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What ‘Plummet’? Border Numbers Still Well Above Level of ‘System-Wide Emergency’

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Just how accustomed have we become to the new normal of open borders? In March, when 92,840 people were apprehended between ports of entry at the border, including 53,208 family unit members, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) referred to it as a “system-wide emergency.” Now, after preliminary data show the numbers are off the peak of May, back “down” to 95,500 total apprehensions and 57,300 family unit members, it is reported as a major breakthrough.

Has the Overton window shifted so far to the Left on this issue that the media will successfully acculturate us to tolerate this level of illegal immigration, especially the shutdown of our Border Patrol, caring for immigrants rather than protecting Americans, as the new normal?

While it is true that the numbers are down 28 percent from the unfathomable peak of the May numbers, when over 132,000 were apprehended between ports of entry, the June numbers still sit at roughly the April levels, which themselves reflected a high-water mark, with month-over-month increases for a year and a half.

At this point, it’s not yet clear whether May represented a new baseline or just an aberration with a number of huge groups coming in at once. Now, with the hotter weather, when numbers usually drop anyway, maintaining the level of illegal immigration from March/April still represents a 44 percent increase over the levels we were seeing in February, when the president declared a national emergency.

Thus, the June border numbers, without a further trajectory change, are more akin to a slight market correction the day after the stock market reaches its highest level, but still well into uncharted waters.

While it is true that some actions taken by the Mexican government might have dissuaded more migrants from crossing into Mexico since President Trump secured an agreement with President Lopez Obrador in early June, it is unlikely that the Mexican government has the desire or the ability to permanently bend the trajectory until we change the policies of executive and judicial amnesty from our side of the border. The bottom line is that the cartels make too much money off human smuggling and will not allow Mexico’s national guard to take a bite out of that revenue without a massive civil war.

Yesterday, the New York-based Spanish language publication “El Diario” posted a video of alleged members of Cártel del Noreste (CDN) attacking national guard soldiers in Tamaulipas, one of the key smuggling areas. This comes a week after a cartel in the southern border province of Tabasco set up a blockade of burning cars in a highway, according to Borderland Beat, with the following warning: “Welcome #GuardiaNacional(.) We know that you’re coming with everything but let’s see how many come out of here alive, align yourselves or we’ll do it for you.” Tabasco shares a border with Guatemala, where President Lopez Obrador promised to deploy national guardsmen to stop the Central American migration.

It’s clear that without the Trump administration designating the cartels as terrorists under our laws and using the military more aggressively on our side of the border to counter their smuggling activities, we will never return to even “Obama levels” of illegal immigration. It remains stupefying why this administration has not yet done that, why it has not fired acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan, and why it has not issued an 1182 shutoff at the border.

According to a new Harvard/Harris poll, 42 percent of voters rank immigration as the most important issue facing the country today, more than any other issue. More importantly, voters were asked directly whether they support the idea of turning back people with questionable asylum claims, and 62 percent said they should “immediately” be turned back. That includes 64 percent of independent voters, 62 percent of self-described moderates, and even 44 percent of people who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The president has nothing to lose and everything to gain by finally shutting off all migration of those without proper documentation at our border and turning them back the same way we did with the Haitians in the early 1990s. Not only would it protect Americans from crime, drugs, gangs, diseases, and public charge, it would end all the backlash over the care for the illegal aliens themselves. There is no good way to manage catch-and-release even from a humanitarian perspective when the numbers are this high.

When the president announced his bid for the highest office in the land on June 16, 2015, he referred to America as a “dumping ground” for illegal aliens. At that time, there were roughly 38,000 apprehensions a month. In July 2014, amidst the original crisis of Central American migration, Trump tweeted, “The immigration crisis is a horrible mess made worse by an incompetent president who doesn’t have a clue. We need new leadership FAST!”

If things have gotten so bad that we now tout “only 95,000” apprehensions as success, then this entire endeavor has truly been a failure. We need real leadership, fast, and that begins with the president getting new legal advice in the White House. (For more from the author of “What ‘Plummet’? Border Numbers Still Well Above Level of ‘System-Wide Emergency’” please click HERE)

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Poll: Majority of Americans Want MASS DEPORTATIONS of Illegal Aliens

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A majority of Americans want mass deportations of illegal aliens if Congress fails to reach a deal this week that closes loopholes in the country’s asylum system that allow mass flows of foreign nationals to pour through the U.S.-Mexico border.

The latest Harvard/Harris poll finds that 51 percent of American voters say they support mass deportations of the 11 million to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. should Congress fail to reach a deal that closes loopholes in the asylum system.

More than 8-in-10 Republican voters, as well as more than 5-in-10 swing voters, said President Trump should carry out mass deportations of illegal aliens following Congressional inaction. Nearly 9-in-10 Trump supporters said the same.

Working and middle class Americans, those earning $75,000 a year or less, support mass deportations of illegal aliens if Congress fails to act by a majority of 53 percent. A majority of Americans 35 to 49-years-old also support mass deportations following inaction from Congress. . .

The poll comes as Trump delayed a nationwide plan to mass deport thousands of illegal aliens who have final orders for removal. Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Thomas Homan accused acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kevin McAleenan of leaking the plans to mass deport illegal aliens in order to halt the operation. (Read more from “Poll: Majority of Americans Want Mass Deportations of Illegal Aliens” HERE)

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Dem Congresswoman Sending Staff to Help Illegal Aliens Enter U.S.

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Democrat Rep. Veronica Escobar (TX) is secretly sending staff to Mexico to find and coach migrants who are trying to enter the United States and is instructing them how to “exploit a loophole” to game the asylum process, multiple U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials allege.

The Washington Examiner reports that, according to the National Border Patrol Council’s El Paso chapter and several CBP agents, Escobar’s staff is trying to find migrants that have been returned from El Paso, Texas to Mexico “under the ‘remain in Mexico’ policy, then coaching them to pretend they cannot speak Spanish to exploit a loophole letting them return to the U.S.”

A senior union official shared evidence supporting their claims with the Examiner and said, “What we believe is happening is Veronica Escobar’s office is going … to basically second-guess and obstruct work already done by the Border Patrol.”

Under the “remain in Mexico” policy, “anyone returned must be fluent in Spanish because they may have to reside in Mexico up to five years until a U.S. federal judge decides their asylum claim.”

Officials claim that Escobar’s aides, who have sought interviews with thousands of migrants who were sent back to Mexico, are escorting the migrants back to the port of entry and are lying to CBP officials, telling them the migrants don’t speak Spanish despite the fact that they spoke Spanish to the officials at an earlier date. (Read more from “Dem Congresswoman Sending Staff to Help Illegal Aliens Enter U.S.” HERE)

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Forget New Border Laws; Federal Judges Say We Can’t Even Enforce Current Ones

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Thomas Jefferson told us in the document we celebrated this week that we have a right to be governed by officials “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Yet 243 years later, our governing elites believe that an unelected and life-tenured Seattle-based judge can dictate to the entire country that we can no longer regulate who comes into our country and who is released into our communities.

This latest radical judicial ruling, in a series of stupefying rulings attacking the foundation of our sovereignty and immigration laws, demonstrates once again that we don’t have an immigration law problem; we have a judicial supremacy problem.

On Tuesday, with the flick of her pen, a random federal judge in Seattle expanded the judicially created catch-and-release loophole from family units to all single adults. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman, a Clinton appointee, nullified the 1996 immigration law mandating detention of those coming here seeking asylum and created a Fifth Amendment right for them to be released on bond. She went a step further and required that all those within custody receive bond hearings within seven days, that the proceedings of the immigration court trials must be recorded, and that the immigration judges must provide explanations for the basis of denying bond. Also, in contravention to 130 years of case law, she placed the burden of proof on the government, not on the alien, to show why these people shouldn’t be released.

There are no words in the English language to describe the radical nature of this ruling. Section 235(b)(1)(B)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which passed the Senate unanimously in 1996, says that those seeking asylum “shall be detained for further consideration of the application of asylum.” Now, in a growing trend among judges in the district courts within the Ninth Circuit, a judge is saying that the law itself violates the Fifth Amendment. Pechman claimed that this administration’s implementation of the 1996 law violates “50 years of statutory and case law supporting the right of persons detained for non-criminal reasons to be released upon posting bond.”

