad of scenarios, but when it comes down to it, “you can defend yourself with the equal amount of force that’s being used against you—that’s the easiest way to put it.”
Brent Webster, first assistant attorney general to Paxton, put it more succinctly: “If someone’s invading your home, you have a right to defend your home with deadly force. I want to be clear about that.”
The town hall occurred just weeks after nearly 15,000 mostly Haitian illegal immigrants entered the United States and camped out under an international bridge in Del Rio, 30 minutes down the road. More than 12,400 of the Haitians were subsequently released into the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
During that time, Border Patrol highway checkpoints in the area were closed and Texas state troopers were pulled off the roads to beef up law enforcement numbers under the bridge.
Kinney County, in which Brackettville sits, shares 16 miles of international border with Mexico, and it’s a main thoroughfare for human smuggling—by foot, train, or by vehicle—from the border to San Antonio.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has arrested more than 1,100 illegal aliens trespassing in Kinney County in the past several months, according to Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe.
In early October, state troopers stopped a human smuggling attempt in Kinney County that involved four cars and included a Syrian driver who was carrying a Glock 19 and five magazines. The Syrian had a green card and was subsequently released by Border Patrol, but will likely face state charges brought by the DPS, Coe said.
A Cuban national with a green card who was residing in Houston was stopped and arrested on Oct. 13 while driving four illegal immigrants from Mexico, Coe said.
A total of 52 illegal immigrants from Mexico and Honduras wait to be booked for criminal trespass after being arrested by Texas State Troopers on local ranches, at the Kinney County Sheriffs Office in Brackettville, Texas, on Aug. 8, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Pushing for Action
At the town hall, several audience members were clearly dissatisfied with hearing that they may have to wait until after the 2022 midterm elections for the possibility of tightened border security. Many had attended a town hall meeting in May that covered the same issues, and by all accounts, illegal immigration and cross-border crime has escalated over the past five months.
“We don’t have time for an election. We really don’t. We have time to act,” said Uvalde rancher Mike Miller. “We want to live in our homes with no fear. They’re coming with weapons and the Zeta cartel is running our border right now.”
Ray Salness, who has been in Kinney County looking at private security options for ranchers, said: “We’ve got three weeks before the [next] 60,000 hit the border. Which means if we don’t get something done in two weeks, there’s not going to be a Kinney County.”
Salness implored Paxton’s team to defend Coe if he uses militia members along the border, should the state deny him the use of Texas National Guard troops.
In its latest local disaster declaration, filed on Oct. 6, Kinney County requests Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to “immediately deploy 2,000 state military personnel to Kinney County to repel an invasion and protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Texas.”
Coe said he spoke to the governor’s office on Oct. 13 and doesn’t expect any National Guard troops in Kinney County, but 1,500 personnel are being deployed to the border cities of Eagle Pass and Del Rio.
“We’re getting zero. So that tells me if they block off Del Rio and they block off Eagle Pass, where are they coming? In between. The point of least resistance,” Coe told The Epoch Times. Kinney County sits between Del Rio and Eagle Pass.
Meanwhile, Coe said he’s preparing to meet with Salness to sign an agreement to allow a “defensive security force” to come in and set up camp in the county and work the ranches for illegal activity. He’s hoping to get donations to help offset the cost through the county’s new border security website.
“We’ll try to get them deputized or something to get the ball rolling because the governor’s not going to help us,” Coe said, adding that some legal issues need to be ironed out first. He’s hoping for around 600 volunteers, but expects 100 to start.
“It’s going to be a combined effort—we’ll get intel from DPS, get intel from Border Patrol where the biggest groups are coming through, which cameras are seeing the most activity—and get them set up in those areas,” Coe said. “And then we’ll start processing them [illegal aliens], charging them, and see what happens.”
Britain’s Home Office says more than 12,500 migrants have broken the law to get into the UK so far this year. Compare this to the nearly 200,000 migrants who have crossed the nearly nonexistent southern border just in July of this year. The count is estimated by the overwhelmed U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a name that is almost contradictory given the Biden administration’s refusal to enforce the law and secure the border. It helps that Britain has a natural channel separating it from the continent, while our border resembles Swiss cheese.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words are necessary to express alarm when one looks at the “dozens of stacked columns of steel” worth $100 million dollars lying at the border? This is material that was supposed to finish a portion of the wall to reduce the flow and discourage new migrants from coming. In another spiteful move, the Biden administration has canceled all contracts with companies selected during the Trump years to build the wall. That’s taxpayer money going to waste.
No one should consider this “invasion” a happenstance. If these were soldiers coming into the country from other nations, presumably even this administration might do something about it. These are soldiers of another kind, who are untested for COVID-19, harming our economy by sucking up “benefits,” bringing crime and in some cases possible terrorism.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS.org) makes a point I have not seen elsewhere. It contends that several countries, supposedly allies of the United States, are complicit in enhancing the migrant flow: “… the United States has never seen fit to publicly acknowledge that Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica are doing this to the American people. The American public hardly knows of it. Nor has the United States sought to diplomatically leverage any of the governments to instead disrupt, slow, or outright halt the flows of people long before they reach Mexico. This strange state of tolerance and American public ignorance, even during the Trump administration, endures, despite the fact that all three of these nations are ideally positioned as trail-route bottlenecks where new U.S. strategies can significantly attenuate the problem if all involved simply acknowledge that it is happening and there is a political will to press for a solution.”
Here’s what one federal law says about immigration (8 U.S. Code § 1325): “Any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.”
Is this not what is happening at the border? Did not the president (and his attorney general) take an oath to uphold the laws of the United States?
As CNN reported in 2019, “Joe Biden once spoke about jailing employers who hire ‘illegals,’ said sanctuary cities shouldn’t be allowed to violate federal law, and argued a fence was needed to stop ‘tons’ of drugs coming into the country from ‘corrupt Mexico.’” Nothing has changed in the last two years, except Biden’s position.
If you are watching the right TV channels, you are seeing how a country is destroyed. History—depending on who writes it—will rightly blame President Biden.
Critics of President Joe Biden’s non-defense of the southern border have emphasized his constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3).
This is a good point, but it has some weaknesses. The duty to “take Care” is inherently discretionary, rendering it unlikely that the courts would enforce it. Almost certainly, a “take Care” lawsuit would be held not justiciable.
Some have suggested impeachment for failure to “take Care,” but this wouldn’t work, either. Remember that a linchpin of President Donald J. Trump’s successful impeachment defense was that conviction requires proof of a serious crime. Any Republican efforts to backpedal from that position would be met with public derision.
Moreover, that position is the correct one. The Constitution’s grounds for impeachment are “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and [high] Misdemeanors” (Article II, Section 4). The first three are all serious crimes, and new research findings tell us that the phrase “high misdemeanors” signifies heinous crimes not meriting the death penalty (pdf). Mere neglect of duty, no matter how egregious, is not a high misdemeanor unless it meets traditional standards of criminality.
But there is another constitutional provision relevant to the Biden administration’s conduct—less noticed, but just as important. It is Article IV, Section 4:
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
This provision is known as the Guarantee Clause.
What the Guarantee Clause Does
The Guarantee Clause both imposes obligations and implicitly grants the federal government power to meet those obligations. Although constitutional law courses often underplay the Guarantee Clause, it is one of the Constitution’s most important provisions. It stabilizes the Union. It is the chief source of the federal power of national defense. It sometimes authorizes military action without a declaration of war: all facts lost on many constitutional writers.
The Guarantee Clause imposes three specific obligations on “The United States”—which, in this context, means the U.S. government. They are:
to guarantee every state a republican form of government;
to protect every state from invasion; and
when a state requests help, to protect that state against domestic violence.
Republican Form of Government
The obligation to ensure that states are “republican” enables the federal government to stabilize the Union by preventing states from slipping into monarchy or anarchy.
Many people think “republican” means excluding direct democracy in favor of wholly representative institutions. That is incorrect: It is a myth derived from a political dispute in the 1840s. Founding-era records show that a “republican form of government” is one that follows the rule of law and is ultimately responsible to the citizenry rather than to a monarch (pdf).
The “republican form of government” portion of the Guarantee Clause is not relevant to the present crisis. None of our states are monarchies or anarchies. The crisis is the Biden administration’s flagrant disregard for the rule of law.
Invasion
The Guarantee Clause’s second obligation is to protect states against invasion. The Founding-era record confirms that, as the Constitution uses the term, invasion does not mean an incursion by a pandemic or by killer bees. It means a human invasion from a foreign country.
Nowadays, we usually think of an invasion as a military operation. But the Constitution sometimes uses words differently than we do. To determine the Constitution’s true meaning, you often must examine Founding-era sources. For example, scholars and Supreme Court justices commonly consult 18th century dictionaries (pdf) for guidance on how to understand the Constitution’s words and phrases.
Those dictionaries tell us that invasion frequently referred to incursions other than military attacks. Thus, Nathan Bailey’s 1783 English dictionary described it as “a descent upon a country, an [sic] usurpation, or encroachment.” (Founding-era dictionaries usually separated alternative definitions by punctuation alone, rather than by numbers.) Bailey defined usurpation as “a taking wrongfully to one’s own use that which belongs to another.” No actual violence was necessary.
“Usurpation” and “encroachment” certainly describe what illegal immigrants are doing at the border.
Here is the entry for the invasion in Francis Allen’s 1765 dictionary: “the entrance or attack of an enemy on the possessions or dominions of another; an encroachment, or unlawful attack of the rights of another.” (Italics added.) The latter two definitions clearly describe what is happening at the border today.
Similarly, in Frederick Barlow’s compilation (1772–73), to invade was “to enter into a country in a warlike manner. To attack; to assail or assault. To make the first attack. To seize on like an enemy. To encroach.” (Italics added.)
Whether or not swarms of illegal immigrants are actually attacking, assailing, or assaulting, they certainly are encroaching.
In defining invade and invasion, some 18th century lexicographers added the adjective “hostile.” Thomas Sheridan’s 1789 dictionary defined invasion as “Hostile entrance upon the rights or possessions of another, hostile encroachment.” The compilations by John Ash (1775) and William Perry (1789) also inserted “hostile,” as did the Samuel Johnson’s much-celebrated dictionary (multiple editions; first published in 1756).
However, in 18th century usage, hostile did not necessarily imply a military-style attack. It often meant “adverse to” or “without permission.” Johnson, for instance, gave three definitions of hostile: (1) adverse, (2) opposite, and (3) suitable to an enemy. Only the last sounds anything like a military operation. The entry in Ash’s dictionary was similar.
This non-military use survives in the law of adverse possession of land. When the courts say an adverse possessor’s use of land must be “hostile,” they don’t mean the possessor must march in with ensigns spread. They mean only that he must take possession without the permission of the title owner.
Here’s the point: The current situation at the southern border—both massive and apparently coordinated—is an “invasion” as the Constitution uses the term. Biden’s failure to stop it is a violation of the Guarantee Clause.
Domestic Violence
The third obligation imposed by the Guarantee Clause is to protect the states against domestic violence when formally requested to do so. Although illegal immigrants have committed a fair amount of violence, none of the state legislatures has demanded protection under this portion of the Guarantee Clause. If a state does so, that will trigger another presidential obligation.
However, in view of the administration’s flagrant authoritarianism, states may well be wary about asking for federal troops to come into their territory.
Are These Obligations Enforceable?
The Supreme Court has held that issues pertaining to the republican form of government are for congressional determination, not for the judiciary. Such cases are non-justiciable. However, for the other two obligations, the case for court review is much better. If a state sues the federal government for failure to defend it against invasion or domestic violence, then there are two adverse parties—state and federal government—each strongly motivated to present the judges with the information they need to decide the case. This is an important criterion for justiciability.
Even if the courts refuse jurisdiction, a state making a formal charge thereby presents its case to the court of public opinion: “We are being invaded. We have asked for help. The president is obligated to provide it but refuses to do so. Hold him accountable.”
All the states on the southern border should make those formal charges. Loud and clear.
Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor and senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver, has published a leading scholarly article on the Guarantee Clause (pdf), wrote the entry on the Guarantee Clause in the “Heritage Guide to the Constitution,” and is the author of “The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant” (3rd ed., 2015).
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham visited Yuma, Arizona, and expressed concern that the city could become the next Del Rio, Texas, the recent site of an encampment of thousands of illegal immigrants.
“Migrants coming to the US today are not trying to avoid detection — in fact they are turning themselves in,” Graham tweeted on Tuesday.
“Our asylum laws are being abused. It is what is leading to this surge at the border,” he added.
Migrants coming to the US today are not trying to avoid detection — in fact they are turning themselves in.
Our asylum laws are being abused. It is what is leading to this surge at the border. pic.twitter.com/faf4IoO68r
“The men and women of [Customs and Border Patrol] are heroes,” Graham said. “Unfortunately, the Border Patrol is being turned into the Border ‘Processing’ Patrol.”
The South Carolina senator also predicted that Yuma will become “the next Del Rio.” Nearly 15,000 illegal Haitian migrants crossed the Rio Grande in September and gathered under a bridge in Del Rio.
On Monday, Townhall reported that Border Patrol agents in the Yuma Sector were clearing out the area’s migrant overflow facility prior to Graham’s visit.
“Sources within Border Patrol told Townhall they have been seeing a lot of ‘movement’ with regards to apprehended immigrants being moved to other Border Patrol locations, released into the United States, or being deported to Mexico, but some of the agents were not told why the overflow facility was being cleared so quickly,” the outlet reported.
One source told Townhall that “the rapid movement of immigrants from the facility was ‘to make it look like there is no problem,’ adding two weeks ago they had people sleeping on the ground while some had to wait ten days to be fully processed.”
A video posted on Twitter by Townhall’s Julio Rosas shows illegal immigrants crossing the border in the Yuma Sector.
This scene plays out all day by Morelos Dam. People illegally cross into the US, they wait for Border Patrol since agents are often not there, they are then escorted through a gap in the border wall that was created when Biden halted construction. This group were Nicaraguans. pic.twitter.com/EuvAwi7nIi
Haitians have been massing at the southern border of the United States, and their situation is precarious. There is great suffering, with not much hope of alleviation in the immediate future. The hearts and minds of all men and women of goodwill go out to these people, in hope and prayer for their safety and well-being.
But this situation raises several questions. We have it on good authority that the United States is systematically, systemically, irredeemably, and irretrievably racist. The 50 states are dominated by white supremacists, racists, bigots, Nazis. We know this on good authority. The Black Lives Matter movement has demonstrated this over and over again, and then once more again. Proof of this contention emanates from major traditional media such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. The broadcast media such as CNN and MSNBC have supplied thousands of heart-rending hours of indications of this evil scourge. Hundreds, thousands, of world-class professors at the most prestigious universities in the land have supplied incontrovertible evidence in support of this claim.
Why, then, are thousands of people from the island nation seeking to immigrate to the United States? The obvious answer has to do with the poverty suffered there. Like many immigrants before them, the Haitians are seeking a better life in America.
Wait-a-sec. Virtually all Haitians are black. If there’s any white supremacy, anti-black racism in that country, it must be very insignificant, since there are so few Caucasians there. Don’t these Haitian emigrants realize that in coming to the United States they are only worsening their condition?
Then there’s the very opposite situation. Or, rather, lack of such. In 1892, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a Sherlock Holmes mystery, “Silver Blaze,” which featured a dog that didn’t bark. Something of the sort seems to be happening, or, rather, not happening, in the present context. If racism is so rife in the United States, why is there one-way traffic from places such as Haiti to the United States? Why isn’t the movement of people in the very opposite direction? That is, why are African-Americans not fleeing from this country in droves, and travelling to places like Haiti, where there is zero white supremacy and anti-black racism?
One of the most powerful indications of what is really going on in reality is “voting with the feet.” This sounds as if people go into the ballot box and instead of registering their vote with their hands, they do so, karate-like, with their toes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, this means that we as social scientists can discern where human welfare is better, and where it’s worse. Black people continually fled the south to the north in the 1930s; from this we can deduce that at least in their own minds they were improving their condition. Jews left Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and Egypt in ancient times; they did not attempt to enter there. Similarly, masses of people tried to move from East to West Germany and North to South Korea, not the other way around.
Why does the United States have a better economy than Haiti? It is, obviously, because we rely to a greater degree here than there on the sanctity of private property rights, of economic freedom, of capitalism, and of other such institutions of Western civilization that are all too often dismissed as “white supremacy.” According to the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Index (pdf), the United States ranks as the sixth-freest country in the world; Haiti registers at number 118 out of 165 countries.
The people who claim that the United States is an unregenerate racist country reject all of these institutions. In addition, they aver that mathematics is racist, as is capitalism. The wokesters are trying to rid orchestras of the music of Bach and Mozart on the grounds that all white males such as these are racist.
Maybe there’s something not all that bad about the prevalent “racism” that supposedly occurs in this country, with a former black president and now a vice president. Black people from elsewhere want to partake of it, and African Americans here do not seem to be fleeing from it.
A Monroe County Sheriff’s officer found 32 illegal immigrants suspected of traveling to the United States from Cuba hiding in a boat after pulling a truck over for driving too slow in Marathon, Florida, law enforcement officials announced on Monday.
Sgt. Joel Slough conducted a routine traffic stop of a rental truck hauling a large boat and found four suspected illegal immigrants in the vehicle including three young children, according to the sheriff’s department. Law enforcement officials discovered two pregnant women and a 17-year-old along with dozens of other immigrants hiding in the boat.
Slough “noted the children in the truck, the lack of child safety seats as well as the overwhelming smell of saltwater and body odor,” according to the department.
Reidel Garcia-Espino, 29, of Seffner, Florida, was charged with child neglect because none of the children in the vehicle were restrained, according to the sheriff’s department. Garcia-Espino claimed the group was out fishing, but law enforcement officials didn’t find any fishing equipment on the boat.
The illegal immigrants were transferred to Customs and Border Protection custody and Garcia-Espino was taken to jail, according to the sheriff’s office.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Homeland Security will no longer conduct raids on workplaces that employ illegal aliens
The Department of Homeland Security will no longer conduct raids on workplaces that employ illegal aliens, the latest effort from the White House to curtail the agency’s mission to enforce immigration law.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at worksites could discourage illegal immigrants from reporting other unlawful employment practices in violation of a Biden administration directive. DHS will now privilege other investigations that “most effectively protect the American labor market,” according to the memo released Tuesday.
“The deployment of mass worksite operations, sometimes resulting in the simultaneous arrest of hundreds of workers, was not focused on the most pernicious aspect of our country’s unauthorized employment challenge: exploitative employers,” the memo says. “These highly visible operations misallocated enforcement resources while chilling, and even serving as a tool of retaliation for, worker cooperation in workplace standards investigations.”
Worksite raids increased by nearly 400 percent in 2018 under former president Donald Trump, leading to the arrest and deportation of thousands of illegal aliens. During former president Barack Obama’s last year in office, ICE made just 106 worksite arrests.
Proponents of the practice say worksite raids encourage employers to fill open jobs with law-abiding U.S. citizens and visa holders and regularly lead to broader investigations for other serious crimes. In 2018, the owner of a Tennessee slaughterhouse pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud following a worksite raid. He was later sentenced to 18 months in prison.
The largest single worksite raid in DHS history took place in 2019 at a Mississippi food processing plant and resulted in the arrest of 680 illegal aliens. Four Americans were also charged with violating immigration law.
Former immigration officials say the Biden administration will only encourage companies to abuse workers. Corporations will be able to hire illegal immigrants at substandard wages with impunity, according to former ICE chief of staff Jon Feere.
“Lawbreaking employers have benefited from the Biden administration’s lack of worksite enforcement this year, and now Mayorkas is outright abolishing this important enforcement tool,” Feere said. “Media in Central America reported on ICE worksite operations under the Trump administration and that undoubtedly had the effect of discouraging illegal immigration.”
The Mayorkas memo effectively restores Obama-era policies, which critics say hamstrung the agency from policing employers. By delegating the Department of Labor to be the chief investigator when an illegal alien files a worksite complaint, as Mayorkas’s memo orders, DHS is sidelined.
Under Obama, the Labor Department refused to share information about investigations with DHS, nor would it allow joint investigations with DHS. That practice ended most employer investigations by DHS, meaning lawbreaking employers often went unpunished. In his memo, Mayorkas calls for a review of whether E-Verify—a federal tool that allows businesses to check if a prospective employee is an illegal alien—is “not manipulated to suppress unauthorized workers from, or to punish unauthorized workers for, reporting unlawful labor practices such as substandard wages, unsafe working conditions, and other forms of worker exploitation.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced federal charges against Xiaoquin Yan, who was accused of setting four fires inside First Baptist Church Montgomery on Sept. 29, according to court filings reported by WSFA 12 News.
Yan, a 27-year-old Chinese national, arrived in the United States on a student visa from China. However Yan has since had her visa revoked and is staying illegally in the country.
Yan, charged with second-degree arson, was originally held on a $30,000 bond at the Montgomery County Detention Facility.
Montgomery County District Judge Monet M. Gaines has since increased the bond five-fold to $150,000 on Oct. 5 after attorney Daryl Bailey said it was too low.
Given Yan was in the country illegally, Bailey said in a motion that the $30,000 bail was “woefully inadequate to secure her presence in court given her strong ties to an overseas country.”
Judge Gaines also ordered an evaluation of Yan’s mental state.
The fire caused at least $25,000 worth of damage, according to court documents.
The First Baptist Church Montgomery reported several pews destroyed, carpet found burned in the sanctuary, smoke and soot throughout the church, and reception office completely destroyed.
Church security traced a license plate to Yan that led to her arrest earlier this month. In a search of her home federal officers uncovered duffel bags, a handgun, ammunition, and a gas can.
Yan was allegedly caught on surveillance cameras setting fires with gasoline, causing extensive smoke damage that did not spread far enough to ignite the building.
It is unclear what her motives, if any, were at this stage.
No one was inside the century-old building and no injuries have been reported.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has been reported to attend services at the church.
Massive amounts of border wall supplies continue to waste away along the nation’s southern border after the Biden administration has canceled contracts with construction companies selected to build it.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin appeared on the network Monday morning and revealed that stockpiles of steel beams were left near the U.S.-Mexico border in south Texas.
Melugin said he had been told by a federal official that enough steel was purchased to build more than 100 miles of border wall in the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo, Texas, but very little of it was used.
“Live with @BillHemmer & @DanaPerino this morning discussing the Biden admin’s decision to cancel the border wall contract. A federal source tells me steel for over 100 miles was purchased for wall in RGV & Laredo, but only about 14 miles were completed before Biden stopped it,” Melugin tweeted.
Live with @BillHemmer & @DanaPerino this morning discussing the Biden admin’s decision to cancel the border wall contract. A federal source tells me steel for over 100 miles was purchased for wall in RGV & Laredo, but only about 14 miles were completed before Biden stopped it. pic.twitter.com/pseT3kUo6A
“What does it look like to not build the border wall? Our drone is overhead in Pharr, TX at one location where steel for the border wall has been baking in the sun & going to waste since January,” Melugin said.
“Tens of millions of dollars worth of steel here already paid for,” he added.
NEW: What does it look like to not build the border wall? Our drone is overhead in Pharr, TX at one location where steel for the border wall has been baking in the sun & going to waste since January. Tens of millions of dollars worth of steel here already paid for. @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/RTdiMTyqAh
President Joe Biden’s former Border Patrol chief, Rodney Scott, said last week that the administration was paying up to $5 million per day to contractors to not complete former President Donald Trump’s southern border wall.
Scott recounted to Fox News anchor Bret Baier that on his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order halting construction on the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Many of those projects today are just still on hold, so we’re paying contractors. For a while, it was almost $5 million a day between [the Department of Defense] and [the Department of Homeland Security] to not build the border wall,” Scott said.
“There are stacks and stacks of border wall panels,” he added, along with “hundreds of miles of fiber optic cabling” and “hundreds of cameras” that are “just sitting. There is no action being taken.”
“That money is just trickling away to those contractors for not doing work each day,” Scott said.
A report released by Republicans serving on the Senate government operations and border management subcommittee in July put a firmer number on the cost of Biden’s order to end construction.
The minority staff report determined the president’s decision had cost taxpayers between $1.837 billion and $2.087 billion to that point.
“In January 2021, DOD contractors in charge of overseeing wall construction along the southern border received $10 billion in taxpayer money, which had been obligated toward wall-related projects,” Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, ranking member of the subcommittee, said in a news release.
“By the end of June, the Biden Administration has wasted roughly 20 percent ($2 billion) of the $10 billion meant to build the wall to pay contractors to watch steel rust in the desert.”
The report said the cost stood at $3 million per day at the end of June.
Trump was able to get 453 miles of a new primary and secondary border wall built before Biden took office and was in the process of constructing 211 more miles in the Border Patrol’s San Diego, El Centro, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, Del Rio, Laredo and Rio Grande Valley sectors.
(CNSNews.com) – Never mind the hundreds of thousands of unvetted foreigners breaching the southwest U.S. border, leaving environmental degradation in their wake.
The Department of Homeland Security is worried about climate change. And all DHS employees are expected to fall in line with those concerns. In fact, they’ll be educated about the “climate crisis.”
On Thursday, DHS released a new Climate Action Plan that presents five “priority actions,” including a “DHS-wide climate education plan to raise awareness among our employees about the climate crisis.”
DHS admits that getting all employees to buy into the left’s version of climate change will be a challenge: “The Department must reach all employees to foster a workforce of understanding and compassion and ensure climate literacy is accepted and embraced,” the plan says.
And it sounds like there may be a test: “The Department will monitor progress in climate literacy through employee training and will measure employee understanding of climate change impacts and environmental justice,” the plan says.
The DHS Climate Action Plan runs 25 pages and is full of government-speak.
Priority Action #5, the climate “literacy” effort, indicates that DHS employees are expected to accept climate change dogma, as presented by leftists, without question or exception:
“Understanding, mitigating, and adapting to climate change and its impacts require cooperation across every level of DHS,” the plan says.
“DHS is committed to creating and growing a climate literate workforce that understands the principles of climate change, can assess scientifically credible information about climate, can communicate about climate change in a meaningful way, and is able to make informed decisions about climate change impacts on mission activities.”
DHS says it will create a “National Security and Climate Honors Program” to give students and recent graduates an opportunity to help DHS adapt to climate change. “DHS will aggressively pursue strategies to ensure a diverse applicant pool, to include applicants from underserved communities…”
The plan says: “Without adequate climate literacy training for employees and stakeholders, the Department risks developing infrastructure, management decisions, and project designs that do not sufficiently integrate climate resilience, environmental justice, and gender and racial equity considerations.”
The phrase “environmental justice” crops up several times, as follows: “The climate literacy curriculum will be innately tied to environmental and climate justice.”
And: “The DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties will collaborate with Department subject matter experts and stakeholders to enhance climate literacy and its intersections with environmental justice in DHS federally assisted programs.”
