Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shut down six ports of entry with Mexico amid a surge of illegal immigrants trying to cross into the United States in recent months. However, hours later, Abbott said that the Biden administration changed course and decided against closing down the border crossing areas.

“I have directed the Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to surge personnel and vehicles to shut down six points of entry along the southern border to stop these caravans from overrunning our state,” said Abbott, a Republican, in a statement to news outlets on Thursday.

But Abbott later said that the decision was reversed by the federal government.

“Six hours after the U.S. Customs and Border Protection requested help from Texas to close ports of entry and secure the border, the Biden Administration has now flip-flopped to a different strategy that abandons border security and instead makes it easier for people to cross illegally and for cartels to exploit the border,” the governor said in a statement to news outlets. “The Biden Administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuations from Afghanistan,” Abbott said.

It’s not clear what ports of entry were shuttered by Abbott’s order. The Epoch Times has contacted Abbott’s office and CBP for comment.

Dennis Smith, a CBP spokesman, said the agency has received no directive from the federal government to close ports of entry.

BORDER NOW: Heard from sources last night that there’s 6,000 illegal immigrants under this international bridge in Del Rio now.

Chatter about another 20k on the way, unconfirmed. Mostly Haitians, some Cubans, Venezuelans.

Most transported to BP station, processed, released. pic.twitter.com/mK3e1d07Ov

— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) September 16, 2021

“I couldn’t comment on anything the governor said, I don’t have any information on that,” Smith told the Texas Tribune.

Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Victor Escalon earlier in the day said that all points of entry in Del Rio would be closed due to the large numbers of illegal aliens in the area.

“Six, seven days ago, Del Rio saw 400 migrants sitting, underneath the bridge, the (point of entry) in downtown Del Rio … there’s about 6,000 sitting there right now and more are coming,” Escalon told CNN. “Before I came here today, my last instructions are, we’re going to shut down all the POEs in Del Rio,” he continued.

Images captured by The Epoch Times this week showed thousands of illegal immigrants amassing under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. A source with the Border Patrol said that about 8,000 illegal aliens, including Haitian, Cuban, and Venezuelan nationals, are in the area.

Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, meanwhile, said that Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed by the sheer number of illegal immigrants who arrived in the area.

“They just can’t process them fast enough, so there’s a backlog of these individuals underneath the bridge. They’re not detained, they’re just gathered there waiting their turn to get processed,” he told the Tribune.

Texas Governor Says White House Reversed Course in Border Crossing Closures (theepochtimes.com)

Arrests at the United States’ southern border topped 200,000 for a second consecutive month and remain on track to set a new yearly record, according to newly released data.

Border agents apprehended 208,887 people last month, a slight dip from July but up more than four times from August 2020 and three times from August 2019, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data show.

Most of the illegal immigrants caught were single adults, nearly 100,000, while approximately 80,000 people who were arrested were part of a family unit. About 18,500 unaccompanied children were apprehended.

“The men and women at CBP continue to step up to meet the demands of high numbers of encounters at our southern border,” Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement.

The number of border arrests had gone up for 16 straight months, starting during the Trump administration, after hitting a low of just 17,106 in April 2020, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic started.

The apprehensions jumped after President Joe Biden took office and dramatically changed the immigration enforcement system, altering or outright stopping key tenets of the former administration’s policies.

In one such policy change, the Biden administration stopped using Title 42 powers, activated because of the pandemic, to expel unaccompanied minors, with officials arguing that doing so would be cruel. Expulsions of other illegal immigrants through the powers have also dropped. Officials used the powers on under half of the encounters in August, after previously utilizing them on over 60 percent early this year.

The new numbers bring the total number of encounters for this fiscal year to 1.54 million. That means the Biden administration could eclipse a fiscal year record, depending on the flow in September. The current record is 1.64 million, set in 2000.

Even if that doesn’t happen, the administration is almost certain to set a calendar year record, Steven Kopits, president of the conservative Princeton Policy Advisors, told The Epoch Times last month.

Many migrants kicked out of the United States aren’t being dissuaded from trying again, data show. A quarter of the immigrants arrested in August had at least one prior encounter with U.S. agents in the prior 12 months, a jump from 14 percent in previous years.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the new data show the United States is experiencing “the worst unlawful migration crisis in more than 20 years.”

Portman said he looks forward to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifying before the panel next week. He plans “to ask him when the administration will change course and address this surge of unlawful migrants,” he said, adding, “I urge the Biden administration to take action because the migrant crisis is a direct result of its decision to dismantle the previous administration’s policies with no consideration of the historic influx it would incite.”