In fact, her application of bond hearings to aliens within the context of immigration proceedings is a violation of settled case law. As the court established in U.S. v. Ju Toy (1905), “The petitioner, although physically within our boundaries, is to be regarded as if he had been stopped at the limit of our jurisdiction, and kept there while his right to enter was under debate.” There is no Fifth Amendment right because one cannot unilaterally assert jurisdiction before being admitted to the country. Jurisdiction for constitutional rights is a legal distinction, not a physical one.

Judge Pechman wrote that denying bond hearings is a violation of due process, but due process for aliens in the context of immigration decisions is whatever Congress says it is. As the court said in Lem Moon Sing v. United States (1895), “The decisions of executive or administrative officers, acting within powers expressly conferred by Congress, are due process of law.”

The court therefore said that one cannot assert that “if the alien is entitled of right, by some law or treaty, to enter this country, but is nevertheless excluded by such officers, the latter exceed their jurisdiction, and their illegal action.” How ominously the court warned: “That view, if sustained, would bring into the courts every case of an alien claiming the right to come into the United States under some law or treaty, but who was prevented from doing so by the executive branch of the government.”

Indeed, that is where we are today!

President Trump is going to have to recognize at some point, a recognition he should have internalized with the census ruling, that he must draw a line on lawless judges. He keeps asserting that our laws are broken and that they need to be changed. But the reality is that our laws were designed to prevent this very rush at the border, yet judges are now saying our sovereignty laws are unconstitutional.

The Ninth Circuit earlier this year ruled another provision of the 1996 law unconstitutional, even though Congress explicitly stripped the courts of jurisdiction to hear such cases. Through every stage of the immigration process and in every class of immigration filings, the district and circuit judges within the Ninth Circuit keep playing a game of “catch me if you can” with the Supreme Court. They create a right to bond hearings in one case, and it will take at least four years for the high court to slap it down. But then rather than applying the rationale to every other case, lower court judges continue to mandate bond hearings in slightly different cases. Meanwhile, thousands of aliens are irrevocably released into our communities. This cannot continue.

Just this week, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Trump could not build a wall with defense funding. Trump has no choice but to assert executive power and finally demonstrate that it is the courts that are engaging in civil disobedience against immigration laws. If any district judge can legislate any new law he wants, there is quite literally no purpose to Trump’s presidency. He has agreed to halt dozens of policies in which he was merely countermanding a lawless action of a predecessor, thanks to the courts. If he can’t even end Obama’s unilateral executive actions, then we as may as well invite Obama himself back to the White House.

For over a year, even right-leaning commentators have been wrong about the border crisis. They are suggesting that we can’t secure our border until we pass new laws while they continue to miss the point that we already have laws against illegal immigration, especially the ones strengthened in 1996. If we agree that judges have the power to nullify them, there is nothing about the new proposals that will change the game. What laws could possibly be drafted that are stronger than the ones written already that are ignored by the executive branch and violated by the judicial branch? If we keep agreeing that courts have such power, then no new statute can rectify the problem.

Either we push back against judicial supremacism, or we have no country left. There is no middle ground. (For more from the author of “Forget New Border Laws; Federal Judges Say We Can’t Even Enforce Current Ones” please click HERE)

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Trump Unloads on Democrats over Border Crisis; Illegal Aliens Will Now Be FINED

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By Daily Wire. President Donald Trump slammed Democrats on Wednesday for not helping to address the crux of the problem with the crisis on the southern border and suggested that Democratic lawmakers were lying about what they saw during their visit to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility this week.

“Our Border Patrol people are not hospital workers, doctors or nurses. The Democrats bad Immigration Laws, which could be easily fixed, are the problem. Great job by Border Patrol, above and beyond,” Trump tweeted. “Many of these illegals aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions. No matter how good things actually look, even if perfect, the Democrat visitors will act shocked & aghast at how terrible things are. Just Pols. If they really want to fix them, change the Immigration Laws and Loopholes. So easy to do!”

(Read more from “Trump Unloads on Democrats over Border Crisis; Illegal Aliens Will Now Be Fined” HERE)

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Trump Administration Hits Some Immigrants in U.S. Illegally with Fines up to $500,000

By NPR. The Trump administration is seeking to fine some immigrants, who are in the United States illegally, hundreds of thousands of dollars for failing to take steps to leave after being ordered to do so, according to government documents obtained by NPR.

The Department of Homeland Security sent out a batch of notices across the country to targeted individuals ordering them to pay fines of up to nearly $500,000 for “failing to depart the U.S. as previously agreed,” among other factors. . .

“It is the intention of ICE to order you pay a fine in the amount of $497,777,” Lisa Hoechst, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, wrote to Edith Espinal Moreno in a letter dated June 25, 2019, obtained by NPR from lawyers for Moreno. (Read more from “Trump Administration Hits Some Immigrants in U.S. Illegally with Fines up to $500,000” HERE)

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Tlaib Had a Sudden Awakening and Now Understands What Border Patrol Agents Have Said for Years

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Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Wednesday spoke with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the Democratic caucus’ trip to the southern border, where they toured multiple facilities in Texas. What’s interesting though, is Tlaib said exactly what Border Patrol agents have been saying for years.

“I can tell you that the couple of agents that have taken me aside were imploring me to please, report back what’s happening here because they don’t want any part of it anymore,” Tlaib explained. “And they do actually feel like it’s making us less safe because they’re not at the border. You know, in their eyes, they’re not social workers. They’re not supposed to be watching over 4-year-olds, you know, some nine and 10 year olds. These are not agents that are equipped to taking care of them and throwing money at it is not going to fix it.”

She then used the opportunity to hammer on the Trump administration for not “fixing” the problem. . .

For years Border Patrol agents have repeatedly asked for additional resources. We saw it happen in 2014, when a surge of illegal aliens flocked to our southern border. Detainees were being bused from Texas to other parts of the country for processing because the system was so overwhelmed. Agents were physically pulled from the southern border to process detainees, leaving our nation wide open to anyone and everyone wanting in. But, as always, nothing changed. The Obama administration rode out the public relation crisis, which essentially put a band aid on a major wound. (Read more from “Tlaib Had a Sudden Awakening and Now Understands What Border Patrol Agents Have Said for Years” HERE)

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What?! Poll Finds 40 Percent of Americans Want to Foot the Bill for Illegal Aliens’ Health Care

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Most Americans don’t believe that their tax dollars should go to fund health care benefits for those who have entered the country illegally, but a surprisingly high minority does, according to a new CNN poll.

The CNN survey of 1,613 American adults — conducted by independent research company SSRS — found that while 58 percent of Americans are opposed to the idea of taxpayer-funded health insurance for illegal aliens, 38 percent of respondents were on board with the idea; 3 percent were undecided.

Unsurprisingly, two-thirds (66 percent) of Democrats surveyed said they supported taxpayer-backed health insurance for illegal immigrants, while only a scant 10 percent of self-described Republicans supported it. And 63 percent of independents said they opposed the idea, as opposed to the 34 percent in favor of it.

The poll also found similar enthusiasm levels between Republicans and Democrats on voting in next year’s presidential election. 75 percent of Democrats answered that they were “extremely/very enthusiastic” compared to 73 percent of Republicans.

The CNN/SSRS poll has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.

Not so long ago, a debate about whether or not to open up publicly funded health insurance benefits to illegal aliens would have sounded like the satire of past election cycles, but that’s just where things are right now in the 2020 Democratic primary.

At one of last week’s two Democratic debates, every single Democratic candidate raised their hands on stage in favor of giving health care to illegal aliens.

Out on the campaign trail, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., have both spoken in favor of public health care benefits for illegal immigrants.

At an event in June, Democratic candidate and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that he would “absolutely” include coverage for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in his trademark “Medicare for All proposal.”

Meanwhile, the state of California has gone out ahead of the 2020 Democratic field and has begun offering state medical benefits to illegal alien adults. President Donald Trump criticized the move yesterday, telling reporters that California’s elected officials “don’t treat their people as well as they treat illegal immigrants.”

Estimates put the current cost of illegal immigration to the U.S. somewhere between $75 billion and $150 billion every year; however, those estimates don’t account for the record-breaking border numbers the U.S. has seen over the last few months or what will happen if the U.S. incentivizes even more illegal immigration with new health care entitlements. (For more from the author of “What?! Poll Finds 40 Percent of Americans Want to Foot the Bill for Illegal Aliens’ Health Care” please click HERE)

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9th Circuit Refuses Trump Request to Block Judge’s Ruling to Stop Military Funds for Border Wall

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An appeals court denied the Trump administration’s emergency request to block a federal judge’s ruling that prevents President Trump from using $2.5 billion in military funds to build a wall along the southern border.

In a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said in an opinion that “a stay of the district court’s order granting Plaintiffs an injunction is not warranted.”

The Justice Department appealed after U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam, who is an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ruled to permanently block the $2.5 billion after issuing a temporary injunction in May to stop the administration’s use of the funds. The ruling stymied several construction projects in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Gilliam ruled in two lawsuits on Friday. The first, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition, came in response to Trump’s national emergency declaration transferring $6.7 billion in military funds to border wall construction. Gilliam’s decision halted the use of funds meant for Defense Department counter-drug activities.

In May, upon issuing the temporary injunction on border wall funding, Gilliam noted that the partial government shutdown earlier in the year represented an improper balance of power between lawmakers and the president. He stated, “The position that when Congress declines the Executive’s request to appropriate funds, the Executive nonetheless may simply find a way to spend those funds ‘without Congress’ does not square with fundamental separation of powers principles dating back to the earliest days of our Republic.” (Read more from “9th Circuit Refuses Trump Request to Block Judge’s Ruling to Stop Military Funds for Border Wall” HERE)

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2020 Dem ESCORTS Illegal Aliens Across U.S. Border

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By The Blaze. Presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) escorted 5 migrants seeking refugee status across the border in order to thwart immigration enforcement policies of the Trump administration. . .

(Read more from “2020 Dem Escorts Illegal Aliens Across U.S. Border” HERE)

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Booker ‘Personally Accompanied’ Asylum Seekers Across the Border

By Washington Examiner. Presidential hopeful Cory Booker was in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on Wednesday and traveled with asylum seekers as they crossed the U.S. southern border.

The New Jersey senator’s trip to Mexico comes as the situation at the border has gained notoriety for the conditions at migrant detention centers. . .

Booker helped five women make it to a U.S. shelter and not a detention center, according to Andrew Kimmel. Those women were originally sent back to Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols, and Booker told reporters Wednesday that his office intends on keeping in touch with them. . .

“I disagree with this idea that our asylum system is too broad,” Booker told reporters Wednesday, adding that President Trump has created “a human rights crisis and an American values crisis” with his execution of immigration policies and executive actions.

On Tuesday, Booker unveiled his immigration plan, which seeks in part to “virtually eliminate” immigration detention centers. It would also undo the Trump administration’s removal of protection for Dreamers, undo the “Muslim ban,” and limit the amount of time a migrant could be detained. (Read more from “Booker ‘Personally Accompanied’ Asylum Seekers Across the Border” HERE)

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New Tactic: Smugglers Are Pushing Adults and Kids into the Rio Grande to Distract Border Patrol Agents

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Last week a photo of a man and his daughter went viral after they drowned together in the Rio Grande. It happened while they attempted to enter the United States illegally.

According to Border Patrol agents, pushing adults and children into the river is a new tactic being used as a distraction by smugglers. While agents focus their attention on water rescue missions, they take advantage.

“Smugglers are often placing children in nothing more than makeshift rafts or on pool toys to cross the dangerous Rio Grande river. On multiple occasions, smugglers have pushed adults and children out of these rafts knowing that agents will prioritize life while the smugglers swim back to Mexico to evade arrest,” Border Patrol Chief Brian Hasting said during testimony on Capitol Hill last week. “So far this fiscal year Border Patrol agents have rescued more than 3400 people in distress along the border and saved nearly 2500 people crammed into tractor trailers.”

(Read more from “New Tactic: Smugglers Are Pushing Adults and Kids into the Rio Grande to Distract Border Patrol Agents” HERE)

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