Bye Bye Sanctuary Cities? Trump Gets Tough on Havens for Illegal Aliens

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In a major departure from the previous administration, President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Homeland Security to get serious on tackling crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

The executive order instructs the Homeland Security Secretary General John F. Kelly, to “utilize the Declined Detainer Outcome Report or its equivalent and, on a weekly basis, make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.”

The purpose of this order is “to better inform the public regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions.”

In other words, President Trump has taken his first steps towards ending sanctuary city policies.

He is, of course, going to meet resistance from the Left. California Governor Jerry Brown, in what Politico described as an “anti-Trump manifesto,” proudly declared that despite the supremacy of federal immigration laws, California would take measures to protect its sanctuary policies from the president.

“We may be called to defend those laws, and defend them we will,” Brown said.

So, here’s where Trump’s executive order is brilliant. By publishing the statistics of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in areas of the country with sanctuary city policies, Trump is essentially telling the public “your Democratic politicians are protecting crime in your cities with their sanctuary city policies.” The president is handing ammunition the political opponents of big-city Democratic politicians everywhere in the country.

Sanctuary city policies are already vastly unpopular with the American people. Even as Gov. Brown delivered his amnesty ultimatum, 74 percent of California residents want to see an end to sanctuary city policies.

That opposition crosses party lines. It is unifying. And President Trump’s national policies can be used to rally that opposition at the ballot box and kick out the bums at the state level.

This is the kind of strategic thinking that has been woefully lacking from Washington Republicans for far too long. It is the style of anti-establishment governance the president’s most ardent backers promised Trump would bring to the nation’s capital.

Let’s hope the president applies a similar strategy to the other items on his agenda. (For more from the author of “Bye Bye Sanctuary Cities? Trump Gets Tough on Havens for Illegal Aliens” please click HERE)

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Mexican President Says He Will Not Attend Meeting with Trump

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Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Thursday he will not attend a planned Jan. 31 meeting with President Donald J. Trump, hours after Trump tweeted that the meeting should be canceled if Mexico won’t pay for a border wall.

Pena Nieto’s message on Twitter ended days of uncertainty about how he would respond to Trump’s aggressive stance toward the country, and illustrated the challenges world leaders are likely to face in dealing with Trump’s voluble, Twitter-based diplomacy.

“This morning we have informed the White House I will not attend the working meeting planned for next Tuesday,” Pena Nieto tweeted.

(Read more from “Mexican President Says He Will Not Attend Meeting with Trump” HERE)

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Trump DOJ Likely to Find Many Offenses in Voter Fraud Probe, Experts Say

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President Donald Trump’s Justice Department will likely find numerous offenses to warrant launching a broad investigation into voter fraud, legal experts and watchdog groups say.

Trump has said that more than 3 million to 5 million illegal votes were cast during the 2016 election, causing him to receive a lower popular vote total than his vanquished opponent, Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the Electoral College.

On Wednesday, Trump said:

One legal organization took action on preventing voter fraud this week. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a voter integrity group, reached a consent decree with Noxubee County, Mississippi, which has had voter registration that exceeds the number of county residents since 2011, according to the group. A consent decree is a legal agreement between two parties without an acknowledgment of guilt.

The decree includes requiring the county to identify dead voters on the rolls, clear voter rolls of former county residents, and mail all registered voters who have been inactive since January 2011.

“They know the jig is up,” @TomFitton says.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation this week is also seeking to pry the release of information about noncitizens registered to vote in Manassas, Virginia.

Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said it is good that the Justice Department won’t just leave it to the nonprofit groups to weed out fraud.

“We need to know how many noncitizens are voting and know the unknowns,” Churchwell told The Daily Signal. “Trump could just enforce the law. The giant research project he tweeted about, or had a series of tweets about, is worthwhile and only something the federal government could do.”

It’s likely that 800,000 noncitizens illegally voted in the last presidential election, according to Jesse Richman, an associate professor of political science at Old Dominion University, who extrapolated on a 2014 study that examined illegal voting in the 2008 and 2010 elections.