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chairman of the panel, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the White House, which hasn’t commented on the numbers.

US–Mexico Border Arrests Top 200,000 for Second Straight Month (theepochtimes.com)

Plenty of people have pointed out what went wrong in Afghanistan, but far too few people have asked who should now be held accountable for this national disgrace.

The debacle in Afghanistan should be setting off alarm bells in Washington. We surrendered the country that we’d been defending to a seventh century tribe, which had endured immense casualties and was unable to defeat the United States on the battlefield. But the Taliban was able to defeat America politically and psychologically.

In a healthy country, the Taliban takeover would be a real crisis—one that causes a fundamental rethinking within the Pentagon, State Department, and intelligence community about how they’ve been operating.

How can we have spent 20 years, thousands of lives, and trillions of dollars and then lose to a band of medieval thugs with no air force? This is the kind of question the generals, diplomats, and analysts should be asking in the halls of government.

It’s troubling how unphased many of our leaders appear to be, especially the principals of the Biden administration. What they don’t seem to understand—or perhaps worse, don’t recognize the importance of—is that what happened in Afghanistan isn’t just about Afghanistan.

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, other jihadists—they’re all taking note of what’s transpired over the past several weeks. The world now sees America as completely unreliable. We need to show that we’re both reliable and dangerous.

Accountability is absolutely crucial to come to grips with how big a problem this is and to reestablish respect among allies and enemies. The leaders who, through their shameless incompetence, threw away two decades of sacrifice in a matter of days, left Americans behind enemy lines, betrayed our Afghan allies, and left Afghanistan to reemerge as a terrorist haven must be held responsible.

Someone who’s trying to hold these people accountable is retired Maj. Gen. Joseph Arbuckle, a decorated veteran who first entered the Army in 1969. Currently, Arbuckle is the founder and spokesperson of Flag Officers 4 America, an organization of retired military officers dedicated to supporting and defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Flag Officers 4 America just organized an open letter from retired generals and admirals regarding Afghanistan. The letter, signed by Arbuckle and 160-plus retired military leaders, demands accountability for the botched withdrawal and for both Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to resign for their handling of the situation.

Arbuckle told me why he wrote the letter and analyzed the scene in Afghanistan last week on my podcast, “Newt’s World.” As the general explained, this was a difficult decision, but accountability is a foundational principle of the military. President Biden’s military advisers knew the fiasco that would ensue by not extending the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline. When Biden decided to push ahead with his plan, Arbuckle said, Austin and Milley had two choices: resign in protest or follow the order and take responsibility for the outcome.

Unfortunately, no one is taking responsibility—not Biden, not Austin, not Milley. And the nation will suffer as a result, with its leaders refusing to learn lessons from their failures. This should be unacceptable to the American people.

For those interested, Flag Officers 4 America recently partnered with the Committee to Support and Defend so that civilians and veterans who are non-flag officers can also have a voice and sign onto similar letters to the one organized by Arbuckle.

As Arbuckle and I discuss, with our military leadership focusing on critical race theory rather than warfighting, the country is in trouble. Holding leaders accountable is the first step to getting us back on track—and earning back the respect of the rest of the world that was lost in Afghanistan.

From Gingrich360.com.

Time to Hold Our Leaders Accountable for Afghanistan Fiasco (theepochtimes.com)

Senate Democrats are trying to convince the Senate parliamentarian—a nonpartisan figure who arbitrates disagreements over Senate rules—to allow them to include about eight million green cards into the $3.5 trillion budget resolution.

The blessing of the current parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, will be necessary because of the peculiar track Democrats are using to pass the budget.

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 Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) explained that the Senate Judiciary Committee “believe[s] 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 and signed by President Ronald Reagan.

Durbin then presaged the challenge that Democrats will have in convincing the parliamentarian. He said, “this immigration package does have a cost associated with it.”

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 also notes that staffers from relevant committees have already met with the parliamentarian, hoping to convince MacDonough that the immigration provision is legally allowed under the reconciliation process’s rules.

“If more and more people become legal permanent residents, they qualify for some government programs,” Durbin conceded. “But,” he contended, “economists agree that for every dollar paid out through a government program to a legal permanent resident, ten dollars is returned to the economy.”

As to whether MacDonough will be likely to support the measure, Durbin admitted that he was uncertain, noting that the decision is “entirely within her hands at this point.”

