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Trump Admin Extends TPS Amnesty and Bows to Judicial Supremacy

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Once again, the executive and judicial branches have gotten together to nullify a sovereignty statute and grant indefinite amnesty to illegal aliens while saddling Americans with the cost and citizen children of illegal aliens who wrongly were awarded temporary legal status. We have a government of, by, and for illegal aliens.

Remember when Trump offered Democrats amnesty plus extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in exchange for wall funding? Well, yesterday his DHS secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, agreed to illegally extend this program for free simply because the powers that be in this administration support the amnesty agenda and the stealing of American sovereignty. This is a scam of issuing work permits for primarily illegal aliens who take advantage of a program designed for legal visitors who can’t return home because of a natural disaster. After promising to end it, Trump’s DHS extended TPS for 300,000 nationals of Sudan, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. The overwhelming majority are from El Salvador, among them those with proven ties to MS-13. Pursuant to law, TPS should have expired for Sudan in 1997, Nicaragua in 1998, El Salvador in 2001, and Haiti in 2010.

The administration decided to give in to Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California, who illegally ruled that Trump must continue a program over which the judiciary has no control.

This decision is destructive on many levels, both to Trump’s immigration promises and to the growing tyranny of the courts. Trump is giving in to an illegal injunction issued by a single district judge in what is probably one of the worst abuses of power from a court in modern history.

Consider the following:

TPS is a discretionary act of leniency written into immigration code, not a mandatory In fact, it is only a temporary visa for those who cannot return home because of natural disasters or “other extraordinary and temporary conditions.” To use this program for illegal aliens and 20 years after a natural disaster in some cases is a violation of statute. For a district judge to then mandate that the administration violate statute on something that, even under the right circumstances, is only discretionary is legally unprecedented.

According to law (INA §244 (b)(1)), TPS may not be designated if the DHS secretary finds that allowing migrants to temporarily stay in the United States is against the national interest or for individuals with criminal convictions. This is solely up to the administration, not the courts.

Most egregiously, not only is a universal injunction by a district judge unconstitutional, as Clarence Thomas observed, statute explicitly bars the courts from reviewing complaints against termination of TPS. 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(5)(A) states unambiguously, “There is no judicial review of any determination of the [secretary of Homeland Security] with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state under this subsection.” For a district judge to rule on this case last October is a violation of law. The judge should be removed from office, not legitimized with this decision.

By far, El Salvador is the home country of most of these bogus TPS claims. It is also the home of MS-13. As Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies has warned, by liberal judges conferring official status on these people, they have ensured that MS-13 gangsters here illegally are not deported. This is a classic example of how, much as with asylum and unaccompanied alien children, the liberal judges and past administrations have interpreted a statute in the exact opposite manner to its intended purpose. TPS, precisely because it’s not an immigration or amnesty program but rather a temporary dwelling, doesn’t require the applicants to show “good moral character.” Yet the Left has turned it into a permanent amnesty program that still, of course, does not require a showing of good character, which makes it much harder to get rid of the bad guys.

This decision of the administration is even more damaging on the judicial front than on the immigration front. It sets a baseline precedent that there is nothing a district judge can do that is out of bounds and that even if judges violate statute, not just on the merits but on their power to even hear the case, their illegitimate rulings will be countenanced as law. Trump is confronted with a challenge no other president has faced with a judiciary literally engaging in civil disobedience against immigration law. It’s understandable why, given the decade-long lionizing of judicial supremacy, he would be reluctant to pick a fight. But if he fails to do so, he will permanently set the baseline of judicial power over immigration. He has no choice but to fight.

As a result of this decision, the baseline is set that jurisdiction-stripping statutes mean nothing.

As a result of this decision, the baseline is set that universal injunctions are the law of the land.

As a result of this decision, the baseline is set that there is no area of immigration law and sovereignty off limits to the courts.

As a result of this decision, the baseline is set that courts can once again use Trump’s political statements against him as means of canceling his lawful powers, in contravention to the majority opinion in Trump v. Hawaii just last year. Judge Edward Chen, in his October ruling, said that Trump’s decision to use his unquestionable authority was “based on animus against non-white, non-European immigrants in violation of Equal Protection guaranteed by the Constitution.” Never mind the fact that, around the same time, the administration continued TPS for the country of Somalia.