Before the 2016 election, there were several documented cases of voter fraud. These included an FBI probe that found 19 dead people were registered to vote in Harrisonburg, Virginia; a woman arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, for voting twice for Trump; and a CBS News investigation that found multiple cases of dead voters and double voting in Colorado.

Churchwell asserted Trump’s 3 million or more projection couldn’t be proven or disproven, but regardless of whether this is an overstatement, President Barack Obama’s Justice Department ignored Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the “motor voter” law. This provision requires local governments to maintain and keep voter rolls current.

The Obama administration has not enforced this provision of the motor voter law, and in Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio, even took action to prevent maintaining the voter registration rolls.

Still others, such as Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal legal group at the New York University School of Law, insisted voter fraud is a myth and opposed an investigation.

“An expensive investigation of imaginary voter fraud is not needed. It could easily devolve into a witch hunt,” Waldman said in a public statement. “Worse, it could be used to justify sweeping voting restrictions. There is no need for another investigation that is not independent, rigorous, and fact-based.”

Waldman continued:

There is a great deal of evidence that our voting system locks out far too many eligible citizens from voting. The voter registration system needs an upgrade, and that is something that should unite all Americans. Errors on the voter rolls are emphatically not signs of fraud — they are signs that we need to improve the system.

An investigation into voter fraud would not be complicated, said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group.

“You can see the numbers we are talking about by looking at public voter registration lists and cross-checking that against a list of noncitizens,” Fitton told The Daily Signal. “The federal government could coordinate with state and local governments and determine who registered to vote illegally. It’s a simple process. That’s why the left is so upset. They know the jig is up.”

Enforcing the law is long overdue, said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation.

“We don’t need [to create] a commission. The Justice Department can enforce the law and work with the Department of Homeland Security, and its records for citizenship and change of status to get an idea of who is illegally registered to vote,” von Spakovsky told The Daily Signal.

Regardless of the investigation’s outcome, von Spakovsky expects critics will dismiss anything that falls short of Trump’s 3 to 5 million illegal voter estimate.

“They may try to dismiss this, but the American people don’t believe what the media say about voter fraud not being real,” von Spakovsky said. “Polling solidifies that.” (For more from the author of “Trump DOJ Likely to Find Many Offenses in Voter Fraud Probe, Experts Say” please click HERE)

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Pro-Life Feminist Group Had ‘Completely Positive’ Experience at Women’s March

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The Women’s March on Washington removed New Wave Feminists from their list of partners less than a week before the historic march took place last Saturday.

The Dallas-based non-profit was the first of three groups to have their partnership status revoked, simply because they were pro-life.

Many pro-life women responded on social media, saying they no longer felt welcome at the march, even though they had previously planned to attend.

But not Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa. Despite the public snub from the Women’s March, the founder and president of New Wave Feminists was determined to participate.

“If they think that pro-life feminists don’t exist, then we have to show up to say, ‘we’re everywhere,’” she told The Stream.

“Completely Positive”

Still, she was nervous. With the controversy over pro-life participation still hot, she worried there might be violence — and she would be an easy target with her “pro-life feminist” sign. “Please be careful,” her husband said.

So Herndon-De La Rosa didn’t initially hold up her sign when she arrived for the march, hoping to connect with other members of her group rather than advertise her controversial position alone. But when she couldn’t find her fellow pro-lifers, she held the sign up anyway.

Within three minutes, she was approached by a marcher.

“So glad you girls are here,” the woman said. “Thank you for coming out here and being bold and being feminists.”

Similar comments came throughout the day. Some women admitted that even though they were pro-choice, they appreciated pro-life participation.

Other women approached Herndon-De La Rosa’s group, which eventually congregated on the steps of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, to confide that they too were pro-life.

“It was completely positive,” Herndon-De La Rosa said of her experience at the march, “which absolutely shocked me.”

“Awakened a Sleeping Giant”

Herndon-De La Rosa believes the controversy over pro-life participation in the women’s march “awakened a sleeping giant.” Many women previously felt afraid to admit they were pro-life, she suggested, because they’d been told that you couldn’t be pro-life and be a feminist.

For Herndon-De La Rosa, the pro-life movement and feminism “totally correlate.”

“What the feminist movement needs is a life affirming component,” she said. “And what the pro-life movement needs is a pro-women component, a feminist component.”

A New Wave of Pro-Life Activism

While many assume that New Wave Feminists indicates a new wave of feminism, that name actually represents a new wave in the pro-life movement, Herndon-De La Rosa said.

She believes the mainstream pro-life movement often portrays women in crisis pregnancies as victims. She would rather send a message of empowerment.

“I was 16 and pregnant. I thought I couldn’t do it. You can,” she said, adding that community support is crucial — which is why New Wave Feminists helps women find such communities in their areas.

For Herndon-De La Rosa, “the real face” of pro-life activism isn’t the person protesting in front of abortion clinics, though those are the people the media focuses on.

“The pro-life movement is [made up of] the ones who are giving up their nights and weekends, or the extra bedroom in their home for women,” she said. “Nobody understands that those are the people that are really serving women well.”

Herndon-De La Rosa plans to promote such service with a new project — an app called Help Assist Her. The app will pinpoint a woman’s location and reveal all the women’s health organizations in the area. The app includes both government funded and charity organizations that provide women’s health services, but not abortions.

Help Assist Her will be rolled out by state, starting in New York. People can follow its progress by visiting HelpAssistHer.com and signing up for the newsletter.

Herndon-De La Rosa says that Planned Parenthood has positioned itself as a primary provider of women’s health services, despite being the number one provider of abortions. She believes the most effective way to defeat Planned Parenthood is to promote other organizations that provide health services for women, but are pro-life.

“It’s very hard for people who don’t know where to get the life affirming resources to find them,” she said. “We want to offer alternatives so women don’t have to go to Planned Parenthood.”

The Marching Continues

Soon after returning from the Women’s March, Herndon-De La Rosa got up before dawn to fly back to Washington, D.C. for the March for Life, taking place Friday. This year, her eight-year-old daughter will participate too.

As New Wave Feminists posted on Facebook, “Once we start marching we don’t stop!” (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Feminist Group Had ‘Completely Positive’ Experience at Women’s March” please click HERE)

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Congress Set to Overturn Obama Gun Control Rule

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Congress is poised to unravel one of the Obama administration’s midnight regulations that could prevent certain Social Security disability beneficiaries from buying guns.

The Social Security Administration finalized a rule just before Christmas 2016 in which it would send information of recipients of disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income to the Justice Department’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

This is triggered if the agency determines someone else is managing a recipient’s finances because the recipient isn’t mentally fit to manage their own affairs.

Rep. Ralph Abraham, R-La., helped advocate possible elimination of the gun control rule under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn regulations imposed in the last six months of an outgoing administration.

“This issue really can be boiled down to one point: No American should be denied their constitutional rights because someone else handles their finances,” Abraham told The Daily Signal in a statement.

“Allowing bureaucrats at the Social Security Administration to determine whether or not beneficiaries are fit to exercise their Second Amendment rights is a clear violation of due process, and I’m pleased the Congressional Review Act will give us the opportunity to right this wrong with passage of this joint resolution,” Abraham added.

Under the rule finalized on Dec. 19, the Social Security Administration would first have to determine if someone else is handling a beneficiary’s affairs. The rule states:

At the commencement of the adjudication process we will also notify individuals, both orally and in writing, of their possible federal prohibition on possessing or receiving firearms, the consequences of such prohibition, the criminal penalties for violating the Gun Control Act, and the availability of relief from the prohibition on the receipt or possession of firearms imposed by federal law.

Former President Barack Obama’s White House announced a package of executive actions in January 2016 that said:

The Social Security Administration has indicated that it will begin the rulemaking process to include information in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm for mental health reasons.

The National Rifle Association credited Abraham, Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., for pushing the rule into the Congressional Review Act.

“Protecting Americans’ fundamental rights is a top priority for Whip Scalise, and that includes undoing this Obama-era power grab against our Second Amendment rights,” Scalise spokesman Chris Bond told The Daily Signal in an email. “After eight years of an Obama administration that showed disrespect for our constitution, this unified Republican government is going to take power away from unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats and work hard to restore Americans’ liberties.”

The regulation has the backing of gun control groups.

Elizabeth Avore, legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group created by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, argued in July, as part of the public comment period, the rule was needed to keep guns away from the mentally ill. Her comment said:

As is required for a finding to be prohibiting, [Social Security Administration] officials have determined in these cases that the person “lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs,” and, under the proposed language, these incapacity findings will only be prohibiting if they are made due to mental illness. … The rule does not reach any beneficiaries who are assigned a representative payee due to physical incapability or for reasons other than legal or mental incompetence.

A spokeswoman for Everytown for Gun Safety had nothing to add to the matter when reached by The Daily Signal.

Johnson said he has been dedicated to defending the Constitution from his time in the military through Congress.

“Former President Obama’s last-ditch effort on gun control that would harm Social Security beneficiaries with disabilities is wrong,” Johnson told The Daily Signal in a statement. “I opposed it from the get-go, fought to stop it, and am encouraged by the support of the National Rifle Association, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Rights Task Force, and the National Council on Disability on this issue. I look forward to overturning the rule soon.”

Denial of a constitutional right is not something that should ever be decided administratively, said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

“No administrative process and no administrative law judge should be able to take away a constitutional right,” von Spakovsky said. “This should exclusively be a regular court of law to determine if someone is disabled enough to pose a hazard with a gun, not a federal bureaucrat.”

The National Rifle Association celebrated the congressional review as a victory.

“Congress’s decision to review the Obama administration’s backdoor gun grab is a significant step forward in protecting a fundamental constitutional right for law-abiding gun owners,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, in a public statement. “The NRA has been fighting this unconstitutional government overreach since it was first discussed and we look forward to swift congressional action.” (For more from the author of “Congress Set to Overturn Obama Gun Control Rule” please click HERE)

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Why the Electronic Immigration System Is Broken

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On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general took the extraordinary step of speaking out against the reinstatement of the Electronic Immigration System to process naturalization benefits for immigrants.

Though the system should theoretically streamline immigration and naturalization processes by automating immigration applications and adjudication, it has become a sinkhole of government funds in recent years, costing $1.2 billion so far, despite the original estimated cost being $536 million.

For all the extra funds that have been extended to support the system, problems continue to abound, leading to the suspension of the program for naturalization benefits in 2016.

The problems that led to suspension of the program included nearly 20,000 missing or duplicate green cards that could be abused by criminals or even terrorists. The inspector general also identified numerous other deficiencies within the system, including problems with interfaces, which harmed the department’s productivity.

Additionally, though over $1 billion has been spent on the Electronic Immigration System, only two types of immigration benefits out of a total of about 90 can be applied for online.

The Department of Homeland Security has also struggled with the related problem of failing to digitize old immigration records, which has allowed illegal immigrants with outstanding deportation orders to become citizens.

Homeland Security employees are now being forced to focus their time and energy toward fixing the problems that have been created by this failed system.

Since the system has not met minimal technical and functional requirements, nor has a risk-based analysis been conducted, the inspector general is urgently recommending the system not be reinstated for naturalization applications.

With the swearing in of Gen. John Kelly as secretary of homeland security, there are certain things that must be focused on over the next four years.

Immigration has been a hot topic in the U.S. for the past several years, and restoring integrity to the immigration system should be high on the new administration’s to-do list.

To that end, automating immigration benefits and adjudication is a great idea to reduce paperwork and simplify the legal immigration and naturalization process. But it must be done correctly in order to keep the American people safe.

So far, the Electronic Immigration System has failed to do so on nearly all counts.

There is a lot of work yet to be done before U.S. Customs and Immigration Services should consider reinstating the Electronic Immigration System for naturalization applications.

The fact that the inspector general has urgently commented on the issue should be a red flag to all that this failed system needs serious attention. (For more from the author of “Why the Electronic Immigration System Is Broken” please click HERE)

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New Data Show Obamacare Insures Less Than 20 Million, Most on Medicaid

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Many Obamacare supporters claim the law has expanded health coverage to upwards of 20 million Americans, but new data shows that isn’t accurate.

As part of Congress’ continued push to repeal Obamacare, the House Budget Committee held a hearing this week titled “The Failures of Obamacare: Harmful Effects and Broken Promises.”

Heritage Foundation expert Ed Haislmaier was one of four expert witnesses who testified.

Haislmaier presented new data regarding gains in health coverage since the full implementation of Obamacare began in 2014.

Most of the reports on coverage gains, such as the Obama administration’s, are typically based on government or private survey data rather than actually counting the change in private insurance or Medicaid program enrollments.

Haislmaier’s testimony highlighted his previous findings that only about 14 million people had gained coverage during the first two years of Obamacare’s full implementation (2014-2015). In addition, he reported preliminary findings for 2016.

Data is not yet available for the full year, but based on the first three quarters of 2016, Haislmaier finds a net total increase in coverage of about another 2.5 million people.

He explains:

The preliminary data show that during that period, enrollment in the individual market grew by 842,028 individuals, enrollment in fully insured employer plans declined by 1,128,597 individuals, enrollment in self-insured employer plans increased by 776,780 individuals, and Medicaid and CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] enrollment increased by 2,044,809 individuals.

In sum, Medicaid coverage accounts for 81 percent of the total gain in coverage for the first three quarters of 2016. This is consistent with Haislmaier’s previous findings that the bulk of the coverage gains since Obamacare’s full implementation have been in the Medicaid program, not private insurance.

Adding the 2016 preliminary data to the coverage gains from 2014 and 2015, there has been a total net gain in coverage of 16.5 million individuals from Obamacare’s launch through the first three quarters of 2016.

Medicaid coverage has increased by 13.8 million individuals and private coverage has had a net increase of 2.7 million individuals.

Once again, the data confirm that Obamacare’s principle coverage effect has been to expand Medicaid. (For more from the author of “New Data Show Obamacare Insures Less Than 20 Million, Most on Medicaid” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Immigration Actions Reverse Obama’s Open Borders Policy

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Moving swiftly to fulfill his campaign promise to get the nation’s illegal immigration problem under control, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Jan. 25 that constitute an almost complete reversal of the Obama administration’s nonenforcement and open borders policy.

From improving the physical barrier at our southern border to finally moving against sanctuary cities, these two executive orders put into effect a comprehensive program designed to secure our borders, implement interior enforcement, and reintegrate the assistance of state and local governments into federal efforts to enforce our immigration laws.

It has been a long time coming, but it seems to be finally happening: The federal government is actually enforcing our immigration laws.

As the first order, “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements,” correctly sets out in its preamble, “border security is critically important to the national security of the United States” and “aliens who illegally enter… without inspection or admission present a significant threat to national security and public safety.”

The president orders the Department of Homeland Security to immediately take the following steps:

Plan, design, and construct a physical wall, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve complete operational control of the southern border.

End the “catch and release” policy of the Obama administration, which Border Patrol agents sarcastically referred to as “catch and run” that flooded the country with illegal aliens, as well as dramatically increase the capacity of detention facilities to handle this change and the number of immigration judges needed to handle alien cases.

Return illegal aliens “to the territory from which they came pending a formal removal proceeding,” expedite determinations of apprehended aliens’ claims of eligibility to remain in the U.S., and make federal prosecutions of immigration offenses “with a nexus to the southern border” a priority.

Hire an additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents.

Bring state and local law enforcement agencies back into immigration enforcement to get their assistance in the “investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens,” including through the 287(g) program, something the Obama administration did everything it could to end.

Stop the “abuse of parole and asylum provisions currently used to prevent the lawful removal of removable aliens” by doing what the Obama administration refused to do: Apply the plain language of the provisions in immigration law that set out strict standards for asylum and parole.

Authorize immigration agents and even state officials who are helping federal authorities to enter all federal lands in pursuit of illegal aliens—again something that the Obama Interior Department refused to allow in areas where national parks and other lands were along our borders.

The second, complementary order, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” aims at enhancing interior enforcement of our immigration laws, particularly for “aliens who engage in criminal conduct in the United States.”

This order outlines that executive branch officials are directed to:

Put a priority on removing aliens who have committed criminal offenses; that includes not just violent criminals, but also aliens who engage in fraud in connection with the government or public benefits.

Hire an additional 10,000 immigration officers.

Enter into agreements with as many state and local governments as possible to aid the federal government in enforcing federal immigration laws.

Cut off funding from the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to sanctuary cities, as well as take appropriate action in court against any such sanctuary cities whose policies violate federal immigration law.

Review all previous immigration actions and policies to rescind or revise any that are inconsistent with federal immigration law or this executive order.

Implement a comprehensive program to prosecute illegal aliens for criminal violations of the law.

Implement sanctions against all “recalcitrant” countries that refuse to take back their nationals who are deported from the U.S.

Establish an office within the Department of Homeland Security to help the victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens.

There is no question that all of these actions, taken together, will be a major step in getting our illegal alien population under control, securing our border, and deterring and reducing the huge influx of illegal aliens into the U.S. that was spurred by the Obama administration’s lax policies.

It would seem that the political will to enforce our immigration laws and take a tough line on the illegal aliens that have been flooding into the country for many years has finally appeared in Washington in the form of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.

It is about time. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Immigration Actions Reverse Obama’s Open Borders Policy” please click HERE)

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Abortion Survivor Tells Her Story in New Book

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You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir is an extraordinary tale of survival and transformation. At 14, Melissa (Cross) Ohden discovered that when she first left the womb people were disappointed to see her alive. Her cries were evidence that the late term saline abortion — where a doctor poisons the amniotic fluid in order to chemically burn the child inside and out — had failed.

Melissa first dealt with this shocking past by turning to “the unholy trinity” of bulimia, alcohol and sex. Today, though, her strength comes from faith in the true Trinity and she is a wife and mother who has made hers a public face for the preborn.

In the book, Ohden chronicles the search for her roots, a journey which brought her eye to eye with the people of her past, people who like her were wounded by the reality of abortion.

Search and Discovery

What her adoptive parents had long kept hidden came to light when Melissa’s older sister faced a crisis pregnancy of her own. In an effort to save their grandchild, they told their troubled daughter about her sister’s circumstances. That decision to embrace the truth helped to save the life of Ohden’s preborn nephew and set Ohden on a path that would help to save many more.

Nevertheless, it first prompted a deep struggle as the teen went from believing that her biological family had made a loving decision to realizing, instead, that she carried the genes of those who wished her dead. Yet, when Ohden found her birthmother years later, she found another victim — a teenager pressed into an abortion that she never wanted and long unaware that her baby had survived.

This almost unbelievable drama is told with raw honesty and detailed documentation. The story twists but ultimately turns in the direction of grace and reconciliation. Now, Ohden heads up the Abortion Survivors Network through which she has connected with over 200 people who can tell a similar tale. These survivors stand as signposts to the always present humanity of the preborn.

Going Public

The decision to go public with her story was not an easy one, though. Surprisingly, the catalyst was a trip to an abortion clinic — as a customer.

“You should be here, not there.” Melissa Ohden heard those words from a pro-life sidewalk counselor at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Ignorant of the other services provided at this heavily fortified compound, she had come as a married woman to refill her birth control prescription, not to get an abortion. But she had just surprised even herself by telling the man with the rosary in his hand that she was an abortion survivor, and then Ohden’s heart told her that, yes, she should be with them.

That was her last visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic. Since then, she has shared her story with thousands and on January 27th, she will appear before tens of thousands more on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life.

Ohden’s is a song that should be heard by more than just the pro-life choir. Indeed, in many ways, she could have blended easily into the crowd at the recent Women’s March on Washington. Ohden put a Masters in Social Work into practice at a state agency assisting victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence and knew the struggles of a working mom. In the pages of her book, Ohden also notes her early admiration for Hillary Clinton and quotes approvingly from the likes of liberal favorites Joseph Campbell, Alice Walker and Arianna Huffington. The first time she shared her story publicly it was under the auspices of Feminists for Life.

Today, however, the left increasingly defends the boundaries of feminism with the litmus test of abortion rights. Ohden may not get past those gatekeepers. (Her Capitol Hill testimony against Planned Parenthood probably guarantees it.) She recently lamented that the media regularly “silences stories like mine.”

The NPR interviews may never come, but her story is a powerful one, powerfully told. It reads like a detective novel but its truth will elicit tears of sadness and joy. You Carried Me deserves to be carried wide and far. (For more from the author of “Abortion Survivor Tells Her Story in New Book” please click HERE)

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Change We Can Believe In: Trump’s Executive Orders for American Sovereignty Are Game-Changers

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It’s Christmas come early for conservatives. Actually, for all Americans who care about homeland security.

Today represents a turning point in which President Donald Trump has used Obama’s pen and phone for the first game-changing series of executive actions.

The core job of the federal government is not to get involved in health insurance or “stimulate” the economy. The most important job is to protect our national sovereignty and the security of all the states. That begins with border security and crafting an immigration policy that puts American interests first. While some of our statutes need updating, many of the existing immigration laws are actually written properly, albeit have been ignored by Obama and past presidents. This is where Trump’s executive actions come into place.

The immigration laws were written as such that they gave the president broad latitude to clamp down on immigration and ratchet up enforcement, but not to loosen immigration and open up the borders. And rightfully so. A nation must retain the ability to shut down immigration swiftly in order to protect American sovereignty and security. On the other hand, any expansion must be done judiciously with the full input of the American people as reflected through a robust debate in Congress. Some liberal critics might suggest that conservatives are being hypocritical by promoting robust executive action from Trump after criticizing Obama’s use of his executive pen for years. The difference is that Trump is actually following the statutes passed by Congress while Obama violated the letter and spirit of the laws.

Suspending refugee program and cutting off visas from dangerous countries

The insane nightmare of importing the entire Middle East is long over. At least for now.

Here are the details from a preliminary draft:

Trump plans to shut off the issuance of all new immigrant and non-immigrant visas for 30 days from the following six volatile countries: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. After 30 days, the secretary of state and secretary of homeland security must submit a report to completely revamp the vetting process going forward.

Countries will have to submit within 60 days any information that the administration determines necessary, pursuant to the findings of this report, in order to adjudicate a visa application and ensure they are properly vetted. Any country that fails to submit this information will not be able to send foreign nationals to our country. All the while, the ban can be extended and expanded at any time.

In addition, the entire refugee resettlement program is suspended for four months pending a complete investigation of the program and a plan to restructure it and prioritize those who are truly in danger because of religious persecution. After 120 days, the program may resume but only for those countries from which Secretaries Kelly and Tillerson determine do not pose a threat. The program from Syria is completely suspended until the president personally gives the green light.

Furthermore, the order suspends the Visa Waiver Interview Program, and therefore requires that anyone wishing to renew their non-immigrant visa first undergo an in-person interview with U.S. officials in the consulate of their home country.

This common sense order can’t come at a better time. Obama has brought in 46,500 refugees, not including other visa categories, from these six countries just since the beginning of 2016. Obama’s bureaucrats are still running the State Department (and unless Tillerson is pressured to clean them out, they will continue to do so), and have brought in almost 1,000 refugees since Inauguration Day alone!

While liberals will cry foul about taking such action from the White House, we must remind them that the Immigration and Nationality Act (§ 212(f)) gives the president plenary power to “by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants.” This power is universal, enforceable at the will of the president, and applies any time for any circumstance.

Border fence

Trump also announced that he is directing DHS to begin the process of constructing the border fence, a signature promise of his campaign. Although this endeavor will eventually need more appropriations, which will likely be forthcoming in April, Trump absolutely has the statutory authority to begin construction. Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 — as amended by the REAL ID Act of 2005, the Secure Fence Act of 2006, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 — requires DHS to construct “not less than 700 miles” of fencing along the border. The locations, nature of the fence, time-frame, and any length beyond 700 miles are left up to the discretion of the president. In addition, the DHS secretary may waive all legal requirements that impede any construction.

As CRS observes:

Indeed, nothing in current statute would appear to bar DHS from potentially installing hundreds of miles of additional fencing or other barriers along the border, at least so long as the action was determined appropriate to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry.

[You can read more here for why a border fence is a force multiplier that will actually stop 95% of border crossings and is amazingly cost effective.]

Restoring interior enforcement

As part of today’s executive orders, Trump announced that they would cut off law enforcement grants to sanctuary cities. As I’ve noted before, this is one of the few areas where states have no right to push back and cutting off funding is part of existing law.

Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of the orders was the restoration of the Secure Communities Program. Obama unilaterally abolished it as part of the DAPA amnesty and the elimination of this program is responsible for the surge in criminal aliens. Secure Communities was one of the most effective law enforcement programs in the field. It facilitated coordination between local law enforcement to share information through the universal fingerprint database on illegal aliens held in their prisons.

There is no reason anyone here illegally in the first place should remain in the country if they are in prison for any reason. Overall, ICE detainers declined 73% from the peak in March 2011 before the first round of Obama amnesties was fully implemented. Restoring Secure Communities will go a long way in getting rid over well over a million criminal aliens, a goal that any intellectually honest liberal should share.

Work to be done: End Obama’s illegal DACA amnesty

Obviously, there is a limit to what a president can do in one day. Certainly the list of accomplishments from today are enough to register as a great start. However, there is one action Trump must take immediately: the repeal of Obama’s DACA amnesty.

As we noted earlier this week, the Trump administration is giving indications that they don’t plan to rescind DACA. The prevailing talking point is that they want to focus on criminal aliens and dangerous refugees. And to their credit, they have certainly gone a long way towards addressing those issues today. However, the issue with Obama’s amnesty is that 1) it’s patently unconstitutional and 2) it’s not merely an issue of deportation but one of providing illegal aliens with Social Security cards and refundable tax credits. Trump’s own DHS is now issuing hundreds of unconstitutional DACA papers every day. That can and must end now simply by shutting off the spigot. We don’t have to deal with the deportation issue now. And while we’re at it, let’s stop calling them “Dreamers” and focus on American Dreamers, to paraphrase Trump.

Overall, Trump has gone a long way in embarking on some of the most important immigration changes in decades, and has fulfilled many of the homeland security ideas on our checklist, something that should have happened after 9/11.

Today is a blueprint for how to move forward. We need to continue focusing on the issues that matter, always remaining relentlessly on offense promoting our affirmative ideas on multiple fronts to overwhelm the other side rather than reacting to the latest nonsense in the media. Conservatives should be proud that the pressure and culture of accountability they built throughout this election bore fruit in such spectacular fashion.

As for Trump, if he sticks to policy, eases off on Twitter, and picks up his pen, he will go a long way to truly making America great again. (For more from the author of “Change We Can Believe In: Trump’s Executive Orders for American Sovereignty Are Game-Changers” please click HERE)

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