Democrats must have the full support of the parliamentarian, who can unilaterally shoot down the measure on her own authority.

Parliamentarian Has Strict Track Record on Budget Reconciliation

In that capacity, MacDonough has not been shy to kill priorities by both 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 as well. In February, the parliamentarian ruled against including a $15 minimum wage in a CCP virus (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. Now, Democrats are trying to get the parliamentarian’s blessing for a similarly expansive provision: one that would allow up to eight million illegal aliens to receive green cards, putting them on a path to citizenship.

Included under this provision would be so-called Dreamers—a group 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—agricultural laborers, and other essential workers, among others.

This target of a path to citizenship for eight million illegal aliens falls short of the president’s more ambitious targets on the campaign trail.

Then-candidate Biden was asked during an October presidential debate about the Obama Administration’s track record. On the 2008 and 2012 campaign trails, comprehensive immigration reform was a key Obama-Biden priority, but the administration failed to bring these promised changes about.

Biden explained that he and former President Obama “made a mistake … we took too long to get it right.”

Biden then made his ambitious promise, saying that within his first 100 days he would “send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people.” He continued “those so-called Dreamers … [are] going to be immediately certified again to be able to stay in this country and put on a path to citizenship.”

While one of Biden’s main priorities on the campaign trail—a path to citizenship for and continued protection of Dreamers—would be included in the provision if accepted by the parliamentarian, it would still fall far short of this 11 million amnesty goal.

Amnesty Effort ‘Unprecedented and Dangerous’: FAIR

Preston Huennekens, the Government Relations Manager at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), criticized this most recent amnesty effort.

FAIR is a nonpartisan organization that describes its mission as “seeking out solutions that help reduce the negative impact of uncontrolled immigration on the nation’s security, economy, workforce, education, healthcare, and environment.”

Huennekens began, “The effort by House and Senate Democrats to use the budget reconciliation process to amnesty millions of illegal aliens is unprecedented and dangerous.”

He then listed concerns that he and the organizations have about the move. First, he said that “Granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens will exacerbate our raging border crisis and deeply harm our nation for decades.”

Currently, the southern border is experiencing unprecedented levels of immigration. Republicans have blamed this on Biden’s relaxed attitude towards the border. In a letter (pdf) to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accused the Biden Administration of “refus[ing] to fulfill their responsibility to enforce immigration laws enacted by Congress.”

Huennekens also warned that allowing the provision in the reconciliation bill “would set a terrible precedent and an opportunity for the party in power to get around the traditional legislative process to enact unpopular special interest priorities unrelated to spending or revenue.”

“This move,” he said, “is clearly ‘merely incidental’ to the goals of the $3.5 trillion infrastructure package,” thus falling outside the purview of the reconciliation process. Rather, “it is drafted with the single goal of amnestying illegal aliens.”

Huennekens concluded: “This has nothing to do with spending or the Federal budget. It is a naked attempt by Democrats to pass legislation that is politically and practically impossible outside of the budget reconciliation process.”

Democratic Amnesty for 8 Million Illegals in Budget is ‘Unprecedented and Dangerous’: FAIR (theepochtimes.com)

Dems hope reconciliation end-around can achieve amnesty through party-line vote

Democrats are trying to grant mass amnesty to illegal immigrants by arguing that amnesty’s $140 billion price tag qualifies as a budget issue—a legislative maneuver that will allow millions of people to achieve legal status through a party-line majority vote.

According to Politico, Democratic congressional staffers argued on Sept. 10 that because mass legalization will add to the deficit, the provision should be included in a reconciliation bill nominally meant to fund the federal government for the next year. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Democratic plan to legalize eight million immigrants will add $139.6 billion to the budget deficit by 2032, almost entirely due to increased use of entitlement programs and tax credits.

“Democrats’ central argument to the parliamentarian is that offering green cards to certain undocumented immigrants would unlock federal benefits for them, causing effects on the budget that they say are a substantial, direct and intended result,” Politico reported.

The Democrats’ argument contradicts the rhetoric of amnesty supporters, who often point to the cost-saving measures of a mass amnesty program. During the 2020 campaign, Joe Biden attacked then-president Donald Trump for “costing taxpayers billions of dollars” on border security measures, said Trump’s hardline stance against immigration was “bad for our economy,” and cited the “$23.6 billion from 4.4 million workers without Social Security numbers” who “contribute in countless ways to our communities, workforce, and economy.”

To include a provision into the massive reconciliation plan, Democrats need to prove that it would have a significant impact on the federal government’s debt, spending, or revenues. Democrats are opting to pass Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget through the parliamentary trick to avoid a GOP filibuster, a move Republicans call an abuse of the process.

Senior GOP aides who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon balked at the argument, with one calling it “obvious desperation.” Another called it “pathetic” and added that the Senate parliamentarian might have felt “insulted” by the proposal.

Many illegal immigrants who work in the United States already pay into Medicare and Social Security through payroll taxes. With permanent residency, they would now be able to fully partake in those programs. The immigrants covered by the Democratic proposal would include Temporary Protected Status holders, farmworkers, “essential workers,” and those enrolled in the Dreamer program.

Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected a Democratic scheme to include a $15 minimum wage into the pandemic relief bill. MacDonough called the wage’s potential impact on the budget “merely incidental.”

Democrats were careful to say that the proposed bill would not grant citizenship to millions of illegal aliens. Federal immigration law, however, states that anyone with a green card can apply for citizenship after five years. And left-wing activist groups such as the National Immigration Law Center have called the proposal a “pathway to citizenship.”

“Immigrants are an essential part of our communities, not only as our family members and neighbors but also as people who have continued to show up day after day during this pandemic to keep our country going,” National Immigration Law Center executive director Marielena Hincapié said in a statement. “As we enter our recovery phase, we must also recognize that there is no recovery without immigrants—and passing a pathway to citizenship through reconciliation would provide urgently needed relief and stability for millions of DACA recipients, [Temporary Protected Status] holders, farm workers, essential workers, and their loved ones.”

Democrats Justify Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants by Arguing It Will Increase Deficit (freebeacon.com)

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee strictly oppose the immigration reform measures in the committee’s portion of the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget resolution package because they say the bill grants amnesty to nearly 8 million illegal immigrants and encourages more people to flood the southern border.

“June was the highest month on record until July when 212,000 enforcement encounters took place; my guess is August will be higher yet. So, what are Democrats focused on in this legislation? Putting amnesty in a bill for—approximately 8 million illegal immigrants—in a bill that spends $3.5 trillion,” Jordan said in his opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee hearing Monday.

Jordan said he opposes the immigration reform bill put forth by Democrats in the FY 2022 budget resolution, because it fails to protect American citizens and adhere to our founding documents. “Government’s primary responsibility is to protect Americans’ liberties, to protect the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. It’s why we have separate and equal branches of government,” said Jordan.

Members of the House who represent communities on the southern border say the surge in illegal immigration is a humanitarian issue and is flooding their communities with illicit drugs.

“As I have continuously said, there is a humanitarian crisis at our southern border. The children who have made this journey are alone and vulnerable—facing the threat of murder, kidnapping, rape, sexual slavery, and forced labor at the hands of violent criminal organizations,” said Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Texas).

Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) told a local radio interviewer that his district is being inundated by illegal drugs. Roy said there has been “an 800 percent increase in fentanyl stops, here in Texas—800 percent increase in the first five months of 2021 over the entirety of the previous four years combined.”

Meanwhile, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the immigration provisions (pdf) will grow the economy and strengthen communities.

“It does this in two key ways, by providing a path to permanent residence and improving the green card process for those who are already making a significant contribution to our country; and by providing additional resources to community violence intervention initiatives at … the Department of Justice,” said Nadler during Monday’s hearing.

“The immigration provisions in this legislation serve as a vital investment in human infrastructure that reflects our commitment to a stronger U.S. economy and a vibrant future for all Americans,” Nadler said about the immigration reforms portion of the bill.

The main part of the bill the Judiciary Committee is debating today will provide a pathway to citizenship for DREAMERS, those with Temporary Protected Status, farmworkers, and “other essential workers;” and it will recapture the availability of immigrant visas and expand green card processing.

Opponents of this immigration measure say it will reward illegal immigration and increase the surge of people crossing the southern border. In addition, Republicans on the committee slammed the bill for giving Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas additional “congressional authority” to determine eligibility for illegal immigrants coming into the United States.

“The bill is a blank check. He can do whatever he wants. He gets to fill in all the details that this bill does not address. Even the DREAM Act, at 54 pages; the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, 231 pages; and the U.S. Citizenship Act, 353 pages. With this bill [Immigration Provisions] it’s only 18 pages because it basically says to the Homeland Secretary, ‘you can grant entry to anyone you want without numerical limitation,’” said Biggs.

“The Secretary of Homeland Security shall adjust to the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence … ,” states the bill. In addition, the secretary has the authority to determine the status of illegal immigrants who file an objection to their removal proceedings.

Chairwoman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), said it (the budget resolution), “could not be more fitting or appropriate that we are considering today, legislative changes to our immigration system, to realize those economic benefits through budget reconciliation.”

The reconciliation process will allow the Democrat Majority to pass the $3.5 trillion spending bill with no Republican votes, so long as most of the House Democrats vote in favor and all 50 Democrat Senators do the same.

Nearly 8 Million Illegal Immigrants to Get Amnesty Under Biden’s Budget Resolution Says House GOP (theepochtimes.com)

T

he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a guide last week for “Inclusive Communication,” cautioning against using words like prisoner, smoker, illegal immigrant, disabled or homeless, which the agency says could imply blame or stigma.

The guide’s opening line says, “We must confront the systems and policies that have resulted in the generational injustice that has given rise to health inequities.” The CDC is now about fighting injustice, not disease.

The agency says instead of gender-specific pronouns like him or her, use “they,” even when referring to one person. And talk about “parents” or “expectant parents” instead of mothers or fathers.

After making the hundreds of language changes the CDC recommends, who has time to defeat COVID-19?

The CDC’s got mission confusion. With parts of the U.S. considering more COVID lockdowns, Americans don’t need language lessons on political correctness. They need scientific information on how to reduce the risk of being infected by this virus indoors. That’s key to reopening workplaces and returning to normal.

Numerous new technologies are said to destroy airborne viruses, including ionization, dry hydrogen peroxide, far UV light and others. But school administrators and office building managers don’t have a clue which ones actually work. They’re flying blind.

The CDC’s thousands of scientists could provide guidance. Not that they should endorse specific brands, but they can assess competing technologies. The CDC flatly refuses. Instead, it cautions against using them because they lack “an established body of peer-reviewed evidence.”

What planet is the CDC on? Peer-reviewed evidence can take years. Here’s the process: An academic journal sends a submitted article to scientists around the world for review and suggested changes. Once that input is received and the article is approved, the wait goes on because many of these journals only publish four times a year.

Glacial slowness doesn’t work in a pandemic. That’s why former President Donald Trump designed Operation Warp Speed for vaccines. The CDC’s timetable isn’t warp speed. It’s warped. The CDC’s tacit premise that yesterday’s technology is good enough will doom us to failure.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told the Washington Post last week that the CDC has the wrong mentality to respond to a crisis. “Their mind set is we should polish it, vet it, peer-review it.”

The result is the CDC offering 50-year-old information: Open windows, space desks apart and use HEPA filters where possible. HEPA filters were devised for gas masks during World War II, and commercialized for buildings in the 1950s.

Tried and true methods are not necessarily wrong. But the public deserves the latest science, too.

Eighteen months into the pandemic, giant employers like Apple and Amazon again are delaying reopening workplaces. They need help. Only 33% of U.S. office workers are back, according to Kastle Systems. New York City is far worse off, with only 22% back. That kills retail stores, coffee shops and restaurants that serve workers.

If it were possible to get back to normal without technological breakthroughs, it would have happened already. Eric Adams, the city’s likely next mayor, needs scientific information on how to reduce aerosolized COVID-19 virus in transportation hubs, public buildings, offices and schools.

Citing the importance of speed in a pandemic, Gottlieb has been urging the FDA to establish a fast-track way of determining what works and what doesn’t. The CDC should be doing the same using its own scientists.

As for schools, the medical journal Lancet’s COVID task force has chastised the CDC for focusing on masking and social distancing instead of air quality.

A CDC study of 169 Georgia K-5 schools found COVID cases were reduced more by improving air quality than any other intervention. Mandating masks for students produced no statistically significant improvement.

A Kaiser Health News headline in June read: “More than 100 Missouri Schools Have Bought ‘Often Unproven’ Air Cleaning Technology.” The words “often unproven” come from CDC guidance. If school districts are rushing in desperation to buy equipment without enough information, blame the CDC, not the school administrators.

A spokesperson for the company that sold ionization equipment to Missouri schools explained that peer-reviewed research on its equipment doesn’t exist yet. That is why CDC scientists should get to work assessing new technologies themselves instead of writing speech manuals.

If the CDC wants to be politically correct, it can call its new air quality guidance “Indoor Environmentalism.” That almost sounds green.

CDC’s Mission Confusion :: Right & Free (rightandfree.com)