At a time when government schools are forcing critical race theory on unwilling students and parents, this DHS “climate literacy” effort bears watching.
Here are the other four “priority actions” identified by DHS in its Climate Action Plan:
— Ensuring climate-ready services and supplies…to secure supplies of food, medicine, energy, and other vital resources.
— Creating climate-resilient facilities and infrastructure, including by aiming to electrify 50 percent of the DHS vehicle fleet by 2030.
— Making sure “climate change considerations are appropriately incorporated” in all DHS planning and processes and mission areas;
— Incorporating climate adaptation into national preparedness and community grants and projects…to provide incentives for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments to adopt modern, disaster-resistant building codes.
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Human smugglers are using the social media app TikTok to promote their illicit services to bring migrants across the southern border of the U.S., according to an MSNBC report on Friday.
“Behind the camera is a coyote … a human smuggler, documenting their trafficking operations in order to promote them on social media,” MSNBC reported. “Some posts advertise their prices, which vary depending on the final destination. Others show off their profits with wads of cash.”
The videos reportedly reveal many of the methods human smugglers use to guide migrants across the border.
“After stashing them in safe houses, the migrants are transferred to vans and hidden under blankets,” MSNBC reported. “Other footage shows them cramped in the back seats.”
While Border Patrol is aware of the videos, there appears to be no crackdown on the posts by the Chinese-owned social media app.
“The proliferation of videos like these, where they are seen running from authorities, exposes how they avoid getting caught,” MSNBC reported.
“What social media doesn’t show are the journeys that end in tragedy, migrants missing or dead in the attempt to reach the American dream.”
MSNBC reports that smugglers are using TikTok to advertise their human trafficking operations as illegal immigration surges under Biden’s open borders policies. pic.twitter.com/GdG6scWi0T
Apps like TikTok and WhatsApp have been utilized by many migrants, including those crossing the border in Del Rio, Texas, and Yuma, Arizona.
“Haitian migrants find new route to cross illegally into United States in Yuma, Arizona, location is known as ‘The Gap,’” the Daily Caller’s Jorge Ventura tweeted Thursday.
“As the state of Texas prepares for 60,000 Haitian migrants to arrive later this month, Haitian migrants find new route in the Yuma sector.”
Ventura shared a video of three Haitian adults allegedly heading to the United States with three young children.
“We’re getting early reports of Haitian migrants starting to make their way into Yuma, Arizona, after the 15,000 Haitian caravan arrived in [Del Rio, Texas] in late September,” Ventura said.
Haitian migrants find new route to cross illegally into United States in Yuma, Arizona , location is known as ‘The Gap”. As the state of Texas prepares for 60,000 Haitian migrants to arrive later this month , Haitian migrants find new route in the Yuma sector pic.twitter.com/8sFgZEPs83
A second video allegedly showed a human smuggler receiving a cash payment from illegal Cuban migrants who arrived at “The Gap.”
“Before crossing into the United States illegally, human smuggler gives his final instructions to these Cuban migrants and receives his cash payment. Cuban migrants cross into Yuma, Arizona,” Ventura tweeted.
Before crossing into the United States illegally, human smuggler gives his final instructions to these Cuban migrants and receives his cash payment. Cuban migrants cross into Yuma, Arizona. This route is known as ‘The Gap’, Haitian migrants are also crossing through this route pic.twitter.com/SqIGt4NQFa
President Joe Biden’s de facto open-borders policy has fueled a nightmarish surge in convicted criminal illegal aliens trying to enter the United States.
The number of convicted sex offenders, murderers, wife-beaters, drunken drivers, drug traffickers and other criminals who were arrested has quadrupled from the previous fiscal year, according to a chilling analysis published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
From Oct. 1, 2020, through this August, CBP arrested a total of 9,278 criminal illegal aliens, compared with just 2,438 in fiscal 2020, when Donald Trump was president.
Criminal illegal aliens are individuals who have been convicted of crimes, either abroad or in the United States, prior to being apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol.
Of those arrested this year, 448 migrants were convicted sex offenders, nearly triple the total of 156 in FY 2020.
Yuma Sector agents arrested a child rapist that illegally entered the U.S. on Monday. The migrant, Edgard Antonio Gutierrez-Martinez, has felony convictions for first degree child rape and incest. Agents turned over the migrant to US Marshals this morning to face prosecution. pic.twitter.com/YXPs3LGMQG
— Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem (@USBPChiefYUM) October 6, 2021
Agents in the Del Rio sector alone have arrested 95 convicted sex offenders in this fiscal year. https://t.co/u5XvMGP2RQ
— The Western Journal (@WestJournalism) May 27, 2021
Meanwhile, 1,062 illegal aliens apprehended in fiscal 2021 were previously convicted of assault, battery or domestic violence. That’s a fivefold increase from FY 2020.
In the same period, 1,510 illegal aliens have been arrested after having been convicted of driving under the influence. That’s quadruple the DUI convicts apprehended by Border Patrol in fiscal 2020.
For reference, some 10,000 Americans are killed by drunken drivers every year, according to the Department of Transportation.
Allowing convicted drunken drivers from foreign countries to illegally enter the United States is a direct threat to public safety. Naturally, the Biden administration doesn’t seem to care.
Father-of-five who advocated rights for illegals is hit and killed by illegal alien on probation for a DUI who was ordered to be deported back to El Salvador eight months ago https://t.co/Z4V3w232RV
This illegal alien who had 2 prior DUIs and a assault arrest who has now been charged with killing 3 former cops and injuring 9 others in a DUI? https://t.co/WVQRhXT5wY ICE tells me he had DACA!!!!
Tellingly, there was a dramatic surge in the number of convicted murderers and drug dealers trying to sneak across our porous southern border.
This year, 1,935 criminal aliens had previously been convicted of illegal drug trafficking or possession, compared with 386 last year.
Remarkably, 53 migrants apprehended at the border in FY 2021 are convicted murderers, compared with just three in FY 2020.
Nonstop rafts coming across full of illegal immigrant families. The smugglers are in a playful mood, laughing and making jokes to our cameras. This one is saying “money” and making the cash sign with his hands. @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/uwZkbIE8t8
Not surprisingly, illegal aliens who had previously been apprehended or deported became more emboldened under the feckless Biden administration.
In FY 2021, some 5,552 illegal aliens had prior convictions for illegal entry into the United States — more than quadruple the 1,261 convicted the previous year.
The figures were just through August; fiscal 2021 didn’t end until Sept. 30, so the numbers are likely to get much worse.
These alarming statistics paint a grim picture of a country in decay and under siege, with Americans’ safety being sacrificed on the altar of the Democratic Party’s open-borders agenda to increase its voting bloc.
Barraging the U.S. with unvetted migrants from all over the world in the middle of a pandemic — and amid rocketing inflation that’s destabilizing the economy — makes no sense.
This is why numerous commentators say the mass influx of illegal aliens is calculated.
“Nothing about it is an accident, obviously. It is intentional,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson opined in September. “Biden did it on purpose.
“Why would a president do this to his own country? No sane, first-world nation opens its borders to the world. Promising the poorest people on the planet that they can have endless free, taxpayer-funded services if they show up and break your laws isn’t just stupid. It’s suicidal. … Our system can’t handle this many destitute newcomers.”
Carlson said Biden revealed his strategic reason for flooding the United States with illegal immigrants back in 2015 when he was vice president.
“Joe Biden said it. To change the racial mix of the country. That’s the reason,” the Fox News host explained. “To reduce the political power of people whose ancestors lived here and dramatically increase the proportion of Americans newly arrived from the third world.
“And then Biden went further and said that non-white DNA is the source of our strength. Imagine saying that. This is the language of eugenics. It’s horrifying. But there’s a reason Biden said it. In political terms, this policy is sometimes called the great replacement — the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries.”
Carlson said Biden’s destructive rhetoric and policies are further dividing the nation and causing America to implode.
“The president has a moral obligation to represent all Americans equally, not just those of a specific color,” he said. “For four years, remember, they told you Donald Trump was a racist. But has anyone shown that Trump ever in his life said anything half as disgusting as Joe Biden said on that tape?
Amid an unprecedented flood of illegal immigrants pouring across the southern border, a convicted child rapist was apprehended in the Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector, which stretches from California through Arizona.
“Yuma Sector agents arrested a child rapist that illegally entered the U.S. on Monday. The migrant, Edgard Antonio Gutierrez-Martinez, has felony convictions for first-degree child rape and incest. Agents turned over the migrant to US Marshals this morning to face prosecution,” Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem wrote in a Twitter post.
Yuma Sector agents arrested a child rapist that illegally entered the U.S. on Monday. The migrant, Edgard Antonio Gutierrez-Martinez, has felony convictions for first degree child rape and incest. Agents turned over the migrant to US Marshals this morning to face prosecution. pic.twitter.com/YXPs3LGMQG
— Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem (@USBPChiefYUM) October 6, 2021
There is wide acknowledgment that far more illegal immigrants enter the U.S. than are ever apprehended, according to an April report in The Washington Post.
The Post estimated that during the April surge of illegal immigrants, nearly 1,000 border crashers entered the country while Border Patrol agents were busy elsewhere.
Yuma sector has been heating up bigtime. Migrant encounters last month up over 2000% compared to last year. We are planning to go there next after this Texas trip in the RGV. Follow Julio for some fantastic on the ground reporting. https://t.co/xdoTY2qalX
Of those who are caught, many are entering the country illegally after being previously convicted of a crime in the U.S., according to a report by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.Are criminals running wild because of Joe Biden?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
The report only covers those cases where the U.S. Attorney’s Office was involved in a prosecution.
In August alone, the report said 212 individuals were charged with illegal reentry and that of those 180 had been convicted of criminal offenses unrelated to immigration status.
Of those, the report said 42 had violent crime convictions, including convictions for murder, sex offenses, domestic violence, drug crimes and other offenses.
On the Yuma Sector’s Twitter account, Clem offers frequent snapshots of the reality behind those numbers.
#YumaSector agents encountered more than 1,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border into the U.S. from Mex on Thursday, a new fiscal year record for daily apprehensions. The total includes migrants from 21 different countries. #BorderSecurity is #NationalSecuritypic.twitter.com/Ax2mpUkDbL
#YumaSector Border Patrol agents apprehended a group of 140 Brazilian migrants this morning. So far this month, agents have encountered a daily average of more than 600 migrants, up more than 2,000% over this time last year. #BorderSecurity is #NationalSecuritypic.twitter.com/6eRAB88Zly
#YumaSector Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 2,700 migrants who illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico from Friday through Monday. This number included several large groups: a group of 42, 52 and 80 on Saturday; 50 and 53 on Sunday; and 93, 45 and 79 on Monday. pic.twitter.com/gZcmZ73oBF
— Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem (@USBPChiefYUM) August 31, 2021
Yuma Sector covers 126 miles of the border from the Imperial Sand Dunes in California to the Yuma-Pima County line in Arizona.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton revealed U.S. Border Patrol has experienced a major spike in criminal alien crossings of the border as the crisis continues to escalate.
Paxton shared the concerns during an interview on “Fox & Friends First” Wednesday morning. When asked, “How many are getting in?” he responded with concern.
“I don’t even think we know. I think my state isn’t told much about what’s actually happening. We’re not given the statistics. We’re given broad statistics, but we don’t know exactly how many people are escaping,” the attorney general said.
As Republican governors head to the southern border, Texas Attorney General @KenPaxtonTX sounds the alarm as the border patrol nabs gang members and sex offenders coming into the United States.https://t.co/pY61XYHeBz
He said the number of criminal alien crossings is reportedly up “about 400 percent” from last year.
“We do know that the numbers are up supposedly about 400 percent from just a year ago for criminal aliens coming into our country. So it’s a significant increase. The Biden administration knows it and they support it,” Paxton added.
Paxton also responded to the question, “How much worse could this get before something is done about it?”
The attorney general’s words offered little hope for a response from the Biden administration.
“I don’t think they have any intention, the Biden administration has no intention of stopping it even if it gets worse. The numbers are so significantly more than they’ve ever been, yet there’s no effort on their part to follow federal law or to even follow court orders,” said Paxton, a Republican and outspoken critic of the Biden administration.
“They’re allowing it. They’re inviting it. They’re wanting it,” he added.
The news comes as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott plans to join 10 additional GOP governors for a news conference at the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday to address the growing crisis.
The media briefing will be held in Mission, Texas, and will also include the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety and the president of the National Border Patrol Council, according to WOLF-TV.
The announcement comes after 26 Republican governors sent a letter last month to President Joe Biden to request a meeting to address the crisis.
“As chief executives of our states, we request a meeting with you at The White House to bring an end to the national security crisis created by eight months of unenforced borders,” the governors requested in the letter.
“The months-long surge in illegal crossings has instigated an international humanitarian crisis, spurred a spike in international criminal activity, and opened the floodgates to human traffickers and drug smugglers endangering public health and safety in our states.
“A crisis that began at our southern border now extends beyond to every state and requires immediate action before the situation worsens,” the letter added.
NEW 🚨 26 GOP Governors Demand Biden End The Border Crisis
No meeting with Biden has yet been announced. Abbott and his fellow governors are now taking matters into their own hands.
The governors expected to visit on Wednesday are Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, according to Border Report.
Among the dozens of new benefit programs in President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” reconciliation spending plan is a new Child Tax Credit (CTC) that would send more than $25 billion to legal and illegal immigrants with children born in the United States, according to an analysis made public on Oct. 5.
“The stalled budget reconciliation bill replaces the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), which paid cash to low-income workers with children, with a program that is part of the enhanced Child Tax Credit (CTC),” according to Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), in the analysis.
“The program resembles traditional cash welfare because it entirely drops the old ACTC’s work requirement. It also significantly increases payment size. The new program was authorized in the [$1.9 trilllion] stimulus for one year,” Carmarota writes.
“As was true of the old ACTC, any illegal immigrant with a U.S.-born child is eligible for the new program. We estimate that illegal immigrants will receive $8.2 billion in payments from the new program annually—more than triple what they were eligible for under the old ACTC—while legal immigrants will receive $17.2 billion. The 10-year cost just for illegal immigrants would total roughly $80 billion,” Camarota estimates.
Biden said in March when Congress approved his $1.9 trillion stimulus program that established the CTC that he wanted to make it permanent, but it wasn’t clear then that legal and illegal immigrants with children born in the United States would be added to those eligible for the credit.
The mammoth reconciliation plan now before Congress retains the CTC as approved earlier this year, but expands its availability and makes it a permanent entitlement.
“The maximum cash payment under the new program for those without federal income tax liability is the same as the reduction in tax liability—$3,600 for children under age six and $3,000 for children 6 to 17,” Camarota writes.
“The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the new cash grants, excluding the refunds, will cost the federal treasury $66.2 billion above the $28.9 billion that the old grants cost, for a total cost of about $95 billion annually.”
If it becomes law, the new CTC doubles the “refundable credit” per child, which, Camarota describes as “potentially revolutionary because the payments are so large that proponents hope it will substantially reduce child poverty.” The credit is deducted from a family’s taxes due, or paid in cash to those who have no federal tax liability.
Camarota calculated the average benefit likely to be available under the CTC if it’s approved by Congress and signed into law by Biden. Illegal immigrants would receive $5,134, compared to $4,757 for legal immigrants and $4,557 for regular citizens.
Camarota additionally points out in his analysis that by dropping any work requirement as a condition of receiving the credit, the CTC effectively repeals a key tenet of the landmark 1996 welfare reform approved by a Republican Congress and President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. That reform also linked the amount of assistance an individual could receive to how much they earned working.
“For low-income people, the link to earnings in the old program meant that the more someone earned, the larger the payment they received from the program, at least up to a point,” Camarota said of the previous program.
“The new program has no such incentive, as the full value of the cash benefit is available to any low-income person with a child, including those who do not work at all, making it like traditional cash welfare.
“The new cash grants from the CTC are paid in monthly installments that total half of what the beneficiary can expect to receive from the program once they file their taxes. This, too, makes it even more like traditional cash welfare, as beneficiaries do not have to wait until they file their taxes to get a check each month.”
The only other requirement besides having a child born in the United States is for the dependent to have a valid Social Security number (SSN). That requirement isn’t significant, however, because all persons born in the United States are automatically eligible to receive a SSN.
But Camarota adds that “the parent does not need a valid SSN. This means that anyone—legal permanent residents, long-term temporary visitors (e.g., guestworkers and foreign students), and illegal immigrants who have at least one U.S.-born child—can receive cash payments from the program if their income is low enough.”
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced he will join 10 additional GOP governors for a news conference at the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday to address the growing border crisis.
The media briefing will be held in Mission, Texas, and will also include the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety and the president of the National Border Patrol Council, according to a news release from the governor’s office shared with WOLF-TV.
The announcement comes after 26 Republican governors sent a letter last month to President Joe Biden to request a meeting to address the border crisis.
“As chief executives of our states, we request a meeting with you at The White House to bring an end to the national security crisis created by eight months of unenforced borders,” the governors requested in the letter.
“The months-long surge in illegal crossings has instigated an international humanitarian crisis, spurred a spike in international criminal activity, and opened the floodgates to human traffickers and drug smugglers endangering public health and safety in our states.
“A crisis that began at our southern border now extends beyond to every state and requires immediate action before the situation worsens,” the letter added.
NEW 🚨 26 GOP Governors Demand Biden End The Border Crisis
No meeting has yet been announced. Abbott and his fellow governors are now taking matters into their own hands.
“Texas National Guard is gearing up at the border for increased caravans attempting to cross the border caused by Biden’s open border policy,” Abbott tweeted Saturday.
“They are working with the Texas Dept. of Public Safety to seal surge locations at the border & arrest trespassers,” he added.
Texas National Guard is gearing up at the border for increased caravans attempting to cross the border caused by Biden’s open border policy.
They are working with the Texas Dept. of Public Safety to seal surge locations at the border & arrest trespassers.
The governors expected to visit on Wednesday include Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, according to Border Report.
In June, Abbott met with former President Donald Trump in Texas to discuss the ongoing border crisis. Biden has yet to visit the border, while Vice President Kamala Harris made only a brief appearance in El Paso without meeting with the governor.
WATCH LIVE: Former President Donald Trump is meeting with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at the Texas-Mexico border. https://t.co/jVlJLDyREs
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has previously knocked down Senate Democrats’ Plan A and Plan B immigration proposals in their draft versions of President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” spending program.
What MacDonough recommends on the expected Plan C that Senate Democrats are preparing could determine whether America’s borders are opened to millions of new legal immigrants and a new mostly “open borders” immigration system is thus erected for the federal government.
MacDonough—first appointed to the nonpartisan post in 2012 as the first woman ever to hold it—then is in the hot seat because Democrats are pushing the gargantuan Biden spending plan through Congress under its “reconciliation” process. They are doing so because reconciliation proposals need only 51 votes to pass the Senate instead of the usual 60.
With the Senate split 50–50, Democrats must corral all of their caucus members to vote for the plan, the biggest, most comprehensive expansion of the federal government since the New Deal, then have the tie broken by Vice President Kamala Harris.
MacDonough previously knocked down the Democrats’ first and second attempts to gain her positive recommendation for inclusion of multiple immigration provisions that are already in the 2,400+ page House version of reconciliation.
Under the standing rules of the reconciliation process, provisions in reconciliation bills must have an effect on the federal government’s spending and revenues that is more than “merely incidental.”
Changes that are strictly of a policy nature don’t qualify, even though they may affect the budget. That means there’s a gray area between the two absolutes of “merely incidental” and wholesale changes. Democrats hope the third time will be the charm as MacDonough opens the door to some or most of their reform proposals.
What is certain is the huge impact on the United States that will result from enactment of the major Democratic proposals, according to immigration experts interviewed on Oct. 4 by The Epoch Times.
MacDonough recommended against the earlier Democratic proposals to authorize amnesty for as many as 8 million illegal aliens already in the country in September, but millions more legal immigrants would be covered by various provisions in the House bill that Senate Democrats are seeking to advance.
The provisions would “substantially increase permanent, legal immigration using a combination of interpretation gimmicks and exemptions to current immigration law,” according to a recently published analysis by Robert Law, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) director of regulatory affairs and policy.
“Step one involves a concept advocates of unlimited immigration have dubbed ‘recapturing unused immigrant visas.’ By law, family-based immigration has a floor of 226,000 green cards per year, while the employment-based immigration level is set at 140,000,” Law wrote.
“Under this theory, a green card that could have been issued in a given fiscal year in the past but was not (either family-based or employment-based) is ‘unused’ and, therefore, should be brought back to life for the benefit of a current or future prospective immigrant.”
But in fact, Law notes, green cards don’t go “unused.” Those from one category that remain available at the end of a year are transferred to the other category for the following year. Democrats instead want to “recapture” all “unused” green cards issued between 1992 and 2021 and make them permanently available.
If what Law calls the Democrat’s “resurrection fantasy” becomes law, he estimates that nearly 800,000 green cards will thus be added to the supply. Also added would be a second step, in which winners of the immigration lottery between 2017 and 2021 who were unable to complete the process effectively get a free pass.
But the third step in the Democratic proposals is the most significant because it provides another way around the green card process.
“Step three in the legal immigration bonanza is rather crass, as it offers an exemption from the green card annual numerical limits and the per-country cap if they have the means to pay a supplemental fee,” Law said.
“More precisely, this carve-out applies to those aliens seeking to adjust status to lawful permanent resident, a process reserved for aliens already in the country, but who have to wait at least two years for a green card to become available based on the Department of State’s Visa Bulletin.
“Through Section 60003 of the [House reconciliation bill], any family-based prospective immigrant with a two-year wait can jump the line for an additional $2,500, any employment-based prospective immigrant (preference categories 1-3) can jump the line for an additional $5,000, and any EB-5 immigrant investor can jump the line for an additional $50,000.”
Provisions like those are why Law’s CIS colleague Jessica Vaughan told The Epoch Times that, even without the amnesty previously rejected by MacDonough, “the reconciliation bill being pushed by the House Democrats includes the most consequential changes to U.S. immigration law in 60 years. With a series of gimmicks, the bill would expand legal immigration dramatically, essentially bypassing the numerical limits set by Congress by offering work permits to those who can get into the country with a visa and find a job.”
Vaughan, who is director of policy studies for CIS, said “millions of foreign students who would get indefinite work permits while waiting for a green card” would be big winners. This would mean a big expansion in the number of de facto immigrants, and especially those competing with U.S. college grads for jobs.”
While MacDonough has been in the national media spotlight in recent weeks, Chris Chmielenski, deputy director of NumbersUSA, told The Epoch Times that Senate Democrats “can choose to ignore the parliamentarian if they want to. It wouldn’t be good, and it would set a precedent, and they would have to have a vote on it, but they could do it, and probably successfully.”
And Liberty Government Affairs founder Brian Darling, former general counsel to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), told The Epoch Times that in the final analysis, Senate Democrats can do as they please as long as they keep their caucus voting in unison.
“The Senate parliamentarian does not ‘rule’ on anything. That is a myth perpetuated by Senate Majority Leader [Chuck] Schumer. The parliamentarian recommends rulings, and nothing prevents the vice president, who serves as president of the Senate, or the senator sitting in the Chair, from ignoring the recommended ruling of the parliamentarian,” Darling said.
“This is political theater, because if the Democrats wanted to ignore the recommended ruling of the parliamentarian, the only thing preventing it is their own caucus. Ultimately, a Republican senator would appeal any ruling on controversial provisions and Democratic senators could allow in certain controversial provisions to the bill if they could hold their caucus together.”
Darling added that it “all comes down to partisan fights and if Democrats want to use reconciliation to do an end-run around the filibuster. They can, even if the parliamentarian recommends against it, if they can hold their caucus together.”
President Joe Biden’s border crisis has been no secret since March, and the data about how disastrous it is continues to flow in.
A recent Washington Times analysis compared how many illegal immigrants the Biden administration released into the United States after being detained by Border Patrol with the number released under the Trump administration in August 2020.
Unfortunately, the numbers are concerning, but not shocking.
Last August, the Trump administration “caught” 47,000 migrants at southern border, but only released 10 of them into the United States immediately.
This was a result of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, in which migrants were required to wait in Mexico while awaiting their immigration hearing.
By contrast, the Biden administration detained 195,000 migrants and released 43,941 of them into the United States.
The outlet reported that this is an increase of more than 430,000 percent.
“If you tell the migrant they’re not going to be released, they’re not going to come. If a migrant knows they will not be released into the United States awaiting their immigration process, they will not come,” said Mark Morgan, the former acting head of Customs and Border Protection under Trump, according to the Times.
Morgan is correct that this figure is the result of Biden scrapping the “Remain in Mexico” policy almost immediately after taking office, with the change going into full effect back in June, CNN reported.
The opposite of “Remain in Mexico” is commonly referred to as “Catch and Release,” which raises numerous concerns about everything from crime to an unexpected population spike in communities across America.
The Supreme Court ordered the policy to be put back in place at the end of August, saying that the White House likely broke federal law by getting rid of it, the Associated Press reported.
However, the executive branch plans to scrap the policy for a second time once the court’s injunction is over, according to The Hill.
“A new memorandum terminating MPP will not take effect until the current injunction is lifted by court order,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
“In issuing a new memorandum terminating MPP, the Department intends to address the concerns raised by the courts with respect to the prior memorandum.”
MPP is a reference to Migrant Protection Protocols, which is the formal name for “Remain in Mexico.”
Title 42 is one of the few bold policies that remains in place from the Trump era that allows for migrants to be quickly removed from the U.S. if there is a serious health risk in the migrants’ home country.
Of course, that serious health risk is currently COVID-19, but that measure has done little to prevent the crisis from escalating.
The Washington Times’s comparison of just two months shows the stark contrast between conservative and liberal immigration policies, and Americans should take note.
In the Texas city that was ground zero for the latest surge of Haitian illegal immigrants, residents know who to blame.
“I feel that it’s the fault of the president,” one local resident of Del Rio, Texas, told Fox News.
Illegal immigrants “felt that they had been promised by the president that they would become United States citizens,” a resident said.
The 35,000-person city was deluged with illegal immigrants last month as a mass of roughly 15,000 Haitians gathered under the Del Rio International Bridge.
Although the mass of migrants has moved on, the town is left with the scars and costs.
A resident named Diane said she had to install security cameras and lights because illegal immigrants wandered into her yard.
She said America should focus on the needs of Americans.
“We need to take care of our own people. We need to take care of our poor people, we need to take care of the vets,” she said, apparently adding harsh words for the Biden administration.
“They’ve done nothing, zero, zilch,” she said.
“It’s been mounting bit by bit,” a woman named Laura said. “It’s not just a thing that happened, like, over the course of one week.”
Miguel Chavez, a local restaurant owner, said feeling sympathy with illegal immigrants is one thing, but dealing with thousands is another.
“Yeah, you know, I welcome immigrants, but not to that point. It’s hard being here as it is,” Chavez said. “I see their problems and I try to feel for them, but we have our own problems.”
Del Rio is not alone. A few hours down the road in Laredo, Texas, Customs and Border Protection built a 100,000 square-foot tent for processing the illegal immigrants who were bused there from Del Rio, according to Fox News.
Robert Eads, Laredo’s city manager, said Laredo has to divert resources to deal with the flood of illegal immigrants.
“What we’re going to have to do is take resources from our community that we’ll have to apply somewhere else,” Eads said. “If it’s an EMT, fire department, police department, traffic control — whatever it may be — we’re going to have to suspend that so we can address this.”
“Our health system cannot support those volumes,” Eads said. “Even if a migrant themselves, God forbid, gets sick, it’s the same resource that we’re going to lack, so they may not get the services that they need.”
The Laredo Police Department is now battling an upsurge in human trafficking.
“We have stash houses that are popping up everywhere,” said Investigator Joe Baeza of the police department’s public information office. “In one particular house we had close to 100 people. Three bathrooms for 100 people. It’s going to be messy.”
“The department always has its hands full but more so now with these issues related to immigration.”
The Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling prohibiting the federal government from diverting funds from the military to construct the U.S.–Mexico border wall, sending the case back to the lower court for review.
During his administration, then-President Donald Trump had sought to transfer money from the Department of Defense toward the construction of a U.S.–Mexico border wall after Congress rejected his request for more funding. But President Joe Biden canceled the Trump-era emergency declaration when he took office and returned the unspent funds to the Pentagon.
The Supreme Court’s Oct. 4 decision means that the justices agreed to take the appeal and vacated a previous federal district judge’s ruling.
“The District Court should consider what further proceedings are necessary and appropriate in light of the changed circumstances in this case,” the justices said in a brief order. Biden had signed an executive order on Jan. 20 prohibiting border wall construction.
The Sierra Club, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and others had previously challenged the Trump-era wall order, challenging Trump’s emergency declaration to divert the funds. A district court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have both ruled that Trump acted improperly.
“Today’s order comes after the government conceded that the Trump wall was wasteful and destructive, and returns the case to the district court so that Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition can seek relief for the damage the wall has already inflicted,” Dror Ladin, an attorney at the ACLU’s National Security Project, told The Hill. The groups also want the administration to remove the wall, saying that the structure disrupts wildlife and damages protected plants.
In the case, at issue was about $3.6 billion in funding that the Biden administration has since diverted to about 60 military construction projects.
In February, the Supreme Court also agreed to a Biden administration request to cancel arguments on a separate case that challenged the diversion of about $2.5 billion in military funds that were used for the wall construction.
“The President has directed the Executive Branch to undertake an assessment of ‘the legality of the funding and contracting methods used to construct the wall,’” the administration wrote to the court.
In recent weeks, the Biden administration has come under increasing criticism for its handling of border security and a surge in illegal immigration along the U.S.–Mexico border.
Thousands of illegal aliens of Haitian origin created a makeshift encampment underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, in late September. Later, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted that about 12,000 of the Haitians were released into the interior United States with pending court dates.
The crisis triggered calls from Republicans and even some Democrats to restart the construction of the border wall, which was a major campaign promise of Trump’s during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The federal government won’t secure the border — but that doesn’t mean there aren’t governors who are picking up the slack.
Take Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The Republican’s Operation Lone Star has been running for seven months now to combat the border crisis. According to USA Today, hundreds of state troopers, Texas Rangers, National Guard soldiers and other authorities have backed up the Border Patrol, arresting more than 4,600 border crossers as of late August.
That might not compare to the hundreds of thousands of border crossings during the crisis brought on by President Joe Biden, but it’s an example for the rest of the country — an example illegal immigrant activists are furious about.
“The crisis at our southern border continues to escalate because of Biden Administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration,” Abbott said a statement in March, while launching the operation, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
“Texas supports legal immigration but will not be an accomplice to the open border policies that cause, rather than prevent, a humanitarian crisis in our state and endanger the lives of Texans. We will surge the resources and law enforcement personnel needed to confront this crisis.”
Texas National Guard Soldiers identify & apprehend illegal immigrants on land and in water crossing into Texas from Mexico.
Through Operation Lone Star, the State of Texas is working night and day to combat Biden’s border crisis & secure our border. pic.twitter.com/3wa6bgDsQQ
Texas National Guard Soldiers deploy tactical vehicles to the border in support of Operation Lone Star.
As Biden does nothing, the Lone Star State continues to surge manpower & equipment to put an end to the chaos at our southern border. pic.twitter.com/IrDH8fN3AO
Granted, the program has seen some pushback from left-wing activist groups who have hoped to challenge the legality of Operation Lone Star in court. They say since the Constitution delegates immigration enforcement to the federal government, the plan is unconstitutional. Critics have also charged the plan leads to racial profiling.
“Whenever you ask untrained law enforcement officers to engage in immigration enforcement efforts, they are going to revert to racial profiling,” said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “That’s exactly what an initiative like this invites.”
The program has also faced problems in court.
On Tuesday, charges of criminal trespassing against two illegal immigrants arrested as part of Project Lone Star, Ivan Nava and David Muñoz, were dismissed by a Texas district court judge because prosecutors were “unprepared to present probable cause,” USA Today reported. Both men remained in custody as of late last week, however, and immigration activist groups were concerned the two could still be deported.
Both had crossed into the U.S. illegally in June, according to USA Today. (In USA Today terminology, they “crossed without permission.”)
“Operation Lone Star relies on racial profiling and systemically violates due process,” Kevin Herrera, the men’s attorney, said in a statement, according to USA Today.
He wanted President Joe Biden’s administration to allow the men to stay in the United States pending a hearing on their immigration case — and more: “We demand … that [Department of Homeland Security] cease any collaboration with this unconstitutional program.”
The same day the charges against Nava and Munoz were dismissed, the same judge ordered 243 more illegal aliens arrested under Operation Lone Star to be released under “no-cost bonds,” USA Today reported.
However, proponents of border security contend programs like Operation Lone Star could be a blueprint for other governors to enforce border laws when the federal government is unable or unwilling to do so.
Jessica Vaughn of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter controls on immigration, said Operation Lone Star mostly picks up illegal immigrants who want to sneak past Border Patrol and who aren’t turning themselves in to seek asylum.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out,” Vaughn told USA Today. “We could end up with a blueprint from the courts on exactly what can be done by states to address illegal immigration.”
Whatever the case, it gives a whole new meaning to “don’t mess with Texas.” And if any actor is going to address illegal immigration, it’ll have to be in state governments for now — especially since last month’s crisis involving an encampment of Haitian migrants that swelled to over 15,000 individuals at Del Rio, Texas proved how quickly the Biden administration will capitulate on border security when faced with the slightest breeze of opposition from the left wing of the Democratic Party.
After footage showed Border Patrol agents using horses to prevent Haitian migrants from entering the United States via the Rio Grande — with some lawmakers and social media pundits erroneously stating they were using whips or lassos — administration officials quickly condemned the agents, foreswore the use of horses at the border and promised an investigation that could lead to the agents’ termination.
Abbott responded by telling Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace on Sept. 26 that the Biden administration was “in dereliction of duty” because they have “abandoned any pretense of securing the sovereignty of either Texas or the United States by having these open border policies.”
Abbott on Biden’s investigation into Border Patrol agents: “I want them to know something. If they are risk of losing their job by a president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in the state of Texas. I will hire you to help Texas secure our border.” pic.twitter.com/gzVtv5iKgt
For instance, Abbott said, the crisis at the Del Rio flashpoint was brought under control only after Texas surged state troopers to the area, with hundreds of vehicles creating a “steel barrier” aimed at keeping out illegal immigrants.
“That’s exactly what the Biden administration could do if they wanted to,” Abbott said. “But, Chris, it’s the kind of thing that Texas is going to have to continue to do in addition to the other policies that you did not announce and that is, as opposed to catch and release, Texas has imposed a policy where we are going to arrest and jail people who come across the border for trespassing into areas into the state of Texas.”
The Biden administration has made it clear it won’t enforce immigration law at the southern border. In fact, it’s more likely to come down hard on Border Patrol agents who were trying to enforce the law — which is why Gov. Abbott has an offer for anyone who suffers the consequences for simply doing their job.
“I have worked side by side with those Border Patrol agents,” Abbott said. “I want them to know something, if they are at risk of losing their job, got a president who is abandoning his duty to secure the border, you have a job in the state of Texas. I will hire you to help Texas secure our border.”
Why not? After all, I’m assuming those who joined the Border Patrol did so to enforce the law.
If they lost their job for doing it at the federal level, they could always get a job doing it for the state that has the longest border with Mexico.
Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending bill gives migrants same child benefits as Americans
President Joe Biden’s budget includes a provision that provides billions of dollars in cash to illegal aliens with children.
The $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill extends the Child Tax Credit to anyone in the United States who provides an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, overturning a crucial safeguard against fraud. Federal law required a valid Social Security number to receive the cash transfer from the federal government. The potential payout for illegal immigrants is massive, with each family receiving a monthly payment of $250 to $300 per child.
A survey from the Pew Research Center found that roughly 675,000 children are not eligible for a Social Security number, making the tax credit expansion for illegal aliens cost between $2.025 billion to $2.43 billion a year. Other estimates put the total number of illegal children residing in the United States at more than 800,000.
Families, regardless of their legal status, would be eligible to receive checks of $3,600 per year per child. The Democratic bill would amount to a universal basic income for parents residing in the country. Under U.S. law, illegal immigrants are barred from enjoying the benefits of federal entitlements.
Democrats are trying to advance an amnesty provision into the budget reconciliation bill, a process reserved for budgetary matters. Congressional Democrats have argued that granting legal status to millions of illegal aliens would add $139.6 billion to the budget deficit by 2032 due to their increased use of welfare programs. The Senate parliamentarian ruled in September that Democrats cannot include a road to citizenship for illegals in their bill, although party leaders have vowed to keep fighting for its inclusion.
Welfare policy expert Samuel Hammond said the potential payout for illegals under the expanded Child Tax Credit exceeds the per capita income of many migrants’ home countries.
“Consider that the value of the CTC for an infant child is now $3,600 per year. That alone represents 40 percent of Colombia’s per capita income, and nearly 120 percent of Haiti’s. This is why countries with unconditional welfare benefits also tend to have relatively restrictive immigration laws,” Hammond wrote in American Compass. “America’s historical openness to immigration, in contrast, has in large part been enabled by rules and program structures that minimize the fiscal cost of lower wage migrants.”
The White House did not return a request for comment on the Child Tax Credit provision.
As the country faces a historic surge of migrants applying for asylum, the Biden administration risks compounding the crisis by offering a greater financial incentive to those willing to make the trip to the southern border. One 2015 study commissioned by the Institute of Labor Economics concluded that expanding Norway’s welfare benefits to poorer European countries generated “substantial (expected) costs for the welfare state” and a distorted labor market.
“For families with children, [the cash benefit] entails that a job in Norway may be attractive even if the offered wage is extremely low. For example, the Norwegian cash‐for‐care subsidy for a one‐year-old child now amounts to NOK 6,000 per month, which … corresponds to 629 Euros, or around 80 percent of average earnings in Poland,” the researchers wrote. “Such features give employers and prospective immigrant employees incentives to agree on very low wages and poor working conditions.”
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough recently dashed Democrats’ hopes of securing immigration amnesty for millions of persons here illegally (PHIs) by declaring that amendments to the current federal immigration law could not be attached to the $3.5 trillion spending bill.
What remains both baffling and alarming is that we have to rely on parliamentary loopholes to halt transnational trespass. Instead, that practice ought to be overwhelmingly condemned regardless of party politics.
Democrats and Republicans can have legitimate differences of opinion about the size of government; America’s role in international military conflicts; whether abortion, marijuana and same-sex marriage ought to be legal; and what if any limitations should be placed on the right to keep and bear arms.
But when it comes to crossing our border illegally, or entering legally and unlawfully remaining past the allotted time, the response should be an absolute rejection, from liberal San Francisco to conservative Tulsa, just as if the question were, say, whether we ought to support murder and armed robbery.
Plain and simple, the United States is private property, open only to U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents (LPRs) and legal nonimmigrants (such as visitors, students and temporary workers).
Granted, those within our nation’s borders are free to move about from state to state, but they need to be eligible to be here in the first place. Much like fans at the stadium can visit the restrooms and concession stands, but only if they entered the stadium legitimately with an admission ticket.
Persons who crossed the border illegally or overstayed unlawfully are not “immigrants” – they’re PHIs. If music legend Paul McCartney touring the United States and basketball superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo playing for the Milwaukee Bucks are not immigrants, then surely border-jumpers aren’t either.
As I wrote in my book “Stop Calling Them ‘Immigrants,’” far too many Americans erroneously refer to any foreign-born person in the United States as an immigrant. In many instances, it’s just an honest mistake, but don’t be fooled into thinking that much of the time ulterior motives aren’t at play.
Enablers of transnational trespass often tout that “immigrants commit fewer crimes than natural-born Americans.” When referring to actual immigrants — who are either naturalized U.S. citizens or LPRs — that makes a great deal of sense. After all, real immigrants have been fully vetted, unlike hundreds of millions of people born here who are left to their own devices.
When including PHIs, however, that statistic is no longer true. But amnesty advocates want to conflate the numbers so that we get used to calling all foreign-born persons physically in the U.S. “immigrants” in order to legitimize all of them, no matter how they got here and regardless of them remaining unvetted.
For several decades, both major parties turned a blind eye to illegal entry and stay. Democrats because they realized that if these folks gain the right to vote someday, they’d surely vote Democrat, and because many want to expunge our nation’s Western European heritage. Republicans because nothing boosts the economy quite like cheap and easily exploited labor.
Then came Donald Trump. Like no president since Theodore Roosevelt more than a hundred years ago, Trump railed against our porous borders. Immediately, the establishment — and their media messenger boys — struck back.
First, they insisted that Trump categorically called Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals.” As I pointed out in my book “Trumped-Up Charges!” that simply isn’t true. Next, they accused not only Trump but practically any supporter of strong border security of being racist against “brown people.”
Think about it: If you’re out to dinner and your neighbor texts you that three guys are breaking into your house right now, are you going to think, “Gee, I really hope they’re Swedish or Norwegian burglars, because I’d be OK with that”? Of course not. All you’ll care about — and will try to stop — is their criminal trespass; their nationality, skin color or religion won’t be a factor.
Similarly, those of us who care about transnational trespass onto our private property of the United States couldn’t care less about the trespasser’s demographics. But those who dream of an open-border utopia often try to silence us with false and inflammatory rhetoric.
There is also a great deal of confusion about asylum. First, it must be based on a well-founded fear of persecution, not simply because living conditions in a particular country aren’t optimal. Second, asylum seekers should apply to the next-closest country to their own where conditions aren’t dire.
The United States is that next-closest country only for citizens of Canada or Mexico, neither of which faces a national crisis that renders living conditions categorically unsafe.
If, say, the Taliban seized power in those countries, then their citizens — more specifically, ones whose lives might be endangered because they supported the previous government — would be eligible for asylum in the United States. Absent that type of situation, no one is eligible.
I am the son of immigrants, grew up surrounded by immigrants, and as an immigration attorney helped secure rights for countless individuals from numerous countries and of various races and religions.
Since the beginning of September, Senate Democrats have been trying to convince the Senate’s nonpartisan referee, the parliamentarian, to allow them to include amnesty for illegal aliens in their reconciliation bill. The parliamentarian shot down the first effort in mid-September; on Wednesday, Democrats were disappointed again after the parliamentarian denied their second push.
The blessing of the current parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, will be necessary because of the peculiar track Democrats are using in the hopes of passing their $3.5 trillion budget that has not received any Republican support.
Specifically, they are using the reconciliation process, a parliamentary procedure added to the Senate’s rule in the early 1970s. The process allows some types of budget bills to pass through the deliberative upper chamber with only a simple majority, bypassing filibuster by opponents altogether. Ultimately, what is allowed under this process is up to MacDonough, whose job it is to protect the rights of both parties.
At a press conference before the parliamentarian made her first ruling, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) indicated that Democrats “believe immigration is a critical element in reconciliation.”
“How many years have we all complained that the immigration system in America is broken and needs to be fixed?” he asked, adding that the last comprehensive immigration reform to come from Congress was passed 35 years ago, signed by President Ronald Reagan.
Under the standing rules of the reconciliation process, provisions in reconciliation bills must have an impact on the federal government’s spending and revenues that is more than “merely incidental.” Durbin argued that the immigration reform “does have a cost associated with it” and was applicable under reconciliation rules.
Democrats to Go to ‘Plan C’
The first effort by Democrats would have allowed around 8 million illegal aliens already in the country to be eligible for amnesty. This second effort was less lofty, and simply sought to change the date that illegal immigrants would be eligible for a pathway to citizenship.
This effort was again denied, a move in line with MacDonough’s track record. During her time in the position, MacDonough has not been shy to kill the priorities of either parties that she considered to be outside the scope of reconciliation.
For example, in 2017, Republicans tried to add a provision to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—passed through the reconciliation process—that would have repealed restrictions on churches, charitable foundations, and universities that forbade such nonprofits from becoming politically involved or endorsing candidates.
After Democrats took back the majority, MacDonough also put restrictions on what they were permitted to do. In February, the parliamentarian ruled against including a $15 minimum wage in a CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus relief package proposed by President Joe Biden.
In both cases, the majority party tried to convince MacDonough that the provisions were budget-related to little avail.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), a proponent of using reconciliation to change immigration law, called MacDonough’s decision “unfortunate.” He explained, “I disagree with … the original principle she’s working from,” referencing her no-excuses attitude to reconciliation.
Still, Menendez indicated that despite the failure of their first two efforts, Democrats would still be making a third push and go to “plan C.” The senator was coy discussing the details, telling a reporter, “It’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Menendez did say, however, “if we don’t have any pathway to some form of status adjustment for the undocumented” that he wouldn’t support provisions designed to help businesses. “We’re not gonna take care of businesses and not take care of the 11 million,” Menendez said of groups of illegal immigrants, including former President Barack Obama’s “Dreamers,” temporary protected status (TPS) holders, agricultural laborers, and essential workers, among others..
But without the acquiescence of the parliamentarian, Menendez and his colleagues will have little choice, given MacDonough’s unilateral control over what is and is not acceptable for reconciliation.
A key immigration focus for Democrats in Congress and the president has been the status of so-called “Dreamers.” This group is comprised of people who entered the United States illegally as children and were granted amnesty under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) a controversial executive order signed by President Barack Obama. Under Democrats’ initial proposal to MacDonough, millions of Dreamers would have received a pathway to citizenship.
The Biden administration has signaled that this is still a key focus.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who runs the department tasked with combatting illegal immigration, said after the ruling, “The Biden-Harris Administration continues to take action to protect Dreamers and recognize their contributions to this country … only Congress can provide permanent protection. I support the inclusion of immigration reform in the reconciliation bill and urge Congress to act swiftly to provide Dreamers the legal status they need and deserve.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki also weighed in, saying, “We are committed to getting immigration reform done.” She added, “This, I expect, would renew a look for what the vehicles and options may be.”
Because reconciliation is one of the only ways to get legislation through the Senate on a simple majority, it is for Democrats the only chance to push forward their immigration agenda with no Republican support. Any other piece of legislation is subject to death by filibuster, which can only be ended by the vote of 60 senators.
The bill is currently set for a House vote on Thursday. With this setback, Democrats have mere hours to craft a new proposal if they hope to keep that deadline.
The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly preparing for what could be the largest surge of migrants in the nation’s history if Title 42 COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asked whether the department was ready for a worst-case scenario of 350,000 to 400,000 immigrants crossing the southern border in October, according to two DHS officials familiar with the conversation, NBC News reported on Thursday.
The number would be up to twice as high as the 200,000-plus illegal immigrants who crossed the southern border in both July and August.
The preparations are underway as a Trump-era policy called Title 42 faces a possible end this week. The rule has allowed Border Patrol to turn away illegal immigrants at the border due to their threat of spreading COVID-19.
On Sept. 16, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the policy did not give the Biden administration authority to stop migrants from crossing the nation’s southern border. The policy was set to go into effect in 14 days on Sept. 30.
The ruling is under appeal and it is uncertain if it ruling will go into effect.
Concerns have grown as up to 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants gathered under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, drawing a national spotlight on migrant caravans traveling to America.
In July, a charity in the border town of La Joya, Texas, reportedly rented an entire hotel to house illegal immigrants who tested positive for COVID-19, giving no notification to the local community.
Fox News State Department correspondent Rich Edson tweeted at the time, “Police in La Joya, TX, a Border town, announce a charity has rented an entire hotel here for COVID-positive migrants. They say they only found out when a family, showing symptoms and staying there, ate at a restaurant next door. A customer flagged down a police officer.”
Police in La Joya, TX, a Border town, announce a charity has rented an entire hotel here for COVID-positive migrants. They say they only found out when a family, showing symptoms and staying there, ate at a restaurant next door. A customer flagged down a police officer.
The Securing the Homeland from International Entrants with Life-threatening Diseases, or SHIELD, Act would continue the public health protections enacted in March 2020, according to Fox News.Does the Biden administration care about COVID-19 spreading among migrants?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cruz said, “Title 42 has been an integral and extremely successful measure to protect America’s borders and our people during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“If the Biden-Harris policy for open borders is intended to reverse the Trump administration’s success in securing our border, encourage illegal immigration and create an unprecedented crisis, it’s certainly working,” he added.
According to a June Axios report, the Biden administration originally wanted to eliminate Title 42 by the end of July.
The number of those apprehended crossing the southern border illegally during fiscal year 2021 that ends today exceeds the population of 11 American states.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, so far there have been over 1.5 million encounters of people crossing the southwest border through August.
That number will go up by 200,000 or more when September’s encounters are included, if recent trends continue.
The current tally already exceeds the total populations of 11 states, according to 2019 figures, including Hawaii (population: about 1,416,000), New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming (population: about 579,000).
By comparison, there were just 458,000 encounters in 2020.
CBP Encounters, Southwest Land Border. (Check out those 2021 ‘single adult’ numbers.)
No need to travel to see it ‘first hand’… It’s right there on the freaking website! pic.twitter.com/7G7q1sbaOn
Last week, 26 Republican governors — including border governors Doug Ducey of Arizona and Greg Abbott of Texas — sent an urgent letter to President Joe Biden seeking a meeting to discuss the border crisis within 15 days.
“As chief executives of our states, we request a meeting with you at The White House to bring an end to the national security crisis created by eight months of unenforced borders,” they wrote.Do you think Biden is derelict in his duty to secure the border?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“The months-long surge in illegal crossings has instigated an international humanitarian crisis, spurred a spike in international criminal activity, and opened the floodgates to human traffickers and drug smugglers endangering public health and safety in our states. A crisis that began at our southern border now extends beyond to every state and requires immediate action before the situation worsens,” the governors added.
NEW 🚨 26 GOP Governors Demand Biden End The Border Crisis
“More fentanyl has been seized this fiscal year than the last three years combined—almost 10,500 pounds of fentanyl when only 2 milligrams prove fatal. This is enough to kill seven times the U.S. population,” they further noted.
The governors argued they are doing what they can to mitigate the situation, but that in the end, it is a federal issue.
‘[O]ur Constitution requires that the President must faithfully execute the immigration laws passed by Congress,” they wrote. “Not only has the federal government created a crisis, it has left our states to deal with challenges that only the federal government has a duty to solve.”
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psakiaccused Republicans of being more interested in making speeches than solving the border crisis.
“There are a lot of Republicans out there giving speeches about how outraged they are about the situation at the border,” she said at Friday’s news briefing, according to a White House transcript. “Not many who are putting forward solutions or steps that we could take. So we’re a little tired of the speeches,” she said.
.@PressSec Jen Psaki: “There are a lot of Republicans out there giving speeches about how outraged they are about the situation at the border. Not many who are putting forward solutions or steps that we could take. So we’re a little tired of the speeches.” pic.twitter.com/ujqfcJOrOX
On Biden’s first day in office, he suspended construction of the border wall and ended former President Donald Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy for those seeking asylum in the United States, which Republicans have argued triggered the 21-year high surge in border crossings.
In a Newsmax interview this week, James Carafano, a national security expert with the Heritage Foundation who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel during a 25-year Army career, argued that what happened in Del Rio, Texas, this month with a massing of migrants on the border, has now become part of the playbook for illegal entry into the U.S.
“They’ll just throw a camp up on the border, put thousands of people there and then the Biden team will be so anxious to get it off of the news cycle, they’ll just take those people and ship them right into the interior,” Carafano said.
“Look, we’re going to wind up with not millions, but if we keep this up, ten of millions of people coming in,” he predicted.
Carafano argued that the Biden administration really wants open borders, despite anything officials might say to the contrary.
“They’d like to hide that fact as much as possible from the American people, but at the end of the day, when the open-borders people say, ‘Do this,’ they jump,” he said.
The former West Point professor contended that having an open border, in addition to the unsustainable flow of migrants into the U.S., imperils national security.
“The other key thing is, we have a wide open border. It’s more wide open than it was on 9/11,” he said near the end of the interview, pointing out that the terrorist group al Qaida is reconstituting in Afghanistan and looking to hit the U.S. again.
“So it’s all fun and games, my friends,” Carafano said. “It’s all a big laugh until more people die than died on 9/11, and that’s going to happen, if we don’t do something.”
Former President Barack Obama is getting sick of the Biden administration’s border crisis, even though he will not admit his former vice president is at fault.
In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Obama called for the reform of the “dysfunctional” system that allows serious incidents like the one in Del Rio, Texas, to occur.
“It’s no secret that we don’t have that. It’s the reason I proposed comprehensive immigration reform. It’s the reason [President] Joe Biden proposed it during his administration, and it’s something that is long overdue,” he told anchor Robin Roberts on Tuesday.
Of course, he gave credit to Biden for his nearly nonexistent efforts to mitigate the crisis at the border, adding that it “is a painful reminder that we don’t have this right yet and we’ve got more work to do.”
“As big-hearted as he is, nobody understands that better than Joe Biden,” the former president said.
“And the question is now: Are we gonna get serious about dealing with this problem in a systemic way, as opposed to these one-offs where we’re constantly reacting to emergencies? And I think that that’s something that every American should wanna put an end to.”
“It is heartbreaking,” he continued, “and it is, I think, one of those situations in which if you have a system that overall is dysfunctional, you are going to get episodes in which what’s happening right in front of you is something that nobody wants.”
Obama said that the reason immigration reform is difficult to discuss is due to Americans’ predisposed compassion towards immigrants.
“Immigration is tough,” he said. “It always has been. Because, on the one hand, I think we are naturally a people that wants to help others.”
The most notable quote from the interview, and one that is sure to frustrate the far-left, was when Obama admitted a nation needs borders.
“At the same time, we’re a nation-state. We have borders. The idea that we can just have open borders is something that, I think, as a practical matter, is unsustainable. The way we solve this problem is to have a smarter, more efficient, more effective immigration system.”
Obama got a mix of issues right and wrong in the interview, and it’s all a result of partisan politics.
He was correct that the United States cannot have open borders, and that humane immigration reform is necessary.
What he got wrong, however, was his conviction that Biden is the right leader to be in charge as the border crisis rages on.
Biden repealed most Trump administration policies and efforts that were effective in deterring migrants from coming across the border illegally, including “Remain in Mexico” and the construction of the border wall.
Obama will never admit it has been the Biden White House’s poor leadership that has perpetuated the border crisis for several months.
Migrants interested in coming to the United States deserve better information and a clear-cut system to make a safe decision for themselves, and Americans are entitled to be in a country with a secure border.
Texas mayor Pete Saenz: ‘It was working under Trump, call it whatever you want to call it, but it was working’
The Democratic mayor of Laredo, Texas, slammed President Joe Biden’s immigration policy, alleging that his party has no plan to fix the southern border and has abandoned local communities in favor of massive spending proposals for other interest groups.
Mayor Pete Saenz says that for months many of his city’s public services have been forced to focus on providing humanitarian aid, medical services, and transportation for thousands of migrants who pass through Laredo. Those are jobs, he says, the federal government should handle—particularly as the Biden administration loosens immigration restrictions. The added threat of COVID-19 has led Saenz to admit reluctantly that former president Donald Trump’s policies benefited Laredo residents.
“We need to truly secure the border,” Saenz told the Washington Free Beacon in an exclusive interview. “It was working under Trump, call it whatever you want to call it, but it was working.”
As Democrats scramble to pass $3.5 trillion in federal spending on programs ranging from free community college to “achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector,” Saenz notes how little of that money will be used to support Customs and Border Protection. The president’s budget allocates virtually no additional funds to the agency, which since is dealing not only with inflation but also with record numbers of illegal immigrants since Biden took office.
“We’re spending billions of dollars on alternative things but immigration isn’t given priority. Border Patrol isn’t being funded to the extent that Border Patrol has to be funded,” Saenz said. “Their workload has increased to three times or four, and yet they’re not funded. So, that kind of leads me to think the Democrats have the same mentality [toward the Border Patrol] as defunding law enforcement generally.”
Laredo, which has a population of 260,000, is 95-percent Hispanic, making it one of the least diverse cities in the country. The city’s concerns over Democrats’ immigration politics challenge the conventional wisdom that strong border policies serve the anxieties of a dwindling white population. Republicans in 2020 doubled their turnout in the county in which Laredo sits, a pattern that continued in districts throughout southern Texas.
Biden’s immigration policy, Saenz contends, serves neither Americans nor migrants well. He pointed to the squalid Del Rio bridge under which thousands of Haitian migrants lived and the outbreaks of COVID-19 and other diseases in Laredo as evidence that a de facto open borders policy is far from the humanitarian solution. Instead, he said, the Biden administration should work on processing overseas asylum claims—the principle that guided the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
“The key, ultimately, is removing the incentive to come to the border and file for asylum. I believe in the asylum process. It needs to be followed or changed. If we don’t like the way people are attempting to come, we can have them apply remotely or from either the country of origin or some other place that is close to the country of origin,” Saenz said. “No person wants to spend their last penny giving it to the cartels, then risking life and limb travel to try and get all the way to the border. And then there’s still the uncertainty that they may not even be granted asylum. At some point, they’ll be fugitives.”
The border crisis has caused Saenz to reevaluate his own politics. The mayor in 2015 told then-candidate Donald Trump that a large wall across the southern border was not practical. He told NPR in 2019 that Trump’s proposal to order the Pentagon to construct fencing in Laredo would be less effective than the “virtual wall” backed by Biden. But, Saenz says, Laredo residents are growing tired of empty promises from Democrats, particularly as the city’s fire department is forced to serve as shuttle service for migrants who get dropped off by charities and federal agencies. Saenz has not heard from the Biden administration on any plans for a “virtual wall” or any other measure to stem the tide of illegal immigrants.
“If Biden doesn’t come out with implementing a virtual wall, people here will be begging for a wall, a physical structure, simply because of his lack of attention to the border and especially the size of these surges,” he said. A wall would “deter or at least buy time, so to speak, for law enforcement.”
The Biden administration did not return a request for comment.
A Federal Emergency Management Agency grant for Laredo has eased the burden of paying city employees overtime to relocate migrants. That money came only after the city filed a federal lawsuit that accused the administration of negligence. Customs and Border Protection began transferring hundreds of migrants to the city after processing stations in other parts of Texas reached capacity. The number of migrants who have tested positive for COVID-19 led to targeted shutdowns in Laredo and a lack of hospital beds for city residents—in other words, a government-caused health catastrophe.
For now, the federal government has spared Laredo from facing the ongoing brunt of the migrant crisis. The city’s policy of busing out migrants has proven a temporary salve, but no community withstand the constant influx Laredo has seen.
“The border’s not secure and hasn’t been for a while,” he said. “We can’t continue this way, and I really haven’t seen any measures yet from Washington to remedy this.”
Federal immigration authorities are trying to alleviate the pressure on Laredo by redirecting the surge of migrants to other Texas towns. Customs and Border Protection announced the opening of a temporary processing facility 15 miles south of Laredo. Twenty-four hours earlier Saenz had to dispatch local police to assist federal authorities to break up a pair of stash houses in which smugglers had crammed dozens of people. Authorities were shocked to find that one of the locations was allegedly run by a teenager.
Situations like these, Saenz said, are entirely avoidable. “It’s really an embarrassment for us as a country now. You know we can do so much better.”
But for sheer disassociation from reality, for Biden-level oblivion to the obvious, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas has proved again that she’s difficult to beat.
Jackson, a Houston Democrat who’s spent a quarter-century in Congress — God help us — has a well-deserved reputation for spewing nonsense.
Her remarks can be merely stupid — like when she called for gun control while displaying her utter ignorance about what Democrats love to call “assault weapons.” They can be stupidly dangerous – like when she spread an unfounded story that a white man had murdered a young black girl in Houston two years ago.
But on Wednesday she veered into the land of lunacy during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, making a statement about the Biden administration’s border crisis that literally any thinking American knows to be flat false.
“Let me pronounce to my friends that the border is both sovereign and secure,” Jackson Lee said. “It is obviously subjected to biased and unfair narratives for political purposes.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee says that the southern border is actually “sovereign and secure,” claiming that it is “subjected to biased and unfair narratives for political purposes.” pic.twitter.com/QSVLccryFj
If Jackson Lee considers the southern border secure, it’s difficult to imagine what insecure would look like.Will the border disaster hurt Democrats in the 2022 midterms?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Would a secure border be witnessing month after month of record numbers of illegal crossings? (The year’s total is projected to be about 1.85 million, according to the Washington Examiner, eclipsing a 20-year record set in 2000.)
Would a secure border require a state government to begin building a wall to defend its own territory because the Democrat in the White House has abdicated his responsibility to the country?
Would a secure border see thousands of illegal immigrants camping out under a bridge until a politically impotent administration allows them into the country — with a wink and a nod and the legal fig leaf of a future court hearing that all parties know will likely be ignored?
More importantly, just about any American with a modicum of interest in the matter would be well aware of the conditions at the border. Just as any American interested in the truth of the matter would be well aware that if there’s anyone using the illegal immigration crisis for political purposes, it’s Jackson Lee’s own Democrats.
(Just ask the Border Patrol agents being railroaded for doing their jobs on spurious accusations of “racism.”)
Jackson Lee clearly doesn’t have much interest in the truth. But it’s entirely possible, given her long record of dubious statements, that she simply lacks the ability to grasp what the rest of the country is seeing.
Regardless, her comments were met with a blizzard of scorn on social media. Rarely has that kind of scorn been so well deserved.
It would be easy to just brand Jackson Lee a liar. After all, she’s a prominent member of a political party that has spent the entirety of the 21st century building its power on lies.
But her brand of untruth goes far beyond the usual Democratic dissembling to nearly being divorced from reality.
Baselessly accusing Border Patrol agents of “racism” is garden-variety leftist lying. It’s doubtful anyone truly believes it, but Democrats keep spitting it out and the establishment media keeps lapping it up. If some innocents happen to get hurt in the process, well, there’s a news cycle to “win.”
Claiming that a border plagued by chaos thanks to Biden’s embrace of illegal immigration is actually “sovereign and secure” is a distortion worthy of the doddering president himself.
A Democrat is going to be in the White House for the next three years. Fortunately, voters have a chance to kick Jackson Lee’s party out of power on Capitol Hill in next November’s midterms.
The entire border debacle — and Democratic lies and delusions about it — should be near the top of the list of targets for Republicans trying to retake Congress.
Jackson Lee’s seat is almost certainly safe, of course. She won re-election in 2020 with 73 percent of the vote. But it shouldn’t be.
Most of her Democratic colleagues aren’t nearly as safe. And they shouldn’t be, either.
House Democrats blocked a measure on Wednesday by Iowa Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks that would have required a negative COVID-19 test before migrants are released from Customs and Border Protection custody.
“Today, I offered my REACT Act on the House floor, which would require DHS to give a COVID test to everyone crossing our border illegally,” Meeks tweeted.
“The majority chose to block this commonsense bill that would ensure the health and safety of border patrol and border communities,” she added.
Today, I offered my REACT Act on the House floor, which would require DHS to give a COVID test to everyone crossing our border illegally.
The majority chose to block this commonsense bill that would ensure the health and safety of border patrol and border communities. #IA02pic.twitter.com/Qwbc2ZjH04
More than 12,000 mostly Haitian migrants were released into the U.S. last week. No negative COVID-19 test was required before release.
FLOOR ALERT: @HouseDemocrats blocked @HouseGOP requests to consider @RepMMM‘s commonsense bill that simply requires illegal immigrants are tested for COVID-19 before their release into the U.S., unlike the 12,000 Haitian migrants admitted by @POTUS last week. pic.twitter.com/mj4r9LmXWH
In both July and August, more than 200,000 illegal immigrants crossed the southern border. No COVID-19 tests were required unless symptoms were shown.
Miller-Meeks first proposed the REACT Act in March (Requiring Every Alien Receive a COVID-19 Test). “This legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to test all migrants illegally crossing our border for COVID-19 who DHS plans to release into our communities,” according to a news release by the congresswoman.
“This week, I traveled to El Paso, Texas, to meet with CBP agents and officers. I saw firsthand the crisis they are facing, and I believe it is our job in Congress to address it and assist them. Approximately 50% of agents have tested positive for COVID-19, and very few migrants are being tested,” Miller-Meeks said in March.
“My REACT Act would require that every migrant released from CBP or ICE custody is tested and receives a negative test. Border security and immigration is not an issue that only affects border states, it affects every community across the country. By ensuring that individuals entering the country are negative for COVID-19, we can help keep our communities safe and healthy,” she added. https://www.youtube.com/embed/gC9IQzeidDA?feature=oembed
The number of COVID-19 cases has reportedly also spiked in illegal immigrant detention centers, according to information from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Should illegal immigrants be required to take a COVID-19 test?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
The data, first cited by The New York Times in July, revealed more than 7,500 coronavirus cases were reported from April to July. During the same time, the number of people held reportedly rose from 14,000 to more than 26,000.
According to the data, the number of positive cases since April account “for more than 40 percent of all cases reported in ICE facilities since the pandemic began, according to a New York Times analysis of ICE data.”
Part of the new surge is related to increased testing. “Paige Hughes, an ICE spokeswoman, said that all new detainees were tested for the coronavirus and are held in quarantine for 14 days on arrival,” according to the report.
In addition, a very low percentage of illegal immigrants who enter the country are already vaccinated.
The low vaccination rate, combined with a lack of social distancing protocols and crowded locations, has provided many opportunities for the spread of the coronavirus.
Take all of the imagery you have seen of the over 14,000 Haitian migrants camped under an international bridge in the small Texas border town of Del Rio and add the complications of disease, public excrement, unbearable heat, and heightened frustrations. It has led to violence that has injured Border Patrol officers.
Now close your eyes and imagine it is 100 times worse.
Because that’s what it is, said Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, the freshman Republican who represents 42 percent of the border. The overwhelmed city of Del Rio had been in a rapidly deteriorating crisis situation when illegal immigrants first began surging into the community in January, but Gonzales now says the situation here is a “Category 5” and that the environment is unlike anything he has ever seen before.
“I arrived here today to pure chaos,” he said. “I’ve never seen it in this environment. There literally is no border left.”
Gonzales said Del Rio is in dire straits. “There’s no doubt there’s COVID here, there’s measles, tuberculosis, all kinds of diseases,” he said. “You’ve got kids running around in nothing but diapers. A handful of port-a-potties—my God, the stench is terrible. This is not good for the migrants. It is not good for the residents. It’s not good for wherever our government is sending them in the interior of the country.”
Despite the Department of Homeland Security insisting repeatedly the Haitians would be deported, as of Tuesday, it had only removed 1,000 of the estimated 15,000 under the bridge. Multiple news organizations including CNN reported that buses have been escorting them to a nonprofit organization in town where they purchase bus or plane tickets. They are then moved to a gas station where buses pick them up and take them to other parts of the country.
The Washington Post reported that the number is in the thousands of those released to parts unknown in the interior of the country.
“My takeaway after I walked through it all, I look over at the sector chief, and I go, ‘Man, I just feel sad.’ He goes, ‘I know. Everyone just feels beaten here,’” Gonzales said.
Migrants, many from Haiti, encamped along the Del Rio International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas. (Tony Gonzales)
Del Rio residents have seen their lives turned upside down. The international bridge has been closed—a lifeline bringing tens of millions of dollars to the local economy. If you’re a small-business owner and your business has somehow survived COVID-19, something like this could easily wipe you out.
Everybody has been sucked into this chaos.
“The worst thing is that we are not even talking about the other places where this is happening,” Gonzales said. “Today, we’re talking about Del Rio, but tomorrow, it’ll be Laredo or Brownsville or Eagle Pass or El Paso. This problem is not going away.”
Gonzales said he asked the chief of Border Patrol, Raul Ortiz, at a Homeland Security Committee hearing about its surge of agents to Del Rio. “Those agents are coming from somewhere,” he said. “And my worry is other sectors are going to be weakened, thus creating a national security crisis, putting us at risk in other sectors, because everyone is focusing on Del Rio.”
Ortiz agreed. He also confirmed that reports were true that migrants had assaulted Border Patrol agents—five of them, to be exact.
It is hard to imagine that this scene is playing out in America. It is also hard to imagine that our government has failed to secure the border or address this crisis with the seriousness it deserves.
Which is what makes the other part of this crisis political: Until a photo of a Border Patrol agent on horseback herding migrants back over the Rio Grande to Mexico was circulated on Twitter, Democrats, journalists and the White House had almost completely ignored or downplayed the 15,000 people who had been living in squalor under the bridge.
Blue-check Twitter cried foul, claiming that the agent’s long reins were whips and absurdly likening the image to that of a white overseer whipping a slave. Suddenly, not only did press secretary Jen Psaki and the vice president notice, but they along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House press corps fabricated a story about Del Rio—not about the appalling migrant crisis, but about how racist the Border Patrol is.
That story has been debunked, and to date, there are no reports that any migrant was ever “whipped” by agents.
It irks Gonzales that Border Patrol agents, who risk their lives and are coming under immense pressure right now, are having their actions and motives unfairly impugned. “They see their jobs as patriotic,” the former Navy cryptologist said. “They know they are both protecting their community as well as their country.”
The Biden administration and Washington Democrats’ blind eye to this crisis have already had an impact politically. Hints of the future may have cropped up in last year’s election, when majority-Hispanic areas rejected the Biden campaign’s rhetoric that former President Donald Trump’s handling of the border was racist.
Texans pummeled President Joe Biden in several border counties, with large numbers of Hispanic voters going for Trump. That shift away from Democrats may grow given the handling of the border. Already this summer, Republicans unexpectedly won two big mayoral elections in border towns that are overwhelmingly Hispanic and historically Democratic.
And it is not just South Texas Hispanics who are running away from Biden and by default from the Democrats. It is all Texas Hispanics. Last week, a Dallas Morning News/University of Texas-Tyler poll showed that Biden’s approval rating with Hispanics in Texas is 19 points underwater, with only 35 percent approving of the job he is doing and a whopping 54 percent disapproving. There may be a realignment in the works.
In short, while white liberals in Washington think that using words like “Latinx” matters to the Hispanic community or connects them with its values, they are ignoring a crisis that deeply affects middle-class Hispanic families. They justifiably worry about their safety and their ability to pursue prosperity. The Democrats’ oblivious lack of concern for their real-world concerns is already backfiring.
Maybe if one of them, any of them, spent a few days living in a border town, the party would understand just how dire and dangerous life there has become.
The Biden administration’s repeated release of illegal immigrants has drawn a legal challenge from the state of Florida.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, sued the federal government over its “catch-and-release” policy, which has led to the freeing of over 225,000 illegal immigrants this year.
The lawsuit primarily concerns the treatment of immigrants seeking asylum, which is granted in cases where authorities rule they have a legitimate fear of persecution based on their race, religion, or several other reasons.
Federal law requires the government to detain the asylum seekers until authorities rule on their case. But under President Joe Biden, it has released at least 225,000 illegal immigrants, including asylum seekers, so far, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
“Releasing this many arriving aliens into the interior necessarily means that the government is violating congressional commands in the immigration laws,” the 23-page suit, filed in federal court in Pensacola, states.
“We are seeing dramatic effects at our border. It is an unmitigated crisis based on this president’s refusal to follow federal law. It’s in black and white folks, and it’s not a president’s responsibility to decide whether he agrees with the law. In fact, the head of an executive branch must follow the law,” Moody told reporters during a briefing in Lee County.
Florida has been negatively affected through elevated costs to hold illegal immigrants, officials say.
Florida is asking the court to find the Biden administration’s “catch-and-release” policy unlawful and require defendants to stop enforcing the policy while coming into alignment with requirements set by federal law.
The Biden administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Officials have defended the widespread release of illegal immigrants, claiming the law is being followed because they’re being given notices to appear in court or at an immigration office.
“We remain in touch with them. We monitor them to ensure their appearance in court at the designated time of appearance,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters in Washington last week after the administration released over 12,000 illegal immigrants who were clustered in Del Rio, Texas.
But fewer than 6 in 10 illegal immigrant asylum seekers show up in court, according to Department of Justice data.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is seen in a file photograph. (Patrick Semansky/AP Photo)
Florida officials say the Biden administration’s policies are designed to boost immigration numbers and illegal immigration has skyrocketed since the Democrat took office.
Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Biden administration has been bypassing what previous administrations did, which was only releasing illegal immigrants when detention facilities were full.
One way the administration is doing that is by using its parole power, which was designed to be used for a small number of cases and only for “urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit.”
“The policy of releasing immigrants into the country on parole is vast, widespread, and historic in its scope,” Bensman told The Epoch Times.
The new suit asks the judge to stop the Biden administration from paroling immigrants without engaging in a case-by-case review.
Also on Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, announced an executive order that bars all Florida agencies under his purview from facilitating illegal immigration and requires state officials to collect information on the costs and scope of illegal immigration in the state.
“Since President Biden took office—which has been less than one year—the Border Patrol has released nearly a quarter-million illegal aliens into the United States,” DeSantis said in a statement. “This executive order makes it clear that Florida resources will not be used to prop up the failed open border agenda enacted by this administration.”
There are forces that wish to destroy America. Some of them are visible and some are stealth.
The visible forces include terrorists and certain nation states like Iran. Radical Islamic preachers cry “death to America” in their sermons, encouraging martyrdom through suicide bombings. Sept. 11 was their crowning achievement, so far. There will likely be other attacks. Some of our military leaders have so predicted. China might also make the list, if not as a destroyer, then as a nation that wants to supplant America as the world’s top economic and military power.
Those who would destroy by stealth include undocumented immigrants flowing across our southern border. Their intention may not be to destroy America, but that will be the effect if we don’t quickly stop the influx and discourage others from coming. It’s almost laughable to hear some in the liberal media claim we have a “moral obligation” to help immigrants when we are ignoring the plight of women in Afghanistan and so many other areas to which the word “moral” might rightly be attached.
Reaction to the open border has been as predictable as the coming of the fall season. Some Democrat progressives shout racism because the latest flood includes Haitians. Signs rapidly appear. Some say, “stop deportation now!” Where did the signs come from? Who are the people carrying them and where do they come from? Is someone paying them? The media never ask these questions.
Undocumented immigrants are not only attracted by low-paying jobs but by lots of free stuff, like access to healthcare and public schools, all paid for by American taxpayers. If a pregnant non-citizen gives birth on U.S. soil, her child instantly becomes a U.S. citizen with all the benefits of full citizenship.
One of the few political leaders responding to this crisis is Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas). Abbott has ordered state police to close off parts of the border because the migrants are violating Texas law. For this he is being pilloried and even sued by the Biden administration, though the White House announced just recently that it would swiftly begin to deport Haitian migrants flooding into Del Rio, Texas. But where’s Vice President Kamala Harris who was assigned to fix our border crisis?
In public schools and too many universities of what I would describe as “lower learning,” America’s history is being re-written to shame young people and load them aboard the progressive train wreck. There are many stories of students returning home and accusing their parents of racism, and worse. The stain of racism can never go away despite the money that has been spent and the programs enacted to help lift descendants of slaves out of poverty and into better lives.
Once more or less united, Americans are now fragmented into groups and those groups are pitted against each other as gladiators once were in the Roman Coliseum. Caesar, we who are about to die, salute you!
Seriously, can we go on like this and think we will pass down anything to succeeding generations that remotely resembles what we received from previous ones, especially those we have honored by calling them “the greatest generation”? What made them great and what makes us a small shadow standing in their historic presence?
Values, morals, and economic principles that transformed this nation from an agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse to now a leader in technology, are all threatened by those who breach our borders.
If we don’t find the national political leadership to do something about our steady decline and defend ourselves, as in warfare (because war is what it is, though it is being fought with different weapons), we are at risk of oblivion. Will we follow the path of other nations that no longer exist or have become shadows of their former selves?
An illegal immigrant teenager from Mexico was arrested for allegedly setting wildfires in California, said Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.
Agents with the CBP’s El Centro Sector apprehended the illegal alien, who was not identified, and accused him of setting fires in the Jacumba Wilderness last week.
When Border Patrol agents responded, “they located an unknown individual in the vicinity of the reported fire, attempting to start another fire,” according to CBP in a news release. “Agents attempted to extinguish the second fire but had little success.”
Then, the Bureau of Land Management provided dispatched an aircraft with firefighting capabilities to stop the wildfire, and the “combined resources and firefighting efforts were able to control the fires” the next day, the agency said.
The accused arsonist was identified as an 18-year-old male Mexican national who was arrested for illegally entering the United States and was transported to the El Centro processing location. The teen was “caught in the act” of trying to start a wildfire, the agency said.
The Bureau of Land Management will now be investigating the wildfires as arson, according to the news release.
“Our environment and natural places are national interests that all Americans hold dear,” Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino said in a statement. “I would like to thank our partners at Bureau of Land Management as they work tirelessly to conserve and protect the fragile Jacumba Mountains Wilderness area; the location where this undocumented migrant purposefully set fire to endangered Big Horn Sheep habitat.”
The Jacumba Wilderness, which spans about 31,000 acres and is managed by the bureau, is located in California’s Imperial County, which is located along a remote stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a release issued earlier this month, Border Patrol said that about 9,728 illegal immigrants with prior criminal convictions have been apprehended in the United States during the fiscal year 2021 to date. That represents a sharp increase over the past three years, while during the fiscal year 2020, only 2,438 illegals with criminal convictions were arrested.
The arrest of the alleged Mexican arsonist comes as the Biden administration faces criticism of how it struggled to contain a surge of Haitians who amassed underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, prompting concerns of the spread of transmissible diseases.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday said that some 12,000 of 17,000 Haitian illegal immigrants were effectively released into the interior U.S. in recent days with court dates.
“Approximately, I think it’s about 10,000 or so, 12,000,” Mayorkas told “Fox News Sunday” when asked how many have already been released.
Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan blasted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during a “Fox & Friends First” interview on Monday, arguing that Mahorkas is misleading Americans regarding the border crisis.
On Sunday, Mayorkas faced questions from “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace about the mass of Haitian migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border at Del Rio, Texas, that have dominated the latest headlines about the Biden administration’s illegal immigration debacle.
And one particular aspect of Mayorkas’ answers stood out to him: That many of the migrants are in “immigration court proceedings.”
“When you say 12,000 are in immigration proceedings, they are not,” Homan said.
“That’s what the secretary leads you to believe, but many of them were released on notice to report. On the notice to report, it clearly says at the bottom of the form, ‘You are not in immigration proceedings. You will not be detained. ICE will not detain you for humanitarian reasons. You are released.’
So, they’re only going to be in immigration proceedings if they chose to voluntarily show up and turn themselves in, which most won’t. So the secretary is misleading on what he told Chris Wallace,” he added.
Homan also disputed claims that many Haitian migrants had returned to Mexico.
According to The Washington Times, Mayorkas’ DHS estimated on Friday that 8,000 Haitans had gone voluntarily back to Mexico.
“[Mayorkas] realizes they went one or two miles down the line and came into the United States because they surged so many resources to Del Rio that they left 224 miles of border unguarded,” Homan said.
“So those 8,000 didn’t just go to Mexico and they’re going to live there. They went down to cross illegally. Those a8,000 are now in the United States, you know, living here illegally,” he added.
The Biden administration has reported about 2,000 Haitians have been deported.
Approximately 30,000 Haitian migrants crossed at Del Rio in September, according to NPR.
Earlier in September, Sen. Ted Cruz visited Del Rio when more than 10,000 migrants were awaiting processingm and called the situation a “manmade disaster” due to President Joe Biden’s political decisions.
“Joe Biden’s policies are encouraging this staggering rush of illegal aliens,” the senator said on Twitter.
Joe Biden’s policies are encouraging this staggering rush of illegal aliens:
208,887 encountered in August including 103,129 single adults (up 134% from 2020), 18,847 unaccompanied children (up 507% from 2020), & 86,487 individuals in a family unit (up 3,086% from 2020).
“208,887 encountered in August including 103,129 single adults (up 134% from 2020), 18,847 unaccompanied children (up 507% from 2020), & 86,487 individuals in a family unit (up 3,086% from 2020),” Cruz added.
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii said President Joe Biden was “absolutely wrong” to condemn Border Patrol agents without waiting for the facts.
Gabbard was interviewed Saturday by Fox News host Jesse Watters on the show “Watters’ World.”
Last week, a photo of a Border Patrol agent on horseback showed the agent using what appeared to be a whip as Haitian illegal immigrants accumulated near the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas.
However photographer Paul Ratje said that what many eyes thought was a whip was in fact the rein of the horse the agent was riding.
“I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” Ratje said, according to Fox News. “He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
“[I]t was horrible what — to see, as you saw — to see people treated like they did: horses nearly running them over and people being strapped. It’s outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay. They will be — an investigation is underway now, and there will be consequences. There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment. But beyond an embarrassment, it’s dangerous; it’s wrong,” he said. https://www.youtube.com/embed/nA8N7oXU5DU?feature=oembed
For comments that were based on anything but the facts, Gabbard said, “He’s absolutely wrong and he needs to apologize to the American people for saying what he said.”
“What he essentially did was act as judge, jury and executioner for these Customs and Border [Protection] agents on horseback,” she said.
“How can they expect to have any kind of fair outcome to an investigation when the president of the United States has already declared their guilt and that they will be punished?” she said.
Gabbard said the incident is troubling because it is part of a larger problem of issuing judgment before the facts.
“If we are no longer a country of laws, if we are no longer a country where we know we will be presumed innocent unless proven guilty, then we don’t have a democracy,” she said.
“That’s the increasing feeling that a lot of us have, is that we are losing our democracy and moving closer and closer to what essentially is an autocracy,” she said.
I was hoping that Biden would keep his promise to try to unite our country, but instead this admin has used race and identity politics to divide us, our freedom of speech and civil liberties are under assault, inflation is going through the roof, and we’ve got open borders. pic.twitter.com/uFOxutndho
Gabbard said snap judgments that become media dogma are dangerous, noting that those who condemn police officers and others when it fits a political narrative “are getting away with it.”
“They are unwilling to sacrifice their interests for the interests of the country,” she said.
“They have no business being in positions of leadership at any level in our society because who suffers as a result of this? It’s the American people. It’s our democracy. And they don’t care about the cost and the toll that that takes,” Gabbard continued.
“And this is why leadership that puts service above self, that puts the interest of the American people in our country first, is so critical and essential — especially now.”
California is a mess. But it doesn’t use the word “alien” in official state codes anymore.
The state is in the midst of a homelessness crisis. It has the highest gas prices in America. Its COVID lockdowns and mask restrictions have decimated small businesses. Its leaders don’t feel bound by it — least of all Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose infamous dinner at the French Laundry has become emblematic of how our ruling class doesn’t play by their own rules.
But at least it doesn’t use the word “alien” in state code anymore.
Last week, U.S. Labor Department data revealed unemployment claims in California had skyrocketed, reaching their highest level since April. The state is dealing with an epidemic of shoplifting thanks to a 2014 law that turned theft into a misdemeanor provided under $950 of items were stolen. The state is currently in the midst of a spate of wildfires which are threatening its sequoias.
But, thank heavens, they’re not using the word “alien” in state code anymore. I was getting worried there.
Proving that neither he nor the rest of California’s Democrats learned anything from the recall election other than he won by a sizable margin, Newsom signed legislation Friday which, yes, struck the word “alien” from the state’s code.
The bill, AB 1096, “removes the derogatory term ‘alien’ used to describe foreign-born individuals,” according to a media release from Newsom’s office.
“As the nation’s most diverse state, we are stronger and more vibrant because of our immigrant communities,” Newsom said in the statement.
“This important legislation removes the word ‘alien,’ which is not only an offensive term for a human being, but for far too long has fueled a divisive and hurtful narrative. By changing this term, we are ensuring California’s laws reflect our state’s values.”
Wait, how is widely accepted legal terminology “an offensive term for a human being”? Let Newsom’s office explain.
“The term ‘alien’ has been used to identify individuals who were not born in the United States by the federal government since 1798 and in California since 1937,” the statement read.
“In the 1990s, the word ‘alien’ began to be used as a political dog whistle to express bigotry and hatred without using traditionally racist language. By 2015, the term was officially replaced with ‘noncitizen,’ however ‘alien’ is still widely used in many aspects of California law.”
Ah, yes, the old “dog-whistle” feint. In case you haven’t encountered this liberal tactic, if the left wants to declare certain language off-limits, one easy way to do it is to call it a dog-whistle.
For instance, “undocumented migrant” sounds a lot nicer than “illegal alien.” The latter gets to the heart of the matter: It’s a foreign-born individual who’s not legally in this country. The former sounds almost like someone who lost a few immigration papers.Related:
Ergo, “alien” is a dog-whistle. No evidence needs to be presented. Just stop using it.
Even the media release demonstrated Newsom’s misplaced priorities. In addition to AB 1096, his office announced, he’d “signed a series of bills to protect the health and safety of immigrants, including legislation to clarify safety standards at detention facilities, ensure rights and protections for unaccompanied undocumented minors, and cement protection for immigrants under hate crime legislation.”
Each one of those is more substantive than removing the word “alien” from California’s state code. Whether or not you agree with those things is beside the point — they have a tangible effect.
What did Newsom’s office tout right at the top of the release? Extirpating a “dog-whistle” word from the books because it’s “fueled a divisive and hurtful narrative.”
Newsom may have won the recall election by a reasonable margin, but he still fails to understand why there was a recall in the first place — and why the polls were reasonably close until his campaign started raising and spending huge amounts of cash on the race.
California’s COVID policies paralyzed the state’s economy. The state remains as unaffordable as ever. Homelessness is rampant. Its leaders are hypocrites. The state is going to pot.
What needed fixing? That word, apparently.
California had its chance to stop this madness in 2021. It has another chance in 2022. If its citizens don’t avail themselves of the opportunity, they have only themselves to blame for their problems.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said on Sept. 26 that a significant number of Haitian illegal immigrants who had amassed along the U.S.—Mexico border last week are being released into the United States.
About 12,400 of 17,000 Haitians are having their cases heard by immigration courts, Mayorkas said, adding that some 5,000 are being processed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Only about 3,000 are in detention, he said.
“Approximately, I think it’s about 10,000 or so, 12,000,” Mayorkas told “Fox News Sunday” when he was asked about the number of Haitian illegal aliens who have been released into the interior of the United States. The number could rise as 5,000 more cases are processed, he said.
Mayorkas said the number of those being released “could be even higher” and that the “number that are returned could be even higher.”
“What we do is we follow the law as Congress has passed it,” Mayorkas said, adding that the U.S. “immigration system is broken.”
“Legislative reform is needed.”
The Department of Justice estimated in 2017 that about 43 percent of illegal aliens released into the United States miss their immigration court hearings. When asked about what will happen to those of the 12,000 who were released in the past week and miss their hearings, Mayorkas said that “it is our intention to remove” those aliens.
“We have enforcement guidelines in place that provide that individuals who are recent border crossers who do not show up for their hearings are enforcement priorities, and will be removed,” he said.
Last week, more than 15,000 Haitians congregated underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, and essentially constructed a shantytown before numerous local officials sounded the alarm that a humanitarian crisis was brewing.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas updates reporters in Washington on the effort to resettle vulnerable Afghans in the United States on Sept. 3, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
DHS officials, including Mayorkas, said on Sept. 24 that the encampment under the bridge had been cleared out. A day later, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said that the Texas border crossing will be partially reopened.
The agency also said it’s planning to continue flights to Haiti throughout the weekend, ignoring criticism from Democratic lawmakers and some progressive groups.
The number of people at the Del Rio encampment peaked last weekend, as migrants driven by confusion over the Biden administration’s policies and misinformation on social media converged at the border crossing. While Mayorkas and other White House officials have asserted that the border is closed, Republicans have said that the administration’s decision to rescind a number of Trump-era immigrant orders has triggered a surge of illegal immigration.
Mayorkas and other senior officials have also dedicated a significant amount of time in news conferences condemning some Border Patrol agents who were seen on horseback near Haitians who had crossed the border illegally. The photographer who shot those pictures last week said that the agents weren’t whipping the migrants, as some officials and Democratic lawmakers had claimed.
“Some of the Haitian men started running, trying to go around the horses,” photographer Paul Ratje told local station KTSM, explaining the situation on the ground.
“I’ve never seen them whip anyone. He was swinging it [the reins], but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
With the recent flood of Haitian illegal immigrants a constant reminder of the precarious nature of border safety in Joe Biden’s America, Texas is calling for volunteers to help secure its border.
Officials of the Texas Military Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety have issued a call for National Guard members to volunteer to protect Texas through Operation Lone Star, a state-funded effort launched this spring by Gov. Greg Abbott to pick up the slack when federal officials allowed the border to become a sieve.
“We are still looking for Texas Guardsmen to support Operation Lone Star. Please help us stop human trafficking, smuggling, and illegal border crossings while we are #securingtexas Lodging and per diem included,” the department wrote in a Twitter post last week.
We are still looking for Texas Guardsmen to support Operation Lone Star. Please help us stop human trafficking, smuggling, and illegal border crossings while we are #securingtexas Lodging and per diem included.
“Texas continues to work diligently to secure our southern border under the leadership of Governor Abbott,” DPS Director Steven McCraw said, according to a news release posted on the department’s website.
He said that there is “tangible evidence of how combined local and state operations being conducted are protecting communities across the nation.”
McCraw said, “Operation Lone Star is preventing crime despite the federal government’s failure to provide the brave men and women of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection [with] the infrastructure, technology and personnel needed to secure the border.”
Through Operation Lone Star, Texas forces are “confronting the crisis and cracking down on the cartels and human traffickers daily. Texas Guard soldiers provide boots on the ground, and other valuable assets, to help identify illegal activity and apprehend illegal immigrants,” he said.
“The Texas Military Department is made up of Texans who come from communities across our great state; we are always ready and always there to support our partner agencies in protecting our home and preventing criminal elements from entering Texas,” Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, the adjutant general of Texas, said in the news release.
“We have a long history of enduring relationships with local, state and federal agencies in conducting Homeland Security missions that dates back more than 100 years and we are proud to continue this legacy as Texans serving Texas.”
Through early September, Operation Lone Star referred 64,900 illegal immigrants to federal officials, according to Breitbart.
Texas law enforcement has also made more than 5,000 criminal arrests and seized more than four tons of illegal drugs, Breitbart reported.
DPS Lt. Christopher Olivarez said the work is not easy, according to KVEO-TV in Brownsville, Texas.Rela
“Troopers that work along the border, they deal with this day in and day out,” Olivarez said.
“But the numbers that we are seeing this year have been historic, just the surge of migrants that have been coming across, the criminal activity, the increase in vehicle pursuits, we have never seen that before in prior years.”
Texas DPS Regional Director Victor Escalon told KVEO that children are often used by smugglers.
“The adults were getting away with driving the narcotic but more so driving the human smuggling, the migrants,” Escalon said.
“And we’re seeing juveniles, we’re still seeing juveniles being more aggressive and wanting to fight with our personnel.”
“The federal government needs to help Border Patrol and provide them with more resources because right now they are being stretched thin,” Olivarez told KVEO.
“We’re the ones filling those gaps along the border because they are being taken away from the field and processing all the migrants that are coming across.”
Escalon said constant vigilance is essential.
“We’ve got to be out there every day, we have to be visible, they’ve got to see us in those areas of interest,” Escalon told KVEO.
“The airplanes, your helicopters, your boats that are in the water, that is a great deterrence, and having fencing, that is a great deterrence.”
To WOAI-TV in San Antonio, Texas, the Israelite School of Universal and Practical Knowledge’s appearance at the Del Rio International Bridge migrant camp in order to hand out food to illegal immigrants, mostly from Haiti, was a sob story.
Headline: “EXCLUSIVE: Group of Americans go through extreme measures to help Haitian migrants.” The outlet mentioned that some people call the group controversial, but the majority of the report focused on Border Patrol turning them away at Del Rio.
The group’s 12-vehicle caravan ended up going into Mexico through Eagle Pass.
“We got together in San Antonio went to Costco and Sams, got food, water, diapers, and toiletries. We went to Del Rio, when we got there, Border Patrol told us we could only give it to a church,” group member Yatazaq Ban Yahawadah said. “We told them we did not want to do that because the people are not at a church, they are under a bridge.”
“We came around through the Mexico side, now we are in Mexico to give our brothers the resources we have for them,” he added.
The report from WOAI’s Yami Virgin again mentioned that the group was controversial, but not why. That’s somewhat important, because the ISUPK is considered an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, among others.
The ISUPK is one of a number of groups that believe black people and other people of color are “true Israelites” and that Jews are imposters. Unless you live in a major city and have been subject to the group’s incessant sidewalk proselytizing, the last time you probably thought about the movement was the Nick Sandmann case, where a black Israelite’s hate-preaching was a catalyst for the events of that day.
As Breitbart noted, the SPLC — usually considered the gold standard in determining hate groups by the media despite its raging leftist bias — deems the ISUPK and similar groups to be anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist.
“The [Black Hebrew Israelite] hate groups listed by the SPLC believe in ideas of black supremacy and bigotry against Caucasians, Jews and members of the LGBTQ community. They believe that, as members of the 12 Tribes of Israel — consisting only of African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans — they are God’s ‘chosen people.’ Jews are considered ‘imposters,’” the SPLC’s write-up reads.
“Caucasians and members of the LGBTQ community are deemed ‘devils.’ Extreme Black Hebrew Israelites believe that individuals outside the movement are deserving of slavery or death. The most numerous of the BHI groups in the United States are under the banners of Israel United in Christ, the Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge and Great Millstone.”
The ADL also notes the “ISUPK sells clothing under the brand UPKFRESH. Their products include a t-shirt depicting a slave ship and the Middle Passage of the slave trade with the words ‘True Holocaust.’”
They may look like street preachers dressed in outfits professional wrestlers would turn down for being too outlandish, but keep in mind this is can be an extremist ideology that spreads hate. Lest we forget, Black Hebrew Israelites were behind a 2019 anti-Semitic shooting spree in Jersey City, New Jersey, which killed four people, three of them in a kosher supermarket.
The WOAI report, meanwhile, did little but lionize the ISUPK.
Here’s another quote from Yahawadah, when asked about traveling through an area of Mexico that’s subject to a level 4 warning for violence by the State Department: “Being in a dangerous situation that is being black, Hispanic or Native American. Our lives are dangerous, we live in the most dangerous communities, we live in the worst dangerous conditions.”
There were no questions about motives involved. There’s been a border crisis going on for months now. You would think it might occur to local media to ask a black nationalist group known for hate-preaching why its members decided to show up for Haitian migrants when they hadn’t gotten involved previously.
Rest assured, if the Proud Boys showed up with supplies for anyone, no matter what their race, the headline wouldn’t be “EXCLUSIVE: Group of Americans go through extreme measures to help [insert group here].” This isn’t a complaint, mind you; that’s what media is supposed to do.
An extremist group known for aggressive proselytizing shouldn’t be given a chance to use the chaos at the border as an opportunity to spread its message under the auspices of providing food and supplies to migrants. If it is, local media shouldn’t be amplifying it. Period.
A photographer who captured images of Border Patrol agents on horseback near an influx of Haitians who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border said he didn’t see the agents whip anyone.
“Some of the Haitian men started running, trying to go around the horses,” photographer Paul Ratje told local station KTSM, explaining the situation. “I’ve never seen them whip anyone,” he said. “He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
The images of agents on horseback drew criticism from Democrats, pro-immigration activists, and White House officials this week, with some claiming that the agents were whipping the Haitians. However, a union that represents Border Patrol agents said that claim is false, while some officials said the agents were merely controlling the horses with their reins.
President Joe Biden, during a news conference Friday, promised an investigation into the incident and declared that the agents’ actions were “wrong” and “will pay.” Biden didn’t make any reference to the pushback against the claims that agents were whipping illegal immigrants.
“I promise you, those people will pay,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “There will be consequences. It’s an embarrassment. But beyond an embarrassment, it’s dangerous. It’s wrong.”
Thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Haitians, live in a primitive, makeshift camp under the international bridge that spans the Rio Grande between the U.S. and Mexico while waiting to be detained and processed by Border Patrol, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
A top Border Patrol union official, Brandon Judd, told The Epoch Times this week that agents were not whipping their reins at the illegal aliens.
“Agents have to keep the migrants away from the horses for their own protection. And so they will use the reins, to twirl the reins, so that they will stay away from the horses. But they do not use those reins to lash out, to try to strike people. Those agents did not use those reins in any way, shape, or form to try to strike anybody,” he said, adding that horses are used as a “deterrent technique” to prevent illegals from entering the country.
Regarding comments made by White House officials, Judd said Border Patrol officials feel abandoned in the wake of a burgeoning crisis.
In recent weeks, more than 15,000 Haitian illegal aliens camped underneath an international bridge spanning Del Rio, Texas, and Mexico, prompting humanitarian concerns.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday said that horse patrols around the border will be suspended following the images having gone viral.
“Which the president feels, we all feel, was inhumane, immoral, ineffective, wasn’t operationally working. And because of the disfunction of it, we have led to a very broken system that we’re dealing with today,” she said in a comment at the White House.
The tragic mess on the Texas border and the huge influx of Haitians (FYI: who aren’t fleeing Haiti; they left Haiti quite a while ago for Latin America) has created a dangerous and unhygienic situation that has been compared to the third world.
Events are moving so fast, it’s impossible for us to track them all in a newsletter, but here are some of the most recent reports from Fox News’ Bill Melugin.
Melugin is doing a great job of covering this story that the White House is outright lying about while much of the mainstream media studiously ignores it.
One of the more striking revelations is that despite the White House’s toothless claims that the border is closed and every illegal crosser will be sent home, Melugin reports that they’re actually being given “requests” (not orders) to appear at an ICE office within the next 60 days.
I’m sure they’ll all comply with those requests.
When called out in the Senate for his disastrous handling of the border, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas got snippy, and instead of answering the question, he snapped that he works 18 hours a day (imagine how bad the crisis would be if he worked 24/7 at it!).
His latest move that suggests a sleep-deprived mind is to take the mounted Border Patrol agents off their already impossible duty and put them on desk jobs, despite the woeful lack of personnel we’re already suffering and the fact that the wild accusation against them is both bogus and idiotic.
The left needs a constant stream of fake news to make their opponents look racist because otherwise, Americans might focus on real news and realize these people should never be trusted with any public office above the rank of assistant dog catcher.
The latest example is the continuing brouhaha over photos they claim showed the Border Patrol whipping Haitian illegal immigrants when those were actually their leather reins flying.
They don’t carry whips, and they didn’t strike anyone with their reins, which they spin to keep people back for their own safety and to prevent anyone from grabbing the reins and taking control of their horses.
This is standard procedure for cops on horseback.
But never mind that: Leftists who know even less about cowboy skills than they do about math skills are continuing their outrage fest even after the “whipping migrants” narrative was debunked all the way to the bunkhouse.
Leave it to Rep. Maxine Waters to have the craziest take on the story, not only accusing the agents of using (nonexistent) whips on migrants but saying, “What we witnessed was worse than what we witnessed in slavery.”
“I’m unhappy, and I’m not just unhappy with the cowboys who were running down Haitians and using their reins to whip them. I’m unhappy with this administration,” Rep. Maxine Waters says at a news conference on the situation at the U.S. southern border. https://t.co/tUeqoESHTPpic.twitter.com/BuWTMs8ilf
That’s as offensive as downplaying the Holocaust by claiming your political opponent is “literally Hitler,” which is also something the left does regularly. But supposedly more responsible officials were almost as bad.
Even the president and vice president, desperate for any distraction from their cascade of tragic disasters, pointed fingers at the Border Patrol cavalry, with Biden calling the (false) accusation disturbing, Jen Psaki declaring it “obviously horrific” and Kamala Harris saying it’s “horrible” and demanding a “thorough investigation.”
Uh, Vice President Harris? If you really want a thorough investigation of what’s happening on the border, might I suggest you start by actually going there?
Despite claims made by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the majority of those entering the U.S. illegally are not being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the head of the Border Patrol union, Brandon Judd, told The Center Square.
Mayorkas, who traveled to Del Rio, Texas, where nearly 15,000 Haitian migrants gathered this past week, warned illegal immigrants at a news conference, “If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life.”
Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that DHS, Border Patrol, ICE, and the U.S. Coast Guard were moving individuals from Del Rio to other processing locations in order to take individuals into custody, process them and remove them from the country.
It added that DHS was securing additional transportation to accelerate the pace and increase the capacity of removal flights to Haiti and other destinations in the hemisphere within the next 72 hours. But the agency hasn’t confirmed how many flights, and how many Haitians have been deported.
A few days later, at another news conference in Del Rio on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, when asked about the Biden administration’s deportation flight plans, said, “They have shown no capability of being able to process these migrants by the end of this week. The only thing they’ve shown is an incapability of dealing with this crisis, candidly, in a way they pretend it doesn’t even exist. And we’re here to tell you it exists.”
The Associated Press reported that Haitians have been released on a “very, very large scale” in recent days, with one official estimating the number of those releases is in the thousands.
“The first three [deportation] flights that went to Haiti included family units” who were deported, Judd said. But deportations are on a case-by-case basis, he added, and inconsistent.
For example, “if the flights focus on deporting people to Haiti, the flights to Guatemala stop and those people are released,” he said. “So, all you’re doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul. You’re shifting resources to handle one segment and you’re releasing the other segment. Not all the people from Haiti are being flown back; not all the people are being expelled from under Title 42. A good number of them are in fact being released with an NTA (Notice to Appear) or NTR (Notice to Return),” notices related to the immigration court process.
Border Patrol agents make official arrests and transfer individuals to ICE facilities. ICE then determines whether they are released with an order to reappear for court hearings to go through the process to remain in the U.S. or be deported.
Haitians already processed and released into the community were observed boarding buses at the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition in Del Rio. Roughly 50-60 Haitians at a time boarded a large commercial charter bus, and smaller groups were shuttled in a grey rundown minivan to the local bus station. With brown envelopes in hand, a mix of families and individuals also carried with them food, cash and papers to help them reach their next destination.
When asked where the bus was going, the first stop was San Antonio, with a final destination of Houston, The Center Square was told. Officials wouldn’t confirm if the Haitians were boarding planes to another destination or if San Antonio or Houston were their final destinations. This group of Haitians had already been processed by Border Patrol and released into the general population.
Meanwhile, a steady flow of people continued to cross the Rio Grand River farther upstream from the bridge, crossing onto private property on a heavily trafficked area on Vega Verde, where Texas Department of Public Safety officers were waiting to detain them and call Border Patrol for pickup.
DHS has also been busing Haitians to El Paso, Laredo, and cities in the Rio Grande Valley for processing, also adding them to flights to Tucson, Arizona, the Associated Press reported.
Judd said of the roughly 200,000 apprehensions that Border Patrol makes, “they are probably dealing with 120,000 people because sometimes the same person or people are apprehended more than once. Of those, it’s right about 60-68 percent are being released [into the community] with NTAs. The vast majority are not being expelled or deported. The majority are being released into the United States.”
When asked if this ratio applied to Haitians under the Del Rio Bridge, he said, “If we go off, historically speaking, the majority of the ones under the bridge will be released.”
But this number can shift depending on which segment of the population ICE chooses to deport, he added. ICE “can say we’re going to send all the Haitians back but then we’re going to release all the other people from another country. Or we can release the Haitians.”
In response to being asked if there’s consistency in this process, he replied, “Zero consistency.”
Facebook Inc. has been revealed to be an enabler in the humanitarian crisis at the southern border by permitting information about illegally crossing the border to spread on WhatsApp.
Roughly 14,000 Haitian migrants arrived at the border this month, coming through Mexico into the Rio Grande Valley community of Del Rio, Texas, according to the Associated Press.
The outlet reported that since President Joe Biden took office, migrants had been informed through social media to arrive in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, before coming to the United States.
The community borders Del Rio and is generally considered safer than other nearby towns.
The AP highlighted the story of a Haitian migrant named Fabricio Jean, who is now in the migrant encampment along the Del Rio International Bridge, and how he was able to arrive in the U.S.
“You will need about 20,000 pesos (about $1,000 U.S. dollars) for the buses. You need to take this bus to this location and then take another bus,” Jean said, citing tips sent to him by his brother through WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook.
Another woman who arrived with her two teenage children told the outlet her cousin sent her audio messages on the app, which guided them to the U.S.
“Wait in Mexico until this month is over. They will pick up everyone under the bridge. After that, they will give me the contact to enter Miami,” her cousin said in the recording.
According to the report, Facebook’s current policy does allow for information about migration to be communicated through its platforms, even if it is information about illegal immigration.
The Big Tech company does draw the line when it comes to sending information requesting money for human smuggling activities and bans all posts of that nature.
Last week, instructions on getting through Mexico, including routes to avoid and specific bus companies to use, were posted by a member of a Facebook group for Haitians in Chile.
“Good luck and be careful,” a translation of the post said.
Migrants have also been using YouTube to share information on how to get into the U.S.
The AP also highlighted the story of Robins Exile, who left Brazil after losing his job, and his pregnant wife. On their way to Ciudad Acuña, the couple changed course and went to Tijuana, Mexico, after other migrants shared warnings on YouTube and WhatsApp.
“A lot of Haitians are advising now not to come to Acuña,” he said. “They say it’s no longer a good place.”
In the spring, temporary protections were offered to Haitians escaping social unrest, however, those protections were limited to those in the U.S. before July 29.
Many of the social media posts did not include that information, leaving many Haitians still seeking to enter the U.S. with the impression that they would also be eligible for the protections.
“[W]e are very concerned that Haitians who are taking the irregular migration path are receiving misinformation that the border is open,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this week.
The administration also worried the migrants believed “they qualify for protected status despite the expired deadline.”
“I want to make sure it is known that this is not the way to come to the United States,” Mayorkas said.
Those who made it to Del Rio are facing a variety of outcomes, drawing bipartisan criticism.
Many conservatives are frustrated that migrants are being released into the U.S. and given court papers, whereas liberals are furious about some migrants being deported back to Haiti via repatriation flights.
Daniel Lewis Foote, who the Biden administration appointed in July to be the U.S. special envoy to Haiti, resigned from his position Wednesday due to the decision to deport the refugees.
“I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life,” he said in his letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my recommendations have been ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own.”
SCOOP: Special Envoy for Haiti, Amb Daniel Foote, a career member of foreign service, has RESIGNED. In his letter of resignation, he says he will not be associated with the U.S.’s “inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees.” Letter attached. pic.twitter.com/KlW5GoTF3u
The Biden administration’s immigration policies have been primarily responsible for the crisis, and it has now been revealed that Big Tech added fuel to the fire by allowing people to get details about the dangerous and often illegal journey across the southern border.
The executive branch is going back on its word about releasing Haitian migrants into the United States, according to an Associated Press report.
Two officials told the AP there have been roughly thousands of migrants who have been sent on a “very, very large scale” from Del Rio, Texas, to cities such as Tucson, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas.
The report explained that the migrants are being given immigration hearing dates instead of being expelled from the U.S. and sent back to Haiti, as they entered the country illegally.
Furthermore, the federal government has been using Coast Guard planes and transportation contractors in order to transport people away from the large encampment to other cities with more resources.
This directly contradicts comments made by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a Monday news conference, where he ensured that those coming across the border will not be allowed to remain in the U.S.
“If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life,” Mayorkas said.
Obviously, that has been determined to be a lie, which should be no surprise to those who have been watching the border crisis from the start.
DHS published a statement Saturday that also went against the current actions of the government in its desperate attempt to solve the humanitarian disaster within a crisis.
“The Biden Administration has reiterated that our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey,” the department said.
“Individuals and families are subject to border restrictions, including expulsion. Irregular migration poses a significant threat to the health and welfare of border communities and to the lives of migrants themselves, and should not be attempted.”
Haiti is currently recovering from a major earthquake and political instability, which was highlighted by the assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse in July.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, along with several other Republican governors, has criticized Biden’s mishandling of the border as epitomized by the Haitian migrant situation.
“When you have an administration that is not enforcing the law in this country, you see the onrush of people like what we saw walking across this dam that is right behind me, because the Biden administration has been promoting and allowing open-border policies,” Abbott said at a Tuesday news conference.
“It has been the state of Texas that had to step up,” he added.
As Biden continues to create chaos, Texas has taken the lead on securing the border, not just for border communities, but for communities across Texas & the U.S.
We will continue surging state resources to save lives & keep Texans safe.
Regardless of what the administration says, the decision to send massive numbers of migrants into the U.S. puts a significant strain on both local governments and the public.
The choice should be clear: Prioritize the safety and stability of America’s border and its nearby communities.
Biden’s team lied, and now Americans will have to face the consequences.
Texans are doing the job America won’t do. At least, what the Biden administration won’t do.
The state Department of Public Safety and the National Guard used hundreds of state-owned vehicles — most of them apparently SUVs — to create a barrier to help stop the surge of illegal immigrants into Texas, according to the KXAS-TV in Fort Worth.
Gov. Greg Abbott said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon that Texas must use “unprecedented” measures to stop the influx. The SUV barrier appeared outside Del Rio, where about 15,000 migrants, mostly Haitians, have entered the U.S. from Mexico in recent days.
“They have created a steel barrier preventing people from being able to cross the border,” the Republican said, according to KXAS.
“One day there were countless people coming across the border, then the DPS put up all these DPS vehicles, and suddenly, in an instant, people stopped crossing the border in this location,” he said. “That strategy is working.”
Abbott was critical of the Biden administration for not securing the border and said Texas is putting up $2 billion more for border protection, The Washington Post said.
“When you have an administration that is not enforcing the law in this country, when you have an administration that has abandoned any pretense of securing the border and securing our sovereignty, you see the onrush of people like what we saw walking across this dam that is right behind me,” the governor said in Val Verde County, according to KTVT-TV in Dallas.
Initially, there were 14,600 Haitians in Del Rio, according to Abbott, the number eventually declining to about 8,600.
The Daily Mail, citing a Department of Homeland Security source, said 1,083 of them had been returned to Haiti and more deportation flights were scheduled Wednesday.
Up to 5,000 Haitians were released into the United States, Abbott said. That’s contrary to a Biden administration pledge to prohibit Haitian entry into the U.S. from Mexico.
“If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a Monday news conference, according to The Associated Press.
Despite the statement that the migrants would immediately be deported, many were released and told to report to an immigration office within 60 days, according to Abbott.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s desire to project a kinder-gentler image regarding immigration (especially against the profile of its villain, former President Donald Trump) hit a snag with pictures of Border Patrol agents on horseback using whips to round up migrants — according to many establishment media outlets, at least.
The “whips” were actually long reins on the horses.
HORSE LESSON FOR NOVICES: The horse-mounted Border Patrol guys down in Del Rio are riding “western” style so they are using what’s known as a “split rein” to control the horse. It’s where the reins are attached to the bit but aren’t attached to each other. (1)
The reins are held in the rider's hands. They are usually long enough to perhaps APPEAR whip-like and occasionally a rider will use it to spur the mount a bit. But reins are not whips. Border Patrol doesn't carry whips. (2-END)
But image is everything with some people, and some Democrats were aghast that while their party is in charge, border agents could be seen acting like … acting like … well, Republicans or something.
Actually, border agents were just doing their jobs, using horses, long known to law enforcement as effective in crowd control.
And nobody was being whipped.
Except the sovereignty of the nation.
Republicans, by the way, expressed some sympathy toward the Haitians, according to the Daily Mail, because the migrants were led to believe they would receive asylum in the U.S.
And why not?
In May, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Haitians could receive Temporary Protected Status in the country, meaning they wouldn’t be deported and could apply for authorization to work.
In July, Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated, and in August, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti killed some 2,000 people.
Late last week, 12,000 migrants showed up at Del Rio; some had been refugees in Brazil and Chile following a 2010 earthquake.
On Monday, the Biden administration said they couldn’t come in. Some were deported, but by Wednesday — no surprise — there were reports that thousands had been released into the U.S.
The great tragedy of U.S. immigration policy — such as it is — is its ongoing inconsistency. Obey our laws, we say, but if we need Democratic votes, or cheap labor, or whatever, we can always (wink, wink) make some special arrangements.
Oh, and no matter what the Biden crew says, it’s always wise to trust your lyin’ eyes.
That’s just what Abbott’s people did.
Which is why they created a steel barrier to protect the southern border.
The following is an installment in a weekly series of commentary articles by Cameron Arcand, founder of the conservative commentary website Young Not Stupid and a contributor to The Western Journal.
Are you shocked by the flood of Haitian refugees at the border? You might not be.
In fact, 14,000 illegal migrants camped out underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, hardly even feels newsworthy anymore.
These people made the perilous journey through Mexico to escape the poverty and political instability in their own country, and the Biden administration was not up to the challenge.
Local law enforcement described the conditions at the encampment as “third world-like,” according to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin.
“Really hard to believe this is the United States of America,” Melugin added.
Fox News’s @BillFOXLA: “Local law enforcement out here are on-the-record describing this [migrant] camp as ‘third-world-like conditions'” and “really hard to believe this is the United States of America.”
That’s a major problem, yet President Joe Biden’s handling of the border has numbed the public to chaos and tragedy.
There is a humanitarian crisis happening on American soil, and it’s nothing more than we’ve come to expect.
Illegal migrant encounters are at a 21-year high, with nearly 200,000 in July alone, according to Pew Research Center.
That is unacceptable. The Biden administration has clearly lost control of the border despite having had several months to get this “seasonal uptick” under control.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is saying there will be “dramatic results” in Del Rio in the coming days, Politico reported; but don’t hold your breath.
The President just addressed the UN— not one mention of the crisis at the border where roughly 15,000 people surged into the US (mostly Haitians) from Mexico.
More than 9,000 remain here in Del Rio waiting to be processed by @CBP
Haitian immigrants being deported back to the Caribbean nation bit Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on a flight bound for Port-au-Prince from Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, according to the Washington Examiner.
The Monday incident saw two Haitian immigrants leave their seats as the aircraft taxied to the runway and attack ICE agents by biting them, forcing takeoff to be delayed, the report said.
Federal assault charges will be brought against the two Haitian attackers, the Examiner reported.
“[The Haitians] all realized they were going back to Haiti and lost it,” a senior federal law enforcement officer told the newspaper.
Last month, Haiti was hit by a powerful earthquake resulting in thousands of deaths.
The devastating temblor came just weeks after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
A second deportation flight was reported canceled by the U.S. government because Haitian migrants on board were “being disruptive and not complying” while the plane was on the tarmac, the Examiner reported.
Meanwhile, in another incident, three ICE officers were injured during a Tuesday assault at the Port-au-Prince airport when a group from a plane carrying single adult men stormed another recently arriving flight carrying deported families, according to NBC News.
The three ICE agents suffered non-life-threatening injuries, the report said.
CNBC video from the scene showed the chaotic incident at Haiti’s main airport, with returnees reacting angrily to spending large sums of money on arduous journeys attempting to reach the United States after learning the Biden administration had stopped deporting Haitians. https://www.youtube.com/embed/cgmu0ZGbjSc?feature=oembed
“On Tuesday, Sept. 21, some adult migrants caused two separate disruptions on the tarmac after deplaning in Port-au-Prince, Haiti,” a Department of Homeland Security representative said in a statement, according to NBC News.
“Haitian crowd control officers responded to both incidents and resolved the situations. ICE fully respects the rights of all people to peacefully express their opinions, while continuing to perform its immigration enforcement mission consistent with our priorities, federal law and agency policy.”
Some 10,000 migrants, mainly Haitians, have set up an impromptu camp under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, after wading across the Rio Grande separating Mexico and the United States.
NEW: This is what it looks like under the international bridge in Del Rio this morning. Latest numbers as of 6 AM.
6,722 migrants 4,742 family units 1,489 single adult men 418 single adult females 73 family “groups”
300+ pregnant women here as of yesterday. @FoxNews
Border agents have begun expelling planeloads of mostly Haitian migrants from the sprawling makeshift camp.
Optics for the Biden administration worsened on Monday after viral footage from the U.S.-Mexico border showed officers on horseback trying to push Haitians back across the border.
“We are increasing the frequency and number of the repatriation flights each day,” he said. “And we’re hoping that what we are doing now serves as a deterrent because it backs up the words that we have spoken since the very outset: that irregular migration is not the way to enter the United States. It will not work.”
Deterrence is the ancient ability to scare somebody off from hurting you, your friends, or your interests—without a major war.
Desire peace? Then be prepared for war. Or so the Romans believed.
It’s an easily understood concept in the abstract. But deterrence still remains a mystical quality in the concrete since it is only acquired with difficulty and yet easily forfeited.
The tired democracies of the 1930s learned that lesson when they kept acquiescing to Hitler’s serial aggressions.
Hitler’s Germany foolishly later attacked a far stronger Soviet Union in 1941, given Moscow’s lost deterrence after its lackluster performances in Poland and Finland, its pact with the Nazis, and its recent purges of its own officer corps.
Deterrence is omnipresent and also applies well beyond matters of war and peace. The current crime wave of murder and violent assault in our major cities is the wage of loud efforts to defund the police and contextualize crimes as somehow society’s rather than the criminal’s fault.
As a result, lawbreakers now believe there is a good chance that robbing people or hurting or killing them might result in monetary gain or at least bloody satisfaction. They no longer fear a likely sentence of 30 years in prison. So, they see little risk in hurting people. And innocents suffer.
With a border wall, an end to catch and release, and tough jawboning of the Mexican and Central American governments, a new American deterrent stance in 2019–20 discouraged once unstoppable waves of migrants.
Northern bound migrants knew that even if they reached and crossed the border, there was a good chance all such effort would be for naught, given quick apprehension and deportation.
So, in their rational calculations, migrants waited at home for less deterrent times. And they found them when Joe Biden stopped construction on the wall, renewed catch and release, and eased pressures on Mexico to interrupt caravans headed northward.
Abroad, Donald Trump restored the strategic deterrence lost by his predecessor.
Barack Obama had dismissed the murderous ISIS as “JVs”—and they thrived. He shrugged when China stole territory in the South China Sea to build military bases. He dismantled missile defense in Europe to coax Vladimir Putin to behave during his own 2012 reelection campaign.
Obama loudly announced redlines in Syria while never intending to enforce them. He gave the Taliban back their incarcerated terrorist leaders in exchange for the return of the American deserter Bowe Bergdahl. And he sent the Iranians nocturnal cash to coax them to conclude an appeasing Iran deal. Aggression followed as U.S. deterrence eroded.
As an antidote to all that, Trump destroyed the ISIS “caliphate.” He obliterated an attack of Russian mercenaries in Syria. He took out terrorist masterminds like Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and the ISIS cutthroat Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
To dangerous actors, an unpredictable Trump appeared likely to strike back if provoked. As a result, America’s enemies become fearful of challenging the United States. And its friends and neutrals were more ready to join a power again deemed not just reliable, but willing to take reasonable risks to assist in their safety.
Key to deterrence is for all parties to know beforehand the relative power of each and the likelihood that it may be used. When strong powers unfortunately transmit signals of weakness, whether deliberately or inadvertently, then weak powers are confused and come to believe their rivals may not be so strong as their armed forces appear. Often, unnecessary wars are the unfortunate result.
These are quite dangerous times because Joe Biden has cut the defense budget. He withdrew recklessly from Afghanistan, leaving behind American citizens, our Afghan allies and friends, and tens of billions of dollars worth of modern weaponry and equipment.
He angered our NATO partners who were abandoned with some 8,000 troops, in a country that the United States had once implored them to enter. He has politicized the military into a caricature of an elite woke top brass at odds with traditionalist enlisted soldiers.
The result is that our enemies—Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the Chinese Communist apparat, the Iranian theocrats, the lunatic North Koreans—are now pondering whether Biden’s reckless laxity is an aberration. Or is it now characteristic of his administration? Or does it even signal a new weaker and confused America that offers enemies strategic openings?
Like the would-be felon, or the potential border crosser, our enemies know the United States has the power to deter unwanted behavior, given its vast military, huge economy, and global culture.
But they may have contempt that with such strength comes such perceived confusion. And thus, in the manner of an emboldened criminal, or migrant, they try something that they would otherwise not.
In sum, deterrence at home and abroad is now dangerously lost. And it will be even scarier trying to recover what was so rashly and foolishly thrown away.
Security at the United States’ southern border has fallen sharply since President Joe Biden took office, the former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol says.
Rodney Scott was part of the border enforcement agency for nearly 30 years before being ousted in June. In a new letter penned to top senators, Scott said he witnessed an “unprecedent[ed] seismic shift in border security and immigration policy” after Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20.
“I believe this policy shift and the associated public statements created the current border crisis. Of greater concern, I also witnessed a lack of any meaningful effort to secure our borders,” he added.
The United States made advances in border security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks after finding out that some of the attackers illegally entered the country from Mexico. But Scott said this year, under Biden, that security has rapidly disintegrated.
Biden administration officials are ignoring common-sense recommendations and seem “laser-focused on expediting the flow of migrants into the U.S.” while downplaying “the significant vulnerability this creates for terrorists, narcotics, smugglers, human traffickers, and even hostile nations to gain access to our homeland,” Scott wrote.
He accused Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of providing factually incorrect information to Congress and letting illegal immigrants who, by law, should be expelled from the country remain here. He urged top senators, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), to request detailed information on the situation from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as part of their oversight responsibility.
Customs and Border Protection, which includes Border Patrol, declined to comment. DHS, which includes both, did not respond to a request for comment.
Then-President Donald Trump speaks with then-Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott (R) as they participates in a ceremony commemorating the 200th mile of border wall at the international border with Mexico in San Luis, Arizona, on June 23, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The letter was written in mid-September and released this week by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
“It’s a devastating letter. It should be a bombshell,” Johnson told The Epoch Times.
Johnson quoted from the letter in a congressional hearing on Tuesday that featured, among others, Mayorkas.
Of the over 1.3 million apprehensions at the southern border this year, Johnson asked, “how many immigrants have been released into the United States?”
Mayorkas said he did not have those numbers but promised to provide them later to the senator.
Biden and his administration have radically altered immigration enforcement from the previous administration, which had cut down on illegal immigration through tools like the Migrant Policy Protocols, a program that forced many asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their claims were heard. Mayorkas ended that program.
Mayorkas claimed that the administration’s strategy is working, pointing to a slight drop in apprehensions in August from July. He and other officials have said it will take time for the overhaul to show results.
Johnson, though, alleged that what’s currently happening is what Democrats want to happen.
“They’ve got a plan. It’s called completely open borders, and they’re executing that plan, and from their standpoint, he was working swimmingly well,” he told The Epoch Times. “I’m hoping the rest of America realizes what an unmitigated disaster and the serious consequences [and] the homeland and national security impact of this.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki struggled to answer questions from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy on Wednesday about President Joe Biden’s border crisis, including whether Biden has ever even been to the southern border.
“Just following up on this very basic, but very important question, you’re telling us that the DHS chief has the most recent numbers about how many of these Haitians under the bridge have been sent back and how many have been released into the U.S.,” Doocy said. “The DHS chief is telling us that he doesn’t know. So, who else can we ask?”
“You can certainly ask the Department of Homeland Security,” Psaki said.
“The chief says he doesn’t know,” Doocy responded.
“I am confident he wanted to have the most up-to-date numbers, and we will venture to get you those, I promise you, this afternoon,” Psaki claimed.
WATCH:
DOOCY TIME: “You’re telling us that the DHS chief has the most recent numbers about how many of these Haitians….have been sent back and how many have been released into the U.S. The DHS chief is telling us he doesn’t know, so who else can we ask?” pic.twitter.com/4rRipqGIbJ
“Is this an issue of not knowing, or is this an issue of a lot more people are being released into the U.S. than are being sent out?” Doocy pressed.
“That is certainly not the issue,” Psaki claimed without evidence. “First, I think it’s important to reiterate what I conveyed earlier about what the actual process is: Individuals are expelled under Title 42. If they can’t be expelled under Title 42, they are put into a removal process. If they’re put into a removal process, they’re either transported to an ICE facility or released with a legal document. That legal document includes fingerprints, photos, phone numbers, an address in the United States, and a background check.”
WATCH:
Doocy: “Is this an issue of not knowing or is this an issue of a lot more people are being released into the U.S. then are being sent out?”
“Has President Biden ever been to the southern border?” Doocy pressed.
“In his life?” Psaki asked.
“Yes,” Doocy answered.
“I will have to get — look back in my history books and check the times he’s been to the southern border. I’d be happy to,” Psaki claimed.
“We have been looking all morning, and we cannot find any record of him visiting the border as president, vice president, senator, or even as a concerned citizen,” Doocy responded. “Why would that be?”
“I can check and see when the last time or when he may have been,” Psaki claimed.
WATCH:
Doocy with the question of the day: “Has President Biden ever been to the southern border…We have been looking all morning and we can not find any record of him visiting the border as President, Vice President, senator, or even as a concerned citizen. Why would that be?” pic.twitter.com/JJF5NasUy6
“But tell me more about why you’re asking,” Psaki continued.
“Because this is a president who makes a point when there are disasters in this country, like a wildfire or a hurricane, to go and see for himself firsthand what the needs are of the local community so that he can have an informed POV to make policy,” Doocy answered. “Why doesn’t he do that — why doesn’t he go down to Del Rio, Texas, and see what’s going on?”
“Well, first of all, Peter, I think the situation at the border is the result of a broken system,” Psaki claimed. “And the president certainly relies on his experience.”
Psaki claimed that Biden relies on “all of his experiences and his time in office” to deal with the problem, even though she could not name a single time that Biden has ever been to the border.
WATCH:
Doocy: “This is a President who makes a point when there are disasters in this country, like a wildfire or hurricane…so that he can have an informed POV to make policy. Why doesn’t he do that? Why doesn’t he go down to Dell Rio, Texas and see what’s going on?” (6/6) pic.twitter.com/fFj04LkTA9
Move comes as Biden administration faces an influx of illegal immigrants in Del Rio, Tex.
The Biden administration is tapping a left-wing attorney who has publicly endorsed sanctuary laws for illegal aliens to serve as Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s top prosecutor, according to an internal memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
ICE announced the hiring of Kerry Doyle, a longtime partner at the Boston-based law firm Graves & Doyle, as the agency’s new principal legal adviser, a role that oversees 25 field locations and 1,250 attorneys. The office serves as ICE’s representative in all removal proceedings and litigates cases against illegal aliens and terrorists.
“Throughout her legal practice in Boston, Ms. Doyle worked closely with the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and Massachusetts Law Reform Institute providing technical assistance and public testimony and various immigration-related policy issues before the state legislature and Boston City Council,” the ICE memo reads.
A spokesman for ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Doyle’s appointment comes as the Biden administration faces an influx of Haitian refugees, who are overrunning the border city of Del Rio, Texas. After reversing a bevy of Trump-era immigration rules, an uptick in illegal migration across the Southern border has strained resources and presented a political problem for the president, who repudiated Trump’s hardline approach to policing the border but risks political blowback from an influx of illegal residents.
Doyle’s LinkedIn profile spotlights her work as co-counsel in a case that pushed for — and won — a temporary restraining order against then-president Donald Trump’s 2017 travel ban. The attorney also spoke in favor of a Massachusetts bill called the “Safe Communities Act” in early 2020 arguing that ICE was “out of control.” . The measure would have applied sanctuary city laws nationwide and sharply limited the state’s cooperation with the federal government on the deportation of illegal immigrants.
“The Safe Communities Act limits state cooperation … [with ICE]: don’t ask about immigration status; don’t pay for sheriffs to act as ICE agents; tell people their rights,” a description of the bill by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts reads. In June, Doyle told a local news outlet that the state must pass the bill, saying state Democrats should not trust “the Biden administration’s more supportive tone as an excuse not to do what our state needs to do.”
Doyle, who did not respond to a request for comment, has also helped represent illegal aliens convicted of crimes in the past. In March, she filed a petition with ACLU Massachusetts to release two criminal aliens with medical conditions, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. Doyle’s name has since been scrubbed from her previous law firm’s website.
One of President Joe Biden’s first executive orders in office was to suspend arrests, deportations, and investigations of most criminal aliens for 100 days. Deportations under Biden have hit a record low. U.S. immigration judges ordered just 25,000 deportations by the end of August, compared to 152,000 in August 2020. The total number of cases completed by immigration courts are at a 28-year low, even as Border Patrol apprehensions hit a 21-year high.
Doyle will succeed John Trasviña, who assumed the role in January.
DEL RIO, Texas—The United States has deported more than 1,000 Haitians who streamed into the small border city of Del Rio, Texas, although officials are refusing to say how many others have been released into America’s interior.
The number of illegal immigrants, primarily from Haiti, rapidly grew under the international bridge near the border last week, at one point topping 14,000. The quick jump sparked the deployment of more than 600 agents and officers, as well as repatriation flights to Haiti.
U.S. officials have since moved more than 6,500 people from Del Rio to other parts of the border in an attempt to alleviate pressure. Approximately 1,083 have been deported back to Haiti on nine flights through Sept. 21, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
Others are being released into the interior. How many is unclear, because DHS officials aren’t saying.
The same spokesperson declined to answer questions about those being released, while Customs and Border Protection as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, both offices within DHS, referred The Epoch Times to DHS.
Border Patrol dropping Haitians off at local NGO Border Humanitarian Coalition after processing them. NGO gives them food, water, etc, and loads into buses to interior of United States. pic.twitter.com/TuWxF7163w
White House press secretary Jen Psaki refused to give the data during a briefing in Washington and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has twice this week declined before Congress to share data about the number of illegal immigrants being released. On Sept. 21, he told senators in Washington he didn’t have the precise numbers and wanted to wait so he could provide accurate information; on Sept. 22, he again said he didn’t have the data.
“Yesterday, you were asked exactly the same question and you gave exactly the same answer. You would think you would be a little better prepared now that you’ve been asked that question. … You don’t have that information?” Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said.
“I work 18 hours a day. So when I returned from yesterday’s hearing, I actually focused on the mission,” Mayorkas responded. “We will get that data both to the senator who posed it yesterday and to you, congressman, today.”
The Biden administration is dealing with an unprecedented surge in illegal immigration, a surge critics say stems from his administration’s policies. The number of illegal immigrant apprehensions at the southern border is on track to set a new record for the calendar year. And the administration has refused to shift its strategy, claiming it’s working.
Part of the strategy is releasing illegal immigrants into the country’s interior, which has been described by some as “catch and release.” Some 600,000 illegal aliens have been released into the United States since President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20, Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told The Epoch Times in a text message.
Haitian nationals collect their belongings after U.S. authorities flew them out of a Texas border city after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico, at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters)
That’s about half of the aliens who have been stopped by border agents since the inauguration. They’re released with a Notice to Appear, which gives a future court date to kick off their immigration proceedings, or a Notice to Report, a new phenomenon that requests the alien reports to a local ICE office within 60 days of being released.
Two U.S. officials told The Associated Press that many Haitians are also being freed, undercutting Mayorkas’s claims that Haiti nationals shouldn’t travel to the United States because they won’t be able to stay. One official said many of those being freed are being told to report to an immigration office within 60 days, as opposed to receiving a notice to appear in court.
A Border Patrol source told The Epoch Times that 3,843 illegal immigrants were apprehended in the Del Rio Border Sector in Texas between Sept. 20 at midnight and Sept. 21 at 11:45 a.m., with another 1,125 immigrants evading capture. Another 2,435 were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley sector, in addition to 301 “got-aways.”
An ICE spokesperson told Fox News that the agency has, over the past several weeks, “released numerous immigrants who transferred from the border after determining they could safely be released into the community under alternate forms of supervision.” One independent reporter spoke with Haitian nationals on a flight out of Texas headed to inland destinations.
Roughly 8,400 illegal immigrants remained in the makeshift Del Rio camp as of late Sept. 21. Mayorkas told senators on Sept. 21 that the goal was to clear the litter-ridden camp in the next 10 days, with “dramatic results” expected in the next two to four days.
That could prove difficult if more keep crossing the border illegally.
Thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Haitians, live in a primitive, makeshift camp under the International Bridge, which spans the Rio Grande between the United States and Mexico, while waiting to be detained and processed by Border Patrol, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said on Fox News that lawmakers were briefed on Sept. 21 that 40,000 to 60,000 more Haitians are amassing in Central America “and are on their way in a caravan up to the southwest border.”
Katko said some Haitians are being deported but some aren’t.
“Why? We don’t know,” he said. “The lack of consistency is feeding the frenzy to come across the border, the Southwest border. It’s making our country a lot less safe.”
While Republicans call for more deportations, some groups and Democrats are calling to stop them altogether.
“Deportation flights to Haiti must stop, and those seeking safety at our borders must be granted their legally assured chance to seek asylum,” a coalition of 39 groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, wrote to Biden on Sept. 21.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who rarely criticizes Biden, took him to task on the Senate floor in Washington.
“The policies that are being enacted now—and the horrible treatment of these innocent people who have come to the border—must stop immediately,” Schumer said.
Rep. Maxine Waters was a national disgrace when Donald Trump was in the White House.
Nine months into President Joe Biden’s administration, the spite-spewing Democrat from Southern California is showing she hasn’t lost a step.
A Waters Twitter post on Tuesday – about the widespread lie that Border Patrol agents were using whips on illegal immigrants — proved that.
“Haitians fleeing violence & the lack of a credible government in Haiti are being treated like animals,” Waters wrote. “U.S. government cowboys on horses used whips on Haitians as they sought refuge.”
Naturally, she found a way to blame Biden’s predecessor – without a shred of evidence, or even a conjured rationale: “Why are we following the Trump policies? This horrendous treatment of Haitians must STOP NOW.”
Haitians fleeing violence & the lack of a credible government in Haiti are being treated like animals. U.S. government cowboys on horses used whips on Haitians as they sought refuge. Why are we following the Trump policies? This horrendous treatment of Haitians must STOP NOW.
The problem for Waters is that the post is dead wrong — and anyone who follows the news would know it.
“Why are we following Trump’s policies?” she asked. The fact is, the country is not following the policies Trump put in place during his presidency. Those policies — a “remain in Mexico” rule that made border crashing less attractive for would-be immigrants, plus construction of a much-needed border wall — actually restored a semblance of order to the U.S.-Mexico border.
And as to the latest bogus “horrendous treatment” tale, by the time that Waters was published, the truth about the alleged whips had been widely circulated.
The story that started Sunday with a mistaken description of Border Patrol agents on horseback using whips against illegal immigrants near Del Rio, Texas, had already been debunked.
Anyone who cared to know the truth of the matter could have with just a few minutes of Google searching. The “whips” the agents were wielding were long reins used to control horses.
Even the video posted by one of the main promulgators of the “whip” hoax — Democratic operative Sawyer Hackett, who runs a political action committee founded by Obama-era House and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro — never really backed up the main accusation.
As National Review’s Brittany Bernstein and Isaac Schorr noted on Monday, the videos show the agents “wielding their reins — not whips — as they try to contain the flow of migrants across the river. And, while the agents can be seen swinging their reins menacingly, none of the available video evidence shows border patrol agents striking migrants with their reins.”
Twitter being what it is, of course, Waters had plenty of supporters who evidently don’t care to learn the facts or don’t care what they are. But there was some pushback.
You do know how horses work, right? They use the whips to get them to move. They’re not whipping the people!
Do better.
— Irene Armendariz-Jackson For Congress (@ArmendarizDis16) September 21, 2021
They are not using whips. Get the facts. Follow the law!!!
They seem to be Bidens policies, considering he’s been in office for 8 months on the promise to change how immigration is done in the U.S. The only thing I see is the level of brutality has been increased along with the number of deportation UNDER BIDENS POLICIES…
Administration officials such as Vice President Kamala Harris also took the lie and ran with it. (Harris demanded a “thorough investigation” of a simple fact.) White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the footage “horrific.”
With the Biden administration being buffeted by continuous crises largely of its own making — the border disaster, the continuing fallout from the disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, disarray in its latest plan to fight COVID-19 — administration officials and top Democrats are desperate for anything that can make them look like the good guys again.
And the Democratic Party has proved over and over again that it’s perfectly willing to betray law enforcement — whether its local police departments or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers or Border Patrol agents — to build its own political power.
To name just a few examples: Democrats (with the help of the mainstream media, of course) peddled lies about a police officer in the 2014 Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, that helped make Black Lives Matter a national movement. The George Floyd case in Minneapolis gave them license to peddle more lies about American police officers’ allegedly homicidal hatred of blacks.
For years, they’ve been attacking ICE and the Border Patrol for trying to protect American sovereignty – remember New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s bogus story about illegal immigrants being forced to drink from toilets?
Now, with a demonstrably incompetent Biden in the White House and disastrous Democratic control over both houses of Congress, the party needs to do something — anything — to distract American voters from the chaos they’ve caused. Midterm elections might be a year away now, but they’re getting closer all the time.
For lunatic lefties like Waters (the chairwoman of the House Finance Committee, God help us), that distraction is Donald Trump — and blaming him for the crises Joe Biden has caused must be an easy lie compared with the countless others Democrats have told.
The presidency changed in 2021, but Maxine Waters hasn’t. She’s still a disgrace.
The fact that she’s a powerful member of what is now the party in power in the United States is even worse.
More than 6,7000 mostly Haitian migrants remain under the Del Rio International Bridge along the Texas border, including more than 300 pregnant women, according to a new report.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin tweeted the new information Wednesday morning from Del Rio.
“NEW: This is what it looks like under the international bridge in Del Rio this morning. Latest numbers as of 6 AM.
“6,722 migrants 4,742 family units 1,489 single adult men 418 single adult females 73 family ‘groups’
“300+ pregnant women here as of yesterday,” Melugin tweeted.
The Biden administration has said it plans to send many of the migrants back to Haiti. However, “family units” will be excluded. This will include thousands of the up to 15,000 migrants who have crossed the Mexican border across the Rio Grande into Del Rio.
“We are releasing family groups (couples who claim female is pregnant). Family units (Families w/ children). All a woman has to do is claim she is pregnant and she will be released. They’re asked to please report to immigration within 60 days,” Melugin reported from a Border Patrol source.
From BP source in Del Rio: “We are releasing family groups (couples who claim female is pregnant). Family units (Families w/ children). All a woman has to do is claim she is pregnant and she will be released. They’re asked to please report to immigration within 60 days.”@FoxNews
Independent journalist Ali Bradley reported that at least one of the Haitian women from Del Rio has already given birth.
“While I was boarding my flight out of Texas, I talked with migrants, all from Haiti getting ready to head to: Florida (Orlando), New York, and Maryland,” Bradley tweeted on Wednesday.
“Baby Mateo was born 5 days ago in Del Rio,” he added.
While I was boarding my flight out of Texas, I talked with migrants, all from Haiti getting ready to head to: Florida (Orlando), New York, and Maryland.
KTRK-TV in Houston reported on Wednesday that Haitian migrants from Del Rio have been bused to the area. The report noted thjat “volunteers from a coalition of churches are preparing them for the next part of their journey in America.”
In addition, “The migrants staying there are reportedly families who came to escape violence or persecution. They’ll eventually be taken to Bush Intercontinental Airport or the bus station to meet up with their sponsors in other states.”
Even when President Joe Biden tries to get the situation under control at the border, things still seem to spiral out of hand.
Last week, after letting a camp of mostly Haitian migrants build up at the border in Del Rio, Texas, the Biden administration ordered the prompt removal of the illegal immigrants back to their country of origin. According to The Associated Press, there would be seven expulsion flights planned daily beginning Wednesday.
Three flights Sunday carried over 320 migrants back to their country of origin after they crossed the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.
Roughly 3,300 migrants were moved from the Del Rio camp between Friday until Sunday, according to the AP, which cited Border Patrol Chief Raul L. Ortiz. Of the 12,600 migrants that remained, Border Patrol hoped to have 3,000 of them removed in another day and the encampment gone within one week.
This was at least a sign that the Biden administration was trying to get the situation under control, even if the migrant camp in Del Rio was more of a symptom of a larger problem than the problem itself. However, even in the decision to remove the migrants from the camp and return them to Haiti, there was another sign of the administration’s inability to handle the crisis: A transport bus was overtaken by illegal immigrants about to be deported.
According to the Washington Examiner, a bus bound for San Antonio, Texas, from the Del Rio International Bridge was hijacked by migrants on Monday afternoon during the two-and-a-half hour trip on the contracted private vehicle. Several migrants then escaped from the bus, although they were later taken back into custody
“They did break out of the bus, and they did escape,” a senior law enforcement official told the Examiner.
Brownsville, Texas-based KVEO-TV, reported Monday evening that “several non-citizens attempted to flee the contracted bus.”
All individuals who escaped were back in custody as of 7:15 p.m. No one was hurt.
SOURCES: Haitian migrants revolt while in custody and seize control of privately contracted bus, escape federal custody https://t.co/uDr5hWZidg
The bus was under contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WVEO reported.
“The safety of our personnel and the people in our custody is of utmost priority, the … noncitizens are all back in our custody,” an ICE representative told the outlet.
This is probably something the administration should be defending itself over. Instead, it’s focused on investigating a wildly false accusation that Border Patrol agents on horseback have been using whips on Haitian migrants.
Border patrol is mounted on horseback rounding up Haitian refugees with whips.
This is unfathomable cruelty towards people fleeing disaster and political ruin. The administration must stop this. pic.twitter.com/BSjT91NSj0
This is Sawyer Hackett, executive director of former Obama-era Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro’s political action committee People Future First.
Vice News also ran a story titled “US Border Agents Are Removing Haitian Migrants Using Horses and Whips.”
Some outlets ran a version of the story in which the agents were using lassos, instead. None of this was true, naturally; the pictures show horse reins flying, not whips cracking.
But never mind that. White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the images “obviously horrific,” according to a White House transcript of Tuesday’s news briefing.
WH Secretary Jen Psaki on footage appearing to show border patrol agents using whips against Haitian migrants coming into the United States from Mexico: “I have seen some of the footage. I don’t have the full context. I can’t imagine what context would make that appropriate.” pic.twitter.com/83O2bjZCyp
“I have seen some of the footage. I don’t have the full context,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a media briefing on Monday.
“I can’t imagine what context would make that appropriate, but I don’t have additional details … I don’t think anyone seeing that footage would think it was acceptable or appropriate.”
Except the footage Psaki is so worried about is being grossly misinterpreted and the country is having a national debate over something that never happened. Vice President Kamala Harris called the images “horrible” and wants a “thorough investigation,” as the Daily Caller reported.
Meanwhile, Haitian migrants hijacking an ICE-contracted bus passes by with almost no notice whatsoever. Oh, our media seem to be saying, they commandeered the transport that was taking them to the airport for deportation? Well, gosh — all’s well that ends well, right? Let’s talk about that Border Patrol agent again. Now, if you look at those reins in just the right light, it could be a lasso, right?
According to a New York Post report, over 6,000 Haitians had been removed from the encampment between Sunday and Tuesday. Given there were nearly 15,000 migrants at the camp at its height, that still means there’s plenty of work to be done.
The administration will be lucky if it doesn’t end up with another bus hijacking like this one. God forbid it turns out to be worse.
Then, the media might start asking questions that don’t have to do with chimerical Border Patrol agents with whips on horseback.
Border Patrol agents who were insulted by Vice President Kamala Harris following erroneous reporting from the establishment media have fired back to defend themselves, with one of them calling those who run our country — people such as Harris — “idiots.”
Leftist Democrats and corporate media liars don’t know an awful lot about rural life, law enforcement or horses, among other things which are so common for many Americans. They certainly, most of them anyway, don’t know anything about corralling a horse with reins in a high-stress situation.
Naturally, when these people saw viral images of Border Patrol agents on horseback on Monday, they arrived at the absolute worst conclusion possible: Cops were out in the desert whipping Haitian migrants.
Reuters apparently knew better, so the agency’s social media managers resorted to using language which was intended to deceive people. A harmless horse rein was called a “whip-like cord” in a headline used by the wire service.
The White House criticized the use of horse reins to threaten Haitian migrants after images circulated of a U.S. border guard on horseback charging at migrants near a riverside camp in Texas https://t.co/g6x1sHyCt6
Brandon Darby, a Breitbart News reporter who has spent years covering drug cartels and illegal immigration in Texas, assisted those who could not understand what they were seeing in the viral images that sent the establishment media into its predictable meltdown.
“Let me help you be more accurate. First photo appears to show Border Patrol using ‘whip-like cord’ on migrant. Second photo of same event shows it’s just the horse reins slinging around and agent is not whipping migrant,” Darby tweeted.
Let me help you be more accurate. First photo appears to show Border Patrol using “whip-like cord” on migrant. Second photo of same event shows it’s just the horse reins slinging around and agent is not whipping migrant. pic.twitter.com/wfFB2Dgweg
Harris apparently never saw the message. She did revert to the standard Democratic Party line which is used any time not all the facts are in, but law enforcement is involved in controversy: She attacked embattled police officers, and said she was “troubled” by their inhumane behavior.
“What I saw depicted about those individuals on horseback treating human beings the way they were is horrible, and I fully support what is happening right now, which is a thorough investigation,” she said on Tuesday. “Human beings should never be treated that way.”
VP HARRIS: “What I saw depicted about those individuals on horseback treating human beings the way they were is horrible…Human beings should never be treated that way.”
“…As a member of the Western Hemisphere, we’ve gotta support some very basic needs…” pic.twitter.com/Q8l5S6W8gi
What an absolute halfwit. Is it really any wonder that people don’t like this woman? At least her take wasn’t as bad as that of CNN contributor and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa:
Some of our country’s fine border enforcement people fired back at Harris and her establishment media comrades to correct the record. Upset Border Patrol agents who have been working 10 hours a day, six days a week to protect a border Harris refuses to do anything about explained the situation to Fox News.
Undersupplied and outmanned, agents have resorted to using horses to get around. This is because as many as 15,000 illegal aliens have descended on Del Rio, Texas, thanks in large part to Harris.
“This whole situation is blowing up and even liberals are turning on this administration,” one unnamed Border Patrol agent told the network. “[Harris] is placing blame on agents to deflect because she and Biden are not going to change how they are handling this.”
Another agent who remained anonymous said the dustup “proves what absolute idiots [those in charge] are.”
“With basic knowledge and two brain cells, anyone knows those agents use split reins. They do use them as a whip, on their horses,” that agent added. “This helps get a quicker response from the horse to move out when needed, especially when the horse may be hesitant with groups of people or other animals.”
“Again it is clear that those ‘in charge,’ a term that is disgusting to use, have no clue about our operations and frankly operate by ignorance and unhinged emotions,” the agent concluded.
Harris, in all fairness, probably doesn’t know a great deal about horses. We know she doesn’t know a lot about policing — which, if this were anyone else, would come as a surprise. She was once California’s top law enforcement agent as the state’s former attorney general, after all.
Of course, if she ever wanted to educate herself about policing, or even horses, there are probably lots of people who would be more than willing to show her the ropes down at the southern border. She would even be in a position to solve a crisis or two while there.
Border Patrol agents say they have uncovered part of a human smuggling operation in Texas after discovering illegal immigrants packed into a hotel room.
As part of the investigation, Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents found that illegal immigrants were using a storm drain to illegally cross the border and slip into Edinburg, Texas, according to a news release posted on the Customs and Border Protection website.
The investigation began on Friday with a tip that illegal immigrants were being warehoused in one room at a local hotel, according to the release.
When agents went to see what was going on, “agents observed two individuals enter the suspect room carrying several jugs of water and groceries. Their ongoing surveillance identified other factors indicating that the room was being used to harbor migrants.”
The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office then used its authority to conduct a welfare check and found 16 people in the small hotel room.
#HumanSmugglers#Texas Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings: Hotels near Highway 281 used for illicit activities!
RGV agents and Hidalgo County Seriff’s Office arrested 16 migrants, who claimed they were held for nearly 30 days by human smugglers. pic.twitter.com/0FWnpHGFMf
The group, made up of illegal immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico, said they had been parked in the room for almost 30 days, the news release stated.
The next day, McAllen Border Patrol Station agents watching a storm drain in Hidalgo, Texas, saw several people emerging from it.
In cooperation with the Hidalgo Police Department, seven people, including one unaccompanied child, were arrested. The illegal immigrants were from Honduras and Mexico, the release said.
But the day was not over. That night, four illegal immigrants, from Mexico and Honduras, were arrested after popping out of the storm drain.
Border Patrol agents have been dealing with a spike in human smuggling ever since President Joe Biden took office, especially in the Rio Grande Valley.
A tip from the community led Weslaco agents to a human smuggling stash house in McAllen, TX, resulting in the apprehension of 10 migrants.
In Hidalgo, TX, agents encountered a group of 147 migrants. This is RGV’s 60th large group of 100 or more people smuggled this year. pic.twitter.com/jBDmrrgg9R
— Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings (@USBPChiefRGV) June 14, 2021
The flood of illegal immigrants into the U.S. during the Biden presidency was the subject of biting commentary from two Fox News hosts.
“Imagine we shipped thousands and thousands of migrants into Delaware and they’re fishing on the bay or they’re riding Amtrak, packed in unvaxxed, with little English and no skills,” Jesse Watters, co-host of “The Five, ” said Monday as he noted that Biden is insulated from the reality taking place along the border in Texas.
“Where are they going to live? In tents? Are they going to live on the beach? Are we going to put them in starter homes? You’ll have to double every classroom size of every public school district. You’re going to have to raise taxes to pay for the social services,” he said.
“Hannity” host Sean Hannity echoed the thoughts Monday night.
“Biden’s border crisis is worse than ever: Seven months after it started and eight months after he lifted nearly all of President Trump’s border protections,” he said.
“President Trump gifted President Biden with a secure border. But Joe screwed it up,” Hannity said.
The wife of a U.S. Border Patrol agent told Fox News on Monday that the border crisis is so severe in her community, Del Rio, Texas, that she’s been finding footprints underneath her daughters’ bedroom windows.
Alison Anderson appeared on the network to share a story of just how close to home the Biden administration’s border dysfunction is hitting. The area she lives in is currently the epicenter of a humanitarian crisis and an embarrassing display of government ineptitude.
Stunning images shared online over the past several days showed thousands of migrants, most reportedly from Haiti, had ignored the federal government’s weak language advising them not to travel to the United States.
NEW: We’ve learned that the FAA just implemented a two week TFR (Temporary Flight Restrictions) over the international bridge in Del Rio, TX, meaning we can no longer fly our FOX drone over it to show images of the thousands of migrants. FAA says “special security reason”. pic.twitter.com/aJrjAPO2Pz
NEW: From our @FoxNews drone, a look at the migrant camp under the international bridge in Del Rio this morning, where thousands migrants remain after they crossed into the US illegally. pic.twitter.com/06sUY2XCi5
In fact, so many people had amassed under an international bridge in southern Texas that action is finally being taken to fly many of those people back to Haiti.
But according to an account Anderson shared, people crossing the border aren’t just staying put on the banks of the Rio Grande River. Illegal immigrants are crossing through her property just feet from where her three daughters sleep, she said.
NEW: From our @FoxNews drone, a look at the migrant camp under the international bridge in Del Rio this morning, where thousands migrants remain after they crossed into the US illegally. pic.twitter.com/06sUY2XCi5
In fact, so many people had amassed under an international bridge in southern Texas that action is finally being taken to fly many of those people back to Haiti.
But according to an account Anderson shared, people crossing the border aren’t just staying put on the banks of the Rio Grande River. Illegal immigrants are crossing through her property just feet from where her three daughters sleep, she said.
“We had illegals running through the back end of our property towards our house. … We’ve had footprints from illegals, because there is nobody else on our property walking around in the middle of night, underneath our daughters’ bedroom windows,” Anderson said.
She also went after President Joe Biden and those around him for refusing to acknowledge the terrible situation on the border, which she said is “out of control.”
“We would like to hear this actually get called what it is, which is a crisis,” Anderson said. “It is a border crisis. It’s a humanitarian crisis. It’s a health crisis. And, I mean, it’s a security crisis right now.”
She also rightly accused the federal government of abandoning American citizens who are left to deal with the aftermath of its disastrous immigration policies in Texas. Anderson said property owners are on their own, as are the Border Patrol agents, like her husband, who are dealing with a morale crisis as they’ve been forced to sit and watch their country suffer through an invasion.Related:Host of ‘Meet the Press’ Finally Hits His Breaking Point on Biden’s Disastrous Presidency
“It would be great to have some support and, unfortunately, our town, our community, our citizens and our agents, our DPS [Texas Department of Public Safety], our troops, nobody is getting that support,” Anderson told Fox News.
The Biden administration doesn’t care about securing the border, even as its officials ramble on elsewhere about the coronavirus pandemic. Nor does it care about stopping criminals or preventing people from becoming crime victims.
Anderson has lived near the border amid Biden’s historic surge in illegal migration. She would like, at the very least, for the president and his advisers to call the entire mess what it is: a crisis. That is something they still refuse to do.
I asked Sec. Mayorkas if he will publicly admit the situation at the border is a crisis since he was recorded last month privately admitting there is a crisis and it’s unsustainable.
Sadly for people who live in areas dealing with waves of illegal immigration, the federal government apparently is more concerned with hiding what is happening than anything else. The Federal Aviation Administration last week instituted a temporary ban on drones over the border in Del Rio.
The FAA’s conveniently placed a ban on drones flying over the international bridge where 10K+ illegal aliens are waiting to be processed – preventing media from covering the scene.
Biden doesn’t want you to see what a disaster he’s created.
Nobody in the White House or the Department of Homeland Security will have to answer for a crisis if people outside of the affected area don’t know what is going on.
DHS plan calls for hundreds of agents to be reassigned to deal with influx from Haiti
The Department of Homeland Security’s plan to send hundreds of Border Patrol agents to Del Rio, Texas, is leaving large swaths of the U.S.-Mexico border wide open, according to interviews with officials from both agencies.
In response to the surge of mostly Haitian nationals swarming the southern border, DHS committed to moving “400 [Customs and Border Protection] agents and officers” to the Del Rio sector in order to accelerate processing and deportations. DHS will not disclose where those extra agents are coming from, although one Border Patrol agent who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon said DHS requested 30 agents from his outpost in the southwest to be transferred to Del Rio. The plan threatens to exacerbate the existing border crisis in other parts of the country.
“We’re already so stretched thin,” the individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said. “This puts so much more strain on our normal border patrol work.”
A spokesman for CBP said he did not have an exact breakdown of where officers would be coming from and referred the Free Beacon to a public memo from DHS, which laid out its “new comprehensive strategy to address the increase in migrant encounters in the Del Rio Sector of South Texas.” The effort to address the 13,000 and growing migrants in Del Rio comes at the cost of leaving hundreds of miles along the U.S.-Mexico border unpatrolled, said one senior DHS official. Another official went on to say that the agency is already creating “processing facilities on the fly,” distracting staff from anti-cartel and other security operations.
The official went on to blame the Biden administration’s decision to exempt most migrant families from Title 42—a Centers for Disease Control power that allows the U.S. government to turn away migrants before they can apply for asylum.
“Releasing families on notices to appear [before an immigration judge] is pretty much telling them to go back and kidnap someone, grab a bunch of kids, or lie about any random person with you being your family,” the official said. “It’s just extremely stupid.”
Bruno Lozano, the Democratic mayor of Del Rio, is pleading with the Biden administration to do more to curb the influx of migrants into his town.
“This is something that really needs to be brought to light,” the mayor said in a statement posted on Twitter. “We need quick action from the administration. We need quick attention to this. We need a response in real-time.”
In his statement, Lozano emphasized the potential security and health threats caused by the thousands of migrants. A Sept. 10 Report released by the DHS inspector general criticized the Biden administration for the lack of disease safety protocols, including the fact that only migrants who show symptoms of illness are tested for COVID-19.
More than 1.5 million migrants have crossed the southern border in 2021. The month of July saw the most migrant encounters in more than two decades. August saw 208,887 encounters, a slight dip from the previous month but still a 317 percent increase from August 2020.
DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to Del Rio on Monday and told migrants that the U.S. border, contrary to the beliefs of many attempting to cross into the country, is not open.
“I want to make sure that it is known that this is not the way to come to the United States. That is false information,” Mayorkas said. “Irregular migration poses a serious security risk to the migrants themselves. Trying to enter the United States illegally is not worth the tragedy, the money, or the effort.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to Del Rio, Texas, on Monday to address the recent crossing of the southern border by thousands of mostly-Haitian migrants, but refused to say the border is in crisis.
Townhall reporter Julio Rosas published a video on Twitter that included a portion of Mayorkas’ remarks, with a reference to comments Mayorkas made that were leaked to a Fox News correspondent in August.
“I asked Sec. Mayorkas if he will publicly admit the situation at the border is a crisis since he was recorded last month privately admitting there is a crisis and it’s unsustainable,” Rosas wrote.
“He did not, instead saying DHS is focused on ‘meeting the challenge.’”
I asked Sec. Mayorkas if he will publicly admit the situation at the border is a crisis since he was recorded last month privately admitting there is a crisis and it’s unsustainable.
Mayorkas arrived in Del Rio earlier on Monday, when he visited the migrant camp under the Del Rio International Bridge where approximately 12,000 people remained after the Rio Grande crossing was closed on Sunday.
BREAKING: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is on the ground here in Del Rio. He just flew into the international bridge area via helicopter. He is now getting a tour of the migrant camp and is receiving an operational update. He will then have a press conference. @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/ToZ38uBbWc
In a video Rosas published to Twitter on Sunday, Del Rio Mayor Bruce Lozano, a Democrat, said he has still not heard from President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.
“He feels the White House needs to be transparent about the border crisis in real time,” Rosas wrote with the video.
Del Rio Mayor Lozano (D) says he still has not heard directly from Biden or Harris after getting a briefing with DHS Sec. Mayorkas today.
He feels the White House needs to be transparent about the border crisis in real time. pic.twitter.com/AdGOMHxNDH
Democratic Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano has called out President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for failing to make an appearance at his town as it battles with an overwhelming illegal immigrant crisis that has left Border Patrol agents struggling to process thousands of people.
More than 15,000 illegal immigrants, including Haitian, Cuban, and Venezuelan nationals, have illegally entered the United States in recent days and taken shelter underneath the border bridge connecting Del Rio, a Texas town of about 35,000 people, to Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.
While numerous official figures and congressmen, including Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), have visited the town, shared images, and urged the Biden administration to take action, both Biden and Harris have been noticeably absent.
Del Rio now: US on the left, Mexico on the right. Constant stream back and forth as the illegal immigrants get supplies in Mexico.
Law enforcement preparing against a rush for the border fence as the aliens find out they might be deported. pic.twitter.com/TgxK5Sdrv1
On Sept.18, as Pfluger warned that the situation has “reached boiling point,” Harris made an appearance at Howard University where she led a coin toss at the university’s football event.
Questioning why the vice president, who in March was tasked with handling the border crisis, had not yet visited Del Rio, Lozano asked on Twitter on Saturday, “The VP is able to visit the fun events across the country, while American communities continue to grapple with failed immigration reform. Where is the visit to Del Rio, TX?”
In a separate post alongside aerial footage showing thousands of immigrants surrounding the overcrowded bridge in makeshift tents, the mayor wrote, “We need you to visit Del Rio, Texas.”
Migrants stand by the International Bridge between Mexico and the U.S., in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Office of U.S. Congressman Tony Gonzales/via Reuters)Haitians who were deported from the United States deplane at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport, in Port au Prince, Haiti, on Sept. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn)
Lozano also responded to a Twitter post shared by Harris on Saturday that read, “The U.S. is falling behind, on a global scale, on investing in childcare. We invest fewer public dollars in early childhood education and care relative to GDP than almost all other developed countries. With our Build Back Better Agenda, @POTUS and I are determined to change that.”
Questioning Harris and Biden’s failure to visit Del Rio again, he asked, “The US is failing to protect its borders. Why aren’t you here? @POTUS.”
The Del Rio Mayor also engaged the president, responding to a Twitter post that Biden shared on Saturday regarding his plan not to raise takes for anyone making under $400,000 a year.
Lozano replied, “The President has a plan for taxes. Where is the plan to protect our southern border?”
The mayor also asked Biden directly, “Where is your plan to protect American communities at the southern border? I spoke to Governor Abbott today. We have developed a temporary plan, we’d like to see yours.”
On Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it will start expelling adult male illegal immigrants who have entered the United States at Del Rio. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told Fox News that single adult men will be expelled under the federal government’s Title 42 rule.
However, most family units who have crossed the border illegally will be processed and released into the United States with a notice to appear in an immigration court.
Ortiz said at a Sept. 19 news conference that deportation flights sending some illegal immigrants back to Haiti have already begun.
Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough on Sunday ruled that Democrats can’t include in their $3.5 trillion spending bill a provision aimed to give millions of illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship.
MacDonough in her guidance said that the Democrats’ provision is “by any standard a broad, new immigration policy,” and that it does not meet the stringent requirements of what can be included in the budget resolution.
“The policy changes of this proposal far outweigh the budgetary impact scored to it and it is not appropriate for inclusion in reconciliation,” she wrote, referring to a parliamentary procedure that allows certain budget bills to pass through the deliberative upper chamber with only a simple majority, bypassing a likely filibuster by opponents altogether.
First used by Congress in 1980, the process allows for expedited consideration of certain tax, spending, and debt-limit legislation. Ultimately, what is allowed under this process is up to MacDonough, whose job it is to protect independent due process.
Earlier this month, Democrats proposed to include in their plan immigration reform measures that would grant amnesty to four groups of nearly 8 million illegal immigrants—former President Barack Obama “Dreamers,” temporary protected status (TPS) holders, agricultural laborers, and essential workers, among others.
“Dreamers” entered the United States illegally as children and were granted amnesty under Obama’s controversial executive order Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
In a statement, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats were “deeply disappointed in this decision but the fight to provide lawful status for immigrants in budget reconciliation continues.”
Schumer added that Senate Democrats have prepared alternate proposals and hope to schedule additional meetings with MacDonough.
In a statement, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) described Democrats’ provision as “inappropriate” and “radical,” adding that he is “glad it failed.”
“Senate rules never contemplated a majority circumventing the filibuster by pretending that sweeping and transformational new policies were mere budgetary changes. Tonight’s ruling confirms that principle,” he said.
“Democrats will not be able to stuff their most radical amnesty proposals into the reckless taxing and spending spree they are assembling behind closed doors,” McConnell added. “This just illustrates how radical Democrats’ aspirations are and how unmoored their far-left wish list has become from the procedures they want to use to ram it through.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) is sounding alarm after after spending a day in the border town of Del Rio, Texas, where the illegal immigrants crisis, he said, “has reached a boiling point.”
Pfluger posted on Twitter new photos showing the makeshift campsite full of individuals who illegally entered the United States and took shelter underneath the border bridge connecting Del Rio to Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. He noted that there the crowd has grown to 15,000 on Saturday from 12,000 just the day before, with “hundreds more gathering every hour.”
Devastating scenes from Del Rio today.
I’ve talked to local leaders and seasoned law enforcement officers—the number 1 thing I’m hearing is this the worst they have ever seen it.
“Most were military aged males between the ages of 18-35. The majority of migrants were Haitian, but I talked to migrants from 6-7 countries including Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, and more,” he wrote.
According to Pfluger, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have been overwhelmed by the influx of illegal crossings, as undeterred migrants were “being pushed over the border.” The CBP has already closed the port in Del Rio, making Eagle Pass, which is located 60 miles southeast, the nearest port of entry.
“400 more CBP agents are being sent to Del Rio and CBP is utilizing flights to repatriate Haitians back to their home country, but based on what’s happening on the ground, this is not nearly enough to tamper the chaotic situation,” he added. “This crisis has reached a boiling point—Del Rio officials are not equipped to handle nearly 15,000 migrants pouring into their community.”
Pfluger’s visit comes as Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano called out President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, demanding that they pay attention to what is happening in his town.
Harris, who in March was tasked with handling the border crisis, on Saturday made an appearance at Howard University, where she led a coin toss at the university’s football event.
“The VP is able to visit the fun events across the country, while American communities continue to grapple with failed immigration reform. Where is the visit to Del Rio, TX?” Lozano, a Democrat, commented on Harris’ post of her coin toss.
He also responded to another post by Harris where she said, “The U.S. is falling behind, on a global scale, on investing in childcare. We invest fewer public dollars in early childhood education and care relative to GDP than almost all other developed countries. With our Build Back Better Agenda, @POTUS and I are determined to change that.”
“The US is failing to protect its borders. Why aren’t you here? @POTUS,” Lozano wrote.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has urged President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard to help deal with the illegal immigrant surge along the southern border, insisting the situation is a national security crisis and blaming the Biden administration for a “failed response.”
McCarthy made the remarks in a Sept. 17 statement that came as thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly from Haiti, were congregating under the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas while they await processing by Border Patrol.
“The Biden Administration must recognize this for what it is: A National Security Crisis. As such he must fully deploy the National Guard to the southern border to help our Border Patrol agents with more resources to control the situation,” the Republican leader said.
“Recently, over 10,000 migrants have surged to the border in Del Rio. It is no coincidence this is happening as Democrats in Congress are moving to pass legislation that would grant immediate citizenship for up to 10 million illegal immigrants. This is a wakeup call to Democrats that their policies are putting American lives in danger and must be abandoned,” McCarthy said.
Thousands of illegal immigrants amassing in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
The number of individuals gathering at the Del Rio bridge has skyrocketed in less a week, from only a couple of hundred on Sept. 9 to around 9,000 by Sept. 16, according to Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez. Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano confirmed that another 20,000 are on their way.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who on Thursday traveled to the border, called the scenes at the Del Rio bridge “the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen.”
“There are right now, as we’re speaking, there are 10,503 people under that bridge. It is packed in as a mass of humanity,” Cruz said. “They take your breath away because it just goes on and on and on—infants, little children, people struggling enormously.”
Being briefed by @CBP on the escalating #BidenBorderCrisis while yards away from over 10,000 illegal aliens.
This is a manmade disaster. And it is a direct result of Joe Biden’s political decisions. pic.twitter.com/gLUFq4LTjw
Cruz, too, blamed the Biden administration for the situation and called for deportation flights to Haiti to resume.
“It’s a political decision that Joe Biden could end tonight by simply following the law and saying we’re going to send people back to Haiti, which is what federal immigration law requires,” Cruz said.
The Biden administration paused deportation flights to Haiti after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake devastated the country on Aug. 14. There has been media speculation that the Biden administration was working on plans to start deporting people back to Haiti, though these reports remain without official confirmation. The Associated Press cited anonymous administration officials as saying that deportation flights were to resume next week, while NBC News cited internal documents to that effect.
Illegal immigrants board a bus to be transported to a Border Patrol station for processing, under the international bridge, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
More than 50 Democrat lawmakers urged Biden in a Sept. 16 letter (pdf) to extend the deportation pause indefinitely “for noncitizens who pose no threats to public safety or national security.”
The mayor of Del Rio said that it’s not clear who the illegal immigrants are and that he is concerned about security.
“I’m deeply frustrated. The thing that I worry about is a stampede. The thing I worry about is terrorism,” Lozano said, adding, “We don’t really know who they are.”
The United States recorded more than 208,000 illegal immigrant arrests at the border in August, one of the highest months on record. Under the Biden administration, the country is on pace to set records for the highest number of fiscal year and calendar year encounters.
Charlotte Cuthbertson and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
“I believe that the reason that they’re limiting drone usage is because they don’t want the American public to know, and I think this is illegal,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said on “Fox & Friends.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) also questioned the drone ban, which he said has grounded drones that were being used by news organizations to cover the border crisis.
“Any government stifling of First Amendment activities is unacceptable,” Johnson wrote to Troy Miller, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The ban was imposed on the same day that Fox News flew a drone in the area and captured aerial footage of the immigrants.
The FAA said in announcing the ban that it was driven by “special security reasons.” Johnson asked what those reasons were. The agency told The Epoch Times in an email that Border Patrol requested the restrictions “due to drones interfering with law enforcement flights on the border.” Johnson asked for more details on the alleged interference.
Illegal immigrants board a bus to be transported to a Border Patrol station for processing, under the international bridge, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Other Republicans also questioned the ban, including Reps. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), Brian Babin (R-Texas), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio.).
“The FAA’s conveniently placed a ban on drones flying over the international bridge where [10,000 plus] illegal aliens are waiting to be processed—preventing media from covering the scene,” Babin wrote on Twitter.
President Joe Biden “doesn’t want you to see what a disaster he’s created,” he added.
CBP and the White House did not respond to early morning requests for comment. The FAA declined to say under what authority the agency issued the flight zone restrictions.
The White House did not hold a briefing on Friday and Biden traveled to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for the weekend without speaking to reporters. He has no public events scheduled.
The FAA said Friday in a statement that Fox applied for and received clearance to operate drones in the restricted airspace and directed any other media organizations wanting to apply for exemptions to the restrictions to its website.
“As with any temporary flight restriction, media is able to call the FAA to make requests to see if it is possible to safely operate in the area,” the agency told The Epoch Times.
While Fox’s drones were still grounded, correspondent Bill Melugin went up in a helicopter with the Texas Department of Public Safety and recorded fresh aerial video footage and photographs.
The border crisis got ratcheted up another notch this week as a bridge connecting Mexico to south Texas has become the focal point of another massive influx of migrants.
According to a Friday Reuters report, over 10,000 individuals — mostly Haitians, but also Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans — had set up a camp underneath the Del Rio International Bridge in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.
“More migrants were expected after long and harrowing journeys through Mexico and Central and South America,” Reuters’ Alexandra Ulmer reported. “Officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border said most of the migrants were Haitians.”
It was unclear what prompted the sudden rush of Haitian migrants to the border, although the country has been hit with a 7.2 magnitude earthquake and a new round of political instability after Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July.
Del Rio, Texas Mayor Bruno Lozano said more than 2,000 migrants arrived on Thursday, driving the number from 8,200 to 10,503 in a matter of hours.
“Most of the migrants at the camp appeared to be men, but women nursing or carrying kids also could be seen,” Reuters reported.
By Friday, The New York Times reported, the number had increased to an estimated 14,000.
If you want to really get an idea of how bad things are, take a look from the sky:
Fox News’ Bill Melugin took a helicopter over the encampment on the Mexico side and found many of the migrants weren’t waiting for Border Patrol agents to process them.
Instead, they were crossing the Rio Grande on their own.
“This is non-stop, guys,” Melugin said. “This is a non-stop trail of migrants who are crossing the Rio Grande in multiple areas here.”
“This is a steady line of hundreds of people … that is a steady trail of hundreds of people crossing from Mexico as we speak right now, arriving into the United States illegally. Wow. That is a lot of people.”
Melugin also said he’d been “noticing … these folks are allowed to go back and forth between the United States and Mexico. There are no Border Patrol agents down there. There are no immigration agents on the Mexican side.
“It almost looks like it’s a water park down there. People are playing in the water, just going back and forth between the United States [and Mexico].”
Unfortunately, the Six Flags-style atmosphere has real-world consequences, particularly given the illegal immigration numbers we’ve seen over the last few months.
According to Customs and Border Protection numbers released this week, Border Patrol apprehensions in August totaled 208,887. CBP noted that this represented “a 2 percent drop compared to July.” That’s no great shakes, considering the number in July was 212,672. Also, compared to the number of apprehensions in August of 2019 and 2020 — 62,707 and 50,014 respectively, according to ABC News — it appears the border crisis is showing no signs of abating.
The apprehension numbers were considerably higher than earlier in the year, as well — even though President Joe Biden himself claimed in March that those earlier numbers, already high, were caused by a seasonal surge in illegal immigration during the winter months.
“There is a significant increase in the number of people coming to the border in the winter months of January, February, March. It happens every year,” Biden said during a news conference. “The reason they’re coming is that it’s the time they can travel with the least likelihood of dying on the way because of the heat in the desert.”
Apparently, migrants didn’t get that message, because they’re coming in record numbers — and the Haitians at the Del Rio International Bridge could mean September’s numbers are even higher.
CBP said they were increasing their numbers at the border crossing to deal with the surge.
Law enforcement source on the ground at the bridge this morning just sent me this video showing the situation there. I’m told a large majority of the migrants are Haitians and more are crossing into the US and arriving at the bridge by the minute. BP w/ limited manpower @FoxNewspic.twitter.com/dHWCrhFikq
“The Border Patrol is increasing its manpower in the Del Rio Sector and coordinating efforts within DHS and other relevant federal, state and local partners to immediately address the current level of migrant encounters and to facilitate a safe, humane and orderly process,” a CBP statement to The Washington Post read. “To prevent injuries from heat-related illness, the shaded area underneath Del Rio International Bridge is serving as a temporary staging site while migrants wait to be taken into USBP custody.”
According to The Associated Press, the administration has promised “the widescale expulsion of Haitian migrants from a small Texas border city by putting them on flights to Haiti starting Sunday, an official said Friday, representing a swift and dramatic response to thousands who suddenly crossed the border from Mexico and gathered under and around a bridge.”
The Biden administration has temporarily closed the Del Rio crossing in response to the surge. As Bill Melugin noted in the helicopter, however, “This does not look like a closed border from the air.”
It doesn’t. It’s also another immigration black eye for the administration after its failures in the Afghanistan airlift, which saw national security threats and men with child “brides” they had allegedly sexually assaulted brought into the United States.
So what’s the president doing?
He’s in Delaware for the weekend, of course, at his vacation home in North Shores. At least Biden’s staying true to form, having spent the weekend where Afghanistan fell at Camp David.
The president may go away, but the crisis won’t — and even if the administration sends the Haitians back, its immigration policies are only inviting more scenes like this in the future.
The mayor of Del Rio, Texas, has closed the international U.S.–Mexico bridge after thousands of illegal immigrants arrived in the area and set up camps underneath and around the bridge.
Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano, a Democrat, declared a local state of disaster and said his city is closing toll booths on the international bridge to the Mexican city of Ciudad Acuna to halt traffic, while adding that he has requested state assistance to deal with the burgeoning crisis. City officials, he said, are expecting about 8,000 more illegal aliens to arrive in the area in the coming days.
“Dire circumstances require dire responses,” Lozano said during a news conference, saying that such measures are done as a security precaution.
“There’s people having babies down there [under the bridge], there’s people collapsing out of the heat,” the mayor said. “They’re pretty aggressive, rightly so—they’ve been in the heat day after day after day.”
He added that “it’s something that [is] very challenging to describe in words, but it’s extremely chaotic.”
In all, there are about 12,000 illegal immigrants amassed around the international bridge, the mayor said. Highlighting the significant increase in illegal aliens over the past week, Lozano said there were only 2,000 under the bridge on Monday.
“We’re hearing reports that there [are] unauthorized bus systems transporting individuals to the border states” such as Texas, Arizona, California, and New Mexico, he said.
10,503 illegal aliens are under this bridge tonight because Joe Biden made a political decision to cancel deportation flights to Haiti.
Journalists on the scene say that the majority of those assembled under the bridge are Haitian nationals who are seeking asylum amid political instability. Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens said that he believes the vast majority are Haitian, adding that some families have been under the bridge for six days, according to The Associated Press.
Amid the crisis, Republicans in Congress have gone on the offensive against President Joe Biden, accusing him of not doing enough to prevent the surge in illegal immigration at the border. Since taking office, Biden has signed dozens of executive orders to rescind Trump-era policies, including suspending construction of the border wall.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a judge’s order to reinstate the Trump-era “remain in Mexico” policy, although the Justice Department said in court filings this week that discussions with the Mexican government are underway.
Thousands of illegal immigrants amass in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)Migrants stand by the International Bridge between Mexico and the United States, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Office of U.S. Congressman Tony Gonzales/via Reuters)
On Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who traveled down to Del Rio to observe, released a video from beneath the bridge. The footage showed thousands of illegal immigrants behind a metal fence.
“The reason they’re here is simple,” Cruz says in the video. “Eight days ago, the Biden administration made a political decision, a political decision to cancel deportation flights to Haiti. They did that on Sept. 8. Eight days later these numbers appear.”
“On Sept. 8, underneath this bridge, there were between 700 and a thousand people,” Cruz continued, adding: “But when the word got out that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were no longer deporting people who came from Haiti, suddenly everyone who was here called their friends, called their family, and the numbers surged to 10,503. That’s what’s here today. It is more than the capacity of the Border Patrol to handle.”
The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment.
Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said during an MSNBC segment Friday that the administration “will address it accordingly.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has not returned a single illegal immigrant to Mexico under the Migrant Policy Protocols after being ordered to restart the program by the Supreme Court last month.
U.S. government officials are in talks with officials in Mexico on rebooting the program but Mexico is so far resisting a formal resumption, court documents filed this week say.
“Discussions with Mexico are ongoing and are proceeding in good faith, but, as of yet, Mexico has not yet agreed to accept returns under the Court-ordered restart of MPP,” Brian Ward, a lawyer at the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote in one filing.
The forms were submitted to U.S. District Judge Matthew Joseph Kacsmaryk, a Trump nominee who initially ordered the Biden administration to restart the program, commonly known as “Remain in Mexico” or MPP.
The Trump-era program centers around making many immigrants who seek asylum wait in Mexico while their claims are heard. More than 55,000 were returned through Oct. 28, 2019, under the program. Mexico’s government agreed during the previous administration to provide the migrants with protection and care, though later reports indicated that some were living in poor conditions.
The Supreme Court upheld Kacsmaryk’s ruling on Aug. 24, finding that the administration’s ending of the program was “arbitrary and capricious,” which violates federal law.
The ruling ordered the Biden administration to “enforce and implement MPP in good faith until such a time as it has been lawfully rescinded in compliance with the” Administrative Procedure Act and until the U.S. government has enough detention capacity to detain all illegal immigrants that must be deported under 8 U.S. Code § 1255 “without releasing any aliens because of a lack of detention resources.”
The Department of Homeland Security said the same day that it had started to engage with the government of Mexico on restarting the program but in the new filings, indicated that little progress has been made.
“In order to restart MPP, the two governments must reach agreement on a number of foundational matters, including: the make-up of individuals who are amenable to MPP, in what circumstances and locations returns to Mexico and reentry into the United States to attend court hearings can occur, how many individuals can be enrolled in given locations, and the types of support these individuals will receive in Mexico. All of these topics, and others, remain under active negotiation,” Ward, the U.S. government lawyer, said.
“Importantly, MPP cannot function without Mexico’s agreement to accept individuals returned from the United States under the program,” he added.
At the same time, the U.S. government is working on organizing other parts of the program, such as exploring funding and obtaining contracts to rebuild facilities used for hearings for illegal immigrants who are part of the program.
The facilities used before were repurposed and would have to be rebuilt with COVID-19 measures taken into account, the U.S. government says. The initial cost is pegged at $14.1 million for construction with another $10.5 million per month required to operate the facilities.
The contacts won’t be executed until an agreement is reached with Mexico.
Mexico’s government has said little about MPP beyond stating it was not bound by the U.S. court decisions but would discuss the matter with U.S. officials.
The U.S. government update was made to adhere to Kacsmaryk’s order, which said that as the U.S. government worked to restart MPP, it would need to file a report with him each month, beginning Sept. 15, on progress made and the situation regarding illegal immigration in the country.
U.S. border agents made over 200,000 arrests at the southern border in August, one of the highest months on record, as the Biden administration grapples with a massive influx that shows no signs of abating.
States along the border have tried fighting back in court. The order to resume MPP came from a lawsuit filed by the states of Missouri and Texas.
“That’s it. I’m outta here.” So a friend told me after the blowout recall loss Tuesday. This friend long has been wavering on whether to leave California for relief from taxes and the general “Crazifornia” atmosphere. If the recall had been close, with Gov. Gavin Newsom still winning, my friend might have stayed because there was hope of reform. But a 64 percent “No to Recall” vote decided the issue.
Several other friends also said they’re leaning more toward the “leave” option.
All these folks would be following the roughly 650,000 who are skedaddling every year. Of course, folks still come here: tech hotshots to Silicon Valley, wannabe movie stars to Hollywood, illegal aliens to everywhere. But as everyone now knows, in recent years more people, for the first time in history, are leaving than coming.
I provided details in my Aug. 25 Epoch Times article, “California Businesses Exiting Faster Than Ever.”
The Babylon Bee just ran a spoof, “Gavin Newsom Named U-Haul Salesperson of the Year.” It quoted the firm’s fictional Western Regional Director, Fennick Buggstein: “We are deeply grateful to Gavin for our success in 2021. The only problem now is that we’re all out of trucks. And no one is willing to drive a U-Haul back to California. And I’m leaving with my family as well. So I guess this is it! Bye everyone!”
Seriously, if that’s possible, with the recall now in the past, what issues now are facing the Golden State?
1. A $1 trillion public unfunded liabilities debt hanging over the state from pensions and retiree medical care. It currently costs $8 billion from the state general fund just to service that debt, not to mention billions more from local and school pensions. The amount only will grow, requiring tax increases.
2. A school system that perennially scores 48th on national tests. “Better than Mississippi” is not a great selling point. The powerful California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers continue to oppose school choice, merit pay for the best teachers and other reforms.
3. A record high tax burden. Income, sales and gas tax rates top those in any other state.
4. A crumbling infrastructure. The $5 billion yearly gas tax increase from 2017 only partly has filled potholes because there are so many of them. And the tax increase only was “needed” because of other foolish spending priorities. See No. 1, above. And see the High-Speed Rail boondoggle, still choo-chooing along despite Newsom’s promise in 2020 to get rid of it.
5. Punishingly high housing prices. What young couple can afford a home when the median housing price is $800,000 statewide, even higher in coastal areas? Efforts to reform the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other barriers to more construction never get far.
6. Environmental unrealism raises the price of everything. As I detailed in “California Wildfire Greenhouse Gases Dwarfed by China’s” from Aug. 12, the problem is not in CA, but the PRC. Yet our residents keep getting punished for something not our fault. Newsom banned selling gas-powered cars by 2035, just 14 years from now. He couldn’t totally ban older, gas-powered cars. So California increasingly will resemble Communist Cuba, where cars like ’57 Chevys just keep getting older, patched up more ingeniously each year.
7. Not just the teachers unions, but the other unions will keep getting stronger, devouring more of the state economy. These include AFCME, the SEIU, the Correctional Peace Officers Association (prison guards), the numerous sheriff and cop associations and the surprisingly powerful California Nurses Association.
After the Newsom victory, AFSCME Local 3299—University of California service workers—sent out this gloating email: “We rose to defend our state from the anti-union and anti-science extremism at the heart of this recall. Together, we united behind a Governor who has prioritized our health, the safety of essential workers and school children, and an economy that works for all of us because California deserves nothing less.”
And you can bet they’re going to expect big-time payback during next year’s pay negotiations.
8. Critical Race Theory and other schemes to continue to pit Americans against one another will be advanced. Shouldn’t we be coming together to provide opportunity for all, making the pie bigger instead of dividing it up into ever more divisive pieces?
Hope From Latinos
Finally, let me end on a hopeful note. Especially as we now already have begun the next cycle racing toward the November 8, 2022 election.
Latinos, although opposing the recall, voted more in the GOP direction than in recent elections. Some are calling it the “canary in the coal mine,” warning Democrats they ought to stop taking for granted that Latinos will keep backing a party that does nothing for them.
As Larry Elder brought up many times during his campaign, Latinos and blacks are being shafted by the horrible California schools system, which benefits the teachers’ unions at the expense of students.
In a July 18 ET column, I urged, “The Only Way Republicans Could Displace Gavin Newsom” was to emphasize education almost exclusively precisely to garner these Latino and black voters. I’m not blaming Elder. He ran a valiant campaign.
He’s hinting at a run next year. I hope he, or whomever the GOP ends up pushing past the senseless, anti-democratic Top Two system, adopts that strategy. Sure, there are so many other things one could address, and Elder did address—most listed above.
But for a Republican to have any chance, there should be one topic: education. Hammer it home.
The Democratic mayor of a Texas border town is pleading with the Biden administration to do more to stop the flood of migrants at the southern border at the same time the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General found that the federal government’s failure to test migrants for COVID-19 puts the health of Americans at great risk.
Bruno Lozano, who serves as mayor of Del Rio, Texas, put out a video on Twitter Friday morning warning about the “real time threats” of COVID-19 and “other communicable diseases.”
“This is something that really needs to be brought to light,” the mayor said. “We need quick action from the administration. We need quick attention to this. We need a response in real-time.”
Those health threats were underscored in a government watchdog report on the Biden administration’s handling of the migrant crisis. The IG report called out Customs and Border Protection’s failure to “conduct COVID-19 testing for migrants who enter…custody” and noted that the White House has not required it to do so. That policy, the IG wrote, puts federal employers’ “support staff, communities, and migrants at greater risk of contracting the virus.”
Lozano says nearly 11,000 migrants currently sit under the Del Rio International Bridge, with thousands more crossing in every few hours. At the current rate, the number of migrants waiting for processing at the Del Rio International Bridge could soon surpass the entire population of the city, which sits at just under 36,000.
Texas governor Greg Abbott (R.) attacked the federal government’s response to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Del Rio, noting the lack of proper shelter, health care, and safety precautions for the thousands of migrants in the city.
“The Biden administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan,” Abbott said.
A COVID-19 outbreak among the migrants could prove disastrous for the town of Del Rio. The regional hospital in the area, Val Verde, only hosts seven ICU beds.
According to the IG, the Biden administration never “documented” a “formal policy” for COVID-19 testing of migrants. The sheer volume of migrants crossing the border makes “proper physical distancing in holding facilities” impossible. The crisis grew so dire in the Del Rio sector that the Department of Homeland Security deployed agents from its Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office from March until May.
Despite Lozano’s appeals to the White House, DHS leadership told watchdogs the agency’s chief medical officer will not finish its “active monitoring and impact analysis of mitigation efforts” against the spread of COVID-19 until Sept. 30, 2022.
“The Department will prioritize efforts related to the DHS Chief Medical Officer to enhance the level of coordinated oversight and resource support for the DHS public health and medical enterprise,” the agency wrote in the report. “The estimated completion date is September 30, 2022.”
More than 1.5 million migrants have crossed the southern border in 2021. The month of July saw the most migrants encounters at the southern border in 21 years. The 212,000 apprehensions eclipsed the previous record high set in June. August saw 208,887 encounters—a 317 percent increase from August 2020.
Local Democratic officials are beginning to push back against the White House. The city of Laredo, Texas, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration on July 16, alleging that DHS’s practice of releasing migrants into the town spread COVID-19 and contributed to overcrowding in hospitals.
“Unfortunately, the federal government has left this public health concern to be tackled by our local government with no consideration of the city’s little to no resources nor regard for the deadly ramifications it could have on the country,” the lawsuit says.
The IG report placed the spread of COVID-19 among migrants in part on the Biden administration’s “erosion of Title 42 authority,” a federal law that empowers the federal government to turn away migrants at the border out of concern they may spread disease. On Jan. 30, President Joe Biden fulfilled a campaign promise of exempting children from Title 42. He has since broadened that exemption to many migrant families and others facing purported humanitarian concerns in their home countries.