The other point being missed here by some defenders of the White House is that Trump is destroying any shred of negotiating leverage he has with the Democrats over the wall. Just like he constantly renews DACA, he is now renewing TPS, thus giving Democrats what they want for free. Therefore, they have no incentive to play ball and offer him concessions in return for permanent amnesty when he is already agreeing to de facto indefinite amnesty. When a president blinks the first few times on ending an amnesty of previous administrations, there is not much fear from the Left that it won’t get extended forever.

It’s hard to tell which is worse: this administration’s affinity for amnesty or its ceding of power to the courts. Either way, the American citizen is left holding the bag, paying for the rope for MS-13 to hang us with, while their kids become citizens on our dime and our laws are unilaterally canceled by the unelected branches of government.

The problem in this administration is not the deep state. It’s the shallow state in the White House and in the Cabinet appointed by the president himself. Conservatives remain silent in deference at their own peril. (For more from the author of “Trump Admin Extends TPS Amnesty and Bows to Judicial Supremacy” please click HERE)

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How the Asylum Invasion Allows the Cartels to Flood Us With Criminals

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It’s not just five-year-old children coming to our border, as depicted in many media accounts. Every week, we see more examples of violent criminal aliens in this country who have often been deported multiple times but find their way back into the country while our border agents are drafted into babysitting services for Central American migrants. This point was brought to the forefront last week when the Yuma sector Border Patrol caught two individuals with guns at our border within 48 hours.

Last Tuesday, according to CBP, while “a group of 25 Guatemalans made up of family members and juveniles surrendered to agents several miles east of the port of entry” in San Luis, Arizona, three Mexican human smugglers were caught bringing in six other Mexicans. They were caught with several loaded 9mm pistols, and the Special Operations Division was sent out to interdict them.

This was a very significant development, according to retired Texas Department of Public Safety Captain Jaeson Jones. In an interview with CR, Jones said he believes these people who come in armed while Border Patrol is dealing with the family units are working for the cartels. The question is how many more we don’t catch. “Firearms carried by smugglers into the United States bring extreme risk to our law enforcement and citizens,” said Jones. “Smugglers carry firearms into the country to protect high-value commodities that usually belong to higher-ranking members of the Mexican cartels.” Jones explained that the concern of them reacting in “desperation” to protect goods for the cartels is “why you see more specialized law enforcement units like Special Operations Division being utilized to arrest when intelligence indicates firearms are being used by smugglers.”

Jones told me his concerns about cartel smuggling were further confirmed when less than 48 hours later, CBP recovered another firearm from a multinational group arrested in the same area. Here is a picture of the firearm posted by CBP:

Notice the aftermarket changes and personalized markings on the weapon, from the initials to the diamond shapes on the polymer grips. Jones believes they are very significant. “Given that Mexico has some of the most stringent gun laws in the world, the only people carrying weapons will be those in authority or members of the cartels.”

Jones observed that the aftermarket personalization of the firearm is a hallmark of cartel weapons. “This weapon has had multiple enhancements like an aftermarket trigger, the slide has been cut to reduce slippage during manipulation under stress by the shooter, and the grip has diamonds cut into it to indicate wealth. … These are classic signs of the cartels.”

Now, consider the fact that the Border Patrol chief just testified yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee that 68 large groups of 100 or more Central American families have come over the border so far this year compared to 13 during the entire fiscal year 2018. Can you imagine how many more cartel and criminal elements were able to slip in while our agents were tied up, just as bad as the guys caught in Arizona?

We need not imagine. We see this every day in interior crimes committed not only by those whom we fail to deport, but by those who are deported and make it back into the country.

Last week, in Napa County, California, a sheriff’s deputy was nearly killed when an illegal alien fired at her at point-blank range during a traffic stop. Javier Hernandez, an illegal alien from Mexico, had an extensive criminal record. He was arrested for DUI and battery on a peace officer and had four ICE detainers placed on him, but got away because California is a sanctuary state. This is the all-important story of sanctuary cities and interior enforcement on display. But it’s also about border security. Hernandez was previously deported three times! How was he able to get back in?

There are examples of this huge problem every week.

Bionel Cervin-Gomez, another Mexican illegal alien, was arrested over the weekend for a hit-and-run homicide of an eight-month-old unborn child in Florida after allegedly driving while drunk and without a license. These stories go untold every day, as was the story of one mother, Aileen Smith, who related on my podcast last year her tragedy of losing her unborn child in an illegal alien drunk driving wreck. In this case, he was already previously deported. My wife just had to spend five hours one day this week waiting in line to renew her driver’s license because of the need to prove identity, while illegal aliens are able to break all our laws and steal identity with our own government accommodating it.

In another example of criminal aliens getting back into the country, the Justice Department just successfully convicted a Honduran illegal alien for re-entering the country on top of state rape charges. Juan Ramon-Vasquez was deported to Honduras in 2009, but came back again. In 2014, ICE placed a detainer on him, but the city of Philadelphia let him go. He went on to repeatedly rape a child. Once again, the mix of sanctuary cities and the ability to re-enter the country undetected is creating the ultimate public safety problem.

How do people like that keep entering our country? They do so while our Border Patrol is used as a hospital, babysitting service, bed and breakfast, and transportation hub for the world’s migrant populations. Nobody truly knows how many criminals come in undetected, and nobody even knows all of the illegal aliens who commit crimes but whose identities are covered up by sanctuary cities and judges. But clearly, it’s easy for even those with prior criminal records here to continuously come back.

Over the weekend, Tucson sector Border Patrol encountered 10 small groups totaling 75 people who, “in stark contrast to the large groups of Central American family units surrendering in recent months,” were “wearing camouflage clothing to avoid apprehension” in more remote areas. Thanks to the National Guard serving as a force multiplier, they were apprehended, but again, how many more are not?

This is why we not only need more border fencing and beefed-up military presence, but an end to all cross-border migration, which Trump can shut down through use of his executive and delegated authority to shut off all immigration. Just remember, every time you see a new caravan of poor Central Americans, another murderer, rapist, drug trafficker, and armed robber is able to sneak in with the help of cartels and transnational gangs so they can harm more Americans. (For more from the author of “How the Asylum Invasion Allows the Cartels to Flood Us With Criminals” please click HERE)

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Woman Who Assaulted Man in MAGA Hat Is a Illegal Alien

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By Breitbart. A Brazilian national arrested for allegedly assaulting a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hat was in the U.S. illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said.

ICE agents took Rosiane Santos, 41, into custody on Tuesday after finding out she was residing in the U.S. illegally, and she is now facing deportation, Boston 25 News reported.

“Deportation officers with ICE’s Fugitive Operations Team arrested Rosie Santos, an unlawfully present citizen of Brazil,” ICE said in a statement. “Santos is facing local charges for assault and other offenses. She is presently in ICE custody and has been entered into removal proceedings before the federal immigration courts.”

Santos, who resided in Falmouth, Massachusetts, had been arrested by police several days earlier on charges of assault, battery, and disorderly conduct for allegedly harassing and assaulting a 23-year-old man wearing the the Trump campaign’s signature red MAGA cap. . .

The Brazilian national, who pleaded not guilty to the charges against her at a Wednesday court hearing before the judge released her on her own recognizance, claimed she was actually “the victim” of the incident because she felt “discriminated” against. (Read more from “Woman Who Assaulted Man in MAGA Hat Is a Illegal Alien” HERE)

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81-Year-Old Man Wearing MAGA Hat Attacked in NJ Supermarket

By NBC New York. An 81-year-old man was attacked in a New Jersey supermarket after someone confronted him about the MAGA hat he was wearing, prosecutors say.

The Franklin Township resident was shopping at a store on Elizabeth Avenue around 3:30 p.m. Monday when someone confronted him about the hat, Somerset County prosecutors said Tuesday.

A law enforcement source told News 4 the attack happened at the ShopRite of Somerset on Elizabeth Avenue. The store’s employees couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The attack left the man with minor injuries, prosecutors said. He declined treatment at the scene, according to prosecutors. (Read more from “Murkowski Backs Bill to Undo Emergency Declaration” HERE)

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Not an Emergency?! 1,744 Percent Spike in Asylum Claims

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The media is looking for the emergency at the border. They are looking for data they refuse to recognize when it’s right in front of them.

I’ve written a lot more than 1,000 words explaining why this current wave of illegal immigration is worse than ever, but the following picture is worth a lot more than any words:

Yes, you are looking at an 1,744 percent increase in the number of people taking advantage of our asylum system and uttering the magic words “credible fear” to indefinitely remain in this country, all the while creating a massive economic and strategic decoy for the cartels at the border.

USCIS spokeswoman Jessica Collins explained in a statement to CR how the credible fear claims are the lynchpin of our magnetic border. “The extremely low bar for establishing credible fear is ripe for fraud and abuse,” she said. “This is because once an individual overcomes this low threshold, the vast majority are then referred to an immigration judge and most are released on a promise to appear for a court date weeks, months, or years down the line, regardless of whether they plan to show up. In other words, a credible fear referral doesn’t equal asylum status, but it does earn a free ticket into the U.S., allowing individuals to disappear into the interior to live and work illegally.”

The media like to compare current overall apprehension of illegal immigrants to the highest levels of past decades and conclude that illegal immigration is actually down. Often, they will end their data set at around 2014, before the resurgence of illegal immigration and the inception of the new Central American wave of unaccompanied teens and family units. But what they will never tell you is that the emergency element of the border crisis is born out of a new type of migration from Central America, and increasingly, from other countries around the world – bogus asylum.

It is simply indefensible not to mention the 1,744 percent increase in credible fear applications when analyzing the trends at the border, a trajectory that is growing sharper every few months. Fiscal year 2019 will easily blow out the record if this is not stopped, which in itself demonstrates the urgency to act. Just during the first four months of this fiscal year, 99,901 family units were apprehended, a whopping 294 percent increase over the same time period in FY 2018, which is when we set the existing record of credible fear claims, as indicated by this chart. As of two weeks ago, 58 large groups of aliens came in all at once and surrendered themselves to agents so far this fiscal year, compared to just 13 during the entire FY 2018. We see more almost every day, including last Monday, when we set the all-time record for the most family units apprehended in a single day.

Given that most of these family units are surrendering in larger numbers and are uttering the magic words, a phenomenon our border agents have never experienced before, the FY 2019 numbers could possibly double those of FY 2018 — and 2018’s numbers are in themselves an 1,744 percent increase since Obama took office. Therefore, once the data from this year is posted, our credible fear chart will look even more dramatic.

The only dip in trajectory was in 2017, when Trump first took office and illegal immigration across the board declined on the perception that he would drastically change policies. From the lowest point of the “Trump effect” in April 2017, family unit apprehension at and between point of entry has gone up well over 1,000 percent:

A sharp trajectory is exactly the hallmark of an emergency that needs urgent action. Already last year we were getting twice as many credible fear claims per month as we were in an entire year last decade. It is pretty astounding that the media ignores these statistics.

Now look at the cumulative increase in the backlog at the immigration courts:

All of these people are released into the country pending these hearings, and we are responsible for their medical care, education, crimes, gang activity, and drug trafficking. Oh, and all their kids born on our soil, in the meantime, are erroneously viewed as citizens, even though almost none of them have legitimate asylum claims. That in itself has served as a huge magnet.

Then there is the emergency dynamic at the border created by this unique migration driven by bogus asylum. The central difference between this migration of Central Americans and the previous Mexican migration is the fact that they purposely surrender to agents in droves because of the asylum magnet expanded during the Obama administration and then last year by the courts. This has several consequences.

First, none of the illegal aliens are returned, as the Mexicans were in previous years, often within a few hours. Consequently, while the gross immigration numbers last decade were higher, the net numbers are higher now. Whereas in 2005 we had one million-plus apprehensions, we also had one million-plus returns and turnbacks at the border. Now those numbers are down to 100,000-200,000 a year (not including removals from the interior, which take forever). Most of the migration consists of non-Mexican family units, almost all of whom remain in our country indefinitely.

Second, there is the shutting down of the Border Patrol and the national security problems with the asylum boom enabling the cartels to exploit gaps in coverage while agents are tied down. What happened at the Yuma sector on Tuesday is a perfect illustration of this problem. According to CBP, while border agents were strategically tied down by smugglers processing “25 Guatemalans made up of family members and juveniles” who “surrendered to agents several miles east of the port of entry,” three human smugglers, one of whom was caught with two loaded 9mm pistols, were caught several miles away. “This armed smuggling attempt took place while many of our agents were distracted from their border security duties and instead dealing with groups of surrendering families,” said Yuma Sector Chief Patrol Agent Anthony J. Porvaznik.

Can you imagine how many more dangerous criminals get away because our Border Patrol agents are now spending all their time and resources serving as an ad hoc hospital, transportation hub, food and diaper supply, and essentially being used as pawns for the cartel’s chess game? There are a lot of bad people the cartels want to get in while they tie up the agents.

Then there is the humanitarian problem. Never before have 50-60 percent of the illegal aliens consisted of children – either traveling alone, with families, or with adults who kidnapped them to game out the “child” loophole. Every juvenile must receive a health screening. The cost of manpower and money is immeasurable. As I’ve vividly described the situation in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, the processing of hundreds of children at a time often takes place in the most remote counties in the country. This has the effect of both taking the agents off the field for even longer (exposing our country to more drugs and criminals) and straining the paltry services of those regions.

Sheriff Leon Wilmot of Yuma County told me that “last year alone, 1,700 of these migrants had to be taken to the only local hospital we have, wasting about 10,000-man hours of the border agents forced to sit there with them.” It cost his county $700,000. This year is worse. Just in one month, CBP reports that its agents “spent a total of 19,299 hours providing various levels of support to these hospital visits” in the sectors of Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, and the Rio Grande valley.

CBP reports just one episode: “Transporting 50 individuals to the hospital utilized nearly all available agents.” What are the consequences of this asylum-driven trend of surrendering to border agents? It “severely limit[ed] their ability to process the large group or respond to other border security duties; thus resulting in increased time in custody, delaying custody transfer coordination, and inhibiting response to other illegal cross-border traffic.”

It’s incontrovertibly clear that the crisis driven by bogus asylum and all its cascading harmful effects on our agents, border ranchers, American taxpayers, the Mexican people, and migrants themselves is worse than ever before, at least in the areas of the border where they are coming.

To be clear, there still are counties that have been essentially untouched by the Central American migration, and therefore, are still enjoying the windfall from the historic lull in Mexican migration. However, as the Central American “child” asylum and catch-and-release migration intensifies increasingly every month, they are going to new parts of the border. New Mexico has never seen migration like this before, and there is nothing stopping the migrants in the Rio Grande valley from shifting to west Texas as we step up enforcement in that region. They have already shifted as far as Maverick County, which explains why there has been a 364 percent increase in family unit apprehensions in the Del Rio sector relative to last year.

Do we really need to wait until every single border county is as bad as Hidalgo County, New Mexico, to act? Do we need to sit idly and wait until overall apprehensions set records along with family unit apprehensions to understand the nature and cause of this emergency? (For more from the author of “Not an Emergency?! 1,744 Percent Spike in Asylum Claims” please click HERE)

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The Media Willfully Ignores the Connection Between Killer Drugs and Illegal Immigration

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Organized crime cannot exist without political protection. That is an old law enforcement adage you can take to the bank when studying the nexus of illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Both are among the highest-profile, most visible, and most preventable forms of crime — if our politicians actually wanted them stopped. Meanwhile, the media is continuing to distract people by debating how much of the actual drug product comes in between points of entry, as opposed to at points of entry, rather than focusing on the people who actually organize, produce, and traffic the drugs and the politicians who protect them.

Our country is no longer facing a simple drug crisis, it is facing a chemical warfare crisis from Mexican cartels and the illegal aliens who peddle the drugs, usually coming in between points of entry. First it was the fentanyl-laced heroin, then it was the bizarre mix of meth or cocaine with fentanyl (an opioid with a psychostimulant); now they are marketing fake blue “Mexican oxy” pills that kids take for a “buzz” but all too often are found dead because they are really mixed with fentanyl to varying degrees.

Over the weekend, the AP reported on the surge of fentanyl deaths in Arizona and how young kids are now dying from these Mexican oxy pills that are laced with fentanyl and produced by the Sinaloa cartel. I confirmed with the Phoenix DEA office that the main hubs for trafficking these drugs into the country are in Tucson and Phoenix, where high-level “wholesale” cartel officials are operating and shipping to distributors in the Great Plains, the Midwest, and the East Coast after the drugs are brought across the border. According to the Arizona DEA, in fiscal year 2017, they seized 45,940 pills. That number shot up to 379,557 in FY 2018 and stood at 123,000 just for the first three months of FY 2019. It’s all coming from the Sinaloa cartel and is brought in mainly in the Nogales area and sent to the vast network of cartel officials in the major Arizona cities. They also confirmed that the increase is driven by fake Xanax pills as well as fake oxy.

What the media and most in Congress have missed about this poly-drug crisis (not opioid crisis) for the past few years is that it’s not being fueled by chronic pain patients on painkillers. It’s the worsening of the culture among our youth who are seeking a buzz or an out from their mental and emotional problems. That cultural demand is being met by the deadliest drugs we’ve ever been confronted with. This is why as synthetical opioids have surged, Arizona state and federal officials have seized 124 percent more meth in FY 2018 than in the previous year. Meth has the opposite effect of opioids and would certainly not be sought out by pain patients.

This is why there are major problems with drugs in schools in San Luis, a border town in Yuma County. The Yuma Police Department put out a warning this month about “recent overdose incidents in San Luis, Arizona” from ingested pills that look like oxys but contain fentanyl. We can intimidate doctors into never prescribing pain medication and we could harm post-operation and cancer patients from now until the end of time, but it will do nothing to protect our youth who get ensnared into the culture of drugs so long as the cartels are able to operate with impunity and make the price of these drugs cheap and therefore accessible to kids.

But the problem is not just in border counties and states. That is the wholesale point for the cartels, and funnily, they try to keep the violence to a minimum so as not to disrupt their operation. It’s more at the destination and distribution level on the East Coast where the violence of transnational gangs mixes with drug distribution for the cartels.

This is where we see that cartels not only have control of our border, but operate with latitude on our shores and have endless illegal alien and transnational criminal networks working for them in all our major cities and even mid-sized cities on the East Coast. This is the key to understanding how illegal immigration is driving the drug crisis.

A network of six drug traffickers in the Carolinas working for Cartel Jalisco New Generation, one of the rivals of the Sinaloa cartel, was recently broken up by federal authorities. They were moving large amounts of meth and cocaine for this brutal cartel, and all of them were illegal aliens. Central North Carolina is now dealing with cartel violence.

So why do liberals continue to deny that illegal immigration is driving the crisis?

To begin with, as we’ve pointed out before, the entire notion that drugs only come in at points of entry is laughable. Tell that to the ranchers who deal with the drug trafficking every day. Obviously, we don’t have hard statistics because we catch almost none of those drugs, given that the cartels purposely use illegal immigrants to tie down the border agents while they strategically bring in the drugs and the criminals who cook, distribute, and collect profits from them. As Mark Morgan, Border Patrol chief during the Obama administration, told CR, “There is no way with any degree of certainty to know the quantity of drugs entering our country because at least 50 percent of the southwest border is wide open.” He explained how “we know the cartels exploit this vulnerability every day while using illegal immigration as a diversion.”

“Additionally, the irony with this false narrative is the same people who acknowledge massive amounts of drugs are seized at the POEs to debunk the need for a physical barrier are the same individuals who deny there is a crisis.”

Robert Murphy, special agent in charge of Atlanta’s DEA office, told CR in an exclusive interview last week, “We are arguing about the wrong thing here. It’s not the product that matters. The product doesn’t sell itself or produce itself. It’s the people who make the cartel run, collect the cash, do the distribution, engage in violence, and run operations for the cartel.” And while a lot of the drugs come in at points of entry, “the people coming across the border to make and distribute the drugs are coming here illegally.” As Murphy warned, “The people who are here operating the networks are all illegal immigrants” and “are not coming in at checkpoints.”

Illegal immigration fuels the cartels in multiple ways. The magnets that attract illegal immigration give the cartels billions in revenue to produce and grow their drug trafficking. The cartels orchestrate strategic diversions of illegal immigrants engaging Border Patrol agents. Also, teenagers often serve as drug mules because the cartels know we won’t prosecute them. Even the more innocent illegal immigrants are often forced to report to stash houses on our side of the border after being released by agents pursuant to court orders in order to pay off their debt.

It’s really simple. If we pursued interior enforcement, banned sanctuary cities, and ended catch-and-release at our border, which enables the cartel smuggling, they wouldn’t have a profitable drug network that could operate in this country. It’s not about the product; it’s about the people doing it, and the people doing it always have political protection in the illegal immigration issue.

Immigration and drug officials in New England have told me they could clean up the drug problem there in no time if they had the license to actually follow immigration law and simply remove all those aliens engaging in drug trafficking in Lawrence, Massachusetts, many of whom have family or organizational ties.

Why don’t we do it? Because illegal immigrants and drug traffickers have political protection. The whole reason the war on drugs has been unsuccessful is because the combined elements of law enforcement have not been focused on the human chain between the border and point of ingestion of the illegal drugs.

Look no further than the local politics of the Rio Grande Valley, which has been the hot spot of illegal immigration for years. How can human and drug smuggling continue to thrive out in the open? The New York Times summed it up this week in lessons learned from the El Chapo trial:

El Gallo — Tomas Reyes Gonzalez, a drug trafficker now in federal prison — supplied the cash to the former Hidalgo County sheriff, Guadalupe Trevino, for his re-election campaign. Another former Hidalgo County sheriff took bribes to allow a convicted drug dealer to have conjugal visits at the county jail, including in the jail library and in the sheriff’s private office. Yet another former sheriff in neighboring Cameron County protected and assisted cocaine dealers, and is now Federal Inmate No. 51689-179.

The corruption that took down those three border sheriffs in 1994, 2005 and 2014 continues today. Next month, the former police chief in the town of La Joya is scheduled to go on trial, after he was indicted on drug charges and accused by federal authorities of helping a drug-trafficking organization transport narcotics while working as a police sergeant in Progreso, Tex.

Now, keep in mind that the liberal Rio Grande Valley is the only region where the budget bill allows Trump to build fencing, yet local officials are purposely given veto power. Jaeson Jones, a retired captain for the Texas Department of Public Safety who directed counter-narcotics and counter-smuggling operations for years, told me that local officials in these counties wouldn’t even allow them to cut down the tall grass around the Rio Grande River where the cartel operatives would hide out.

In other words, the lesson of drugs and migrants is that the flow can only continue if the political powers both in Washington and around our border want it to. And they do.

What would you call this statement made by Elizabeth Warren?

With the incontrovertible data that prescriptions have plummeted and that most overdose deaths are due to illicit drugs trafficked by illegal alien networks, for a politician to say we need to stop focusing on Mexican cartels and start focusing even more on cutting off pain medication to those in need is the ultimate political corruption.

Until we address the systemic upstream political corruption, the drug issue will only intensify along with the illegal immigration crisis. (For more from the author of “The Media Willfully Ignores the Connection Between Killer Drugs and Illegal Immigration” please click HERE)

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House Conservatives Urge Trump Admin to Declare Cartels Terror Organizations

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Drug cartel operations have made a mockery of our laws, flooded our streets with deadly illicit drugs, and endangered our citizens for years; now, two conservative lawmakers want the Trump administration to give them the same treatment as terror groups.

House Freedom Caucus members Mark Green, R-Tenn., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, announced Wednesday that they would send a letter asking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to designate dangerous drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The letter claims several cartels already meet the three criteria for FTO designation and makes the case that it would give law enforcement even more tools to combat the cartels’ deadly, dangerous, and destructive operations:

“Numerous drug cartels employ terrorist tactics that clearly fit this definition,” it reads. “These groups use terror to intimidate and advance their agenda. They threaten the stability of governments across the globe.”

“These cartels have utilized barbaric tactics including those adopted by ISIS and al Qaeda – murdering and torturing innocents, destabilizing countries and assassinating members of law enforcement,” reads a press release from Green’s office. “Moreover, they threaten our homeland security. Our communities suffer from the powerful and dangerous drugs cartels make available to our citizens. Fentanyl and heroin overdoses have taken thousands of lives.”

Green is a former Army ranger and was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Cartels are the problem and it is time we started acting like it,” Roy said in a statement about the letter. “Cartels are endangering American citizens, our Mexican neighbors, and the migrants who seek to come here.”

Conservative Review senior editor Daniel Horowitz made the case for designating the cartels as terror groups in a January article.

“Imagine for a moment that groups of Islamic terrorists set up shop at our border, killed tens of thousands of Mexicans, mutilated bodies, controlled a flow of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants every year over our border, and flooded our country with drugs and gangs,” Horowitz wrote. “Now look at the reality. All of this is happening at our border and in our communities, with one exception. The perpetrators are not Islamic terrorists.”

“Although many of these groups have already been designated as Transnational Criminal Organizations,” he explains, “we will not be able to defend our national integrity and security with the tools we have, such as special operations strikes, until they are designated as terrorists.”

According to Green and Roy’s press release, the FTO designation in this case would make it unlawful for any person who knowingly assists a cartel to enter the U.S., while also barring any known member from legal entry. It would allow the Treasury Department to block all cartel assets, and it would also “further stigmatize these groups both at home and abroad.”

The proposal even has the support of Obama administration Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan, who told Blaze Media that simply putting more resources at the border, while important, “will not stop the Mexican cartels’ efforts to threaten our country” and that they “will continue to develop new tactics and techniques.”

“The cartels must be targeted … with the same level of commitment and tenacity as we have against terrorist organizations,” Morgan continued. “To successfully eliminate the threat cartels bring to our country, we must do everything we can to actively destroy them as an organization.” (For more from the author of “House Conservatives Urge Trump Admin to Declare Cartels Terror Organizations” please click HERE)

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Border County Commissioner: Ranchers Are Scared to Report Drug Trafficking Crimes

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If ranchers in our own country are scared to report crimes, not of internal criminals, but of foreign invaders at our border, is that a national emergency? And if their properties are being used for drug smuggling, does that count as drugs coming in between ports of entry in the minds of the media? And if you live in a poorer county at the border in New Mexico, are you as much of a citizen as a resident of Maryland or Virginia?

In a wide-ranging conversation with Joel Edwards, one of the county commissioners in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, he expressed deep concern for his constituents in this hard-hit county. “One of my primary responsibilities is to try to see that the residents of my county can enjoy a solid quality life and they don’t have to live in fear for their lives,” said Edwards. “You know, they shouldn’t have to live in fear that somebody is going to steal their vehicle or their four-wheeler or their horses, just because they live on an international border.”

Edwards explained that the folks in Washington live near counties that are completely protected and have robust resources to deal with internal crime, yet his county is left in the lurch dealing with “sophisticated cartels” coming over an international border. And that is scaring his residents. “Some of them are afraid to even come forward because they live right there on the border,” said Edwards of the ranchers encountering drug traffickers dressed in paramilitary getup. “Some of my residents go back and forth across the border because they actually have some family on the other side of the border, and they fear retaliation from the cartel if they cooperate and [try] to do something about the border problem.”

As I’ve reported before, Hidalgo County has just four sheriff’s deputies for a county of several thousand square miles, with no law enforcement presence in the border ranch areas south of Highway 9. The county has money to add only two more deputies, a drop in the bucket for an area that size. “You know, we’re a poor county. The average income in this county is small, considerably small compared to the part of the country where the media lives,” said Edwards.

Perhaps that is why the media sees no emergency at the border. Hidalgo County alone has been forced to absorb roughly half of the more than 60 groups of 100-300 migrants at a time being smuggled through by the cartels since last October. While the cartels strain our Border Patrol with the health care and welfare of the migrants, they engage in their other criminal activity.

Edwards called the media’s assertion that drugs only come in at the points of entry “asinine” and invited anyone from the media to come on a tour with him and his rancher constituents.

“You know, we visited ranchers that actually showed us pictures of the drug trafficking and told us stories about it. The cartels have a lot of the latest technology; the people that are coming across, they have sophisticated communication equipment. They’re not just desperate migrants. These people are … up on technology, they’re up on weaponry. Their loads that they’re carrying are worth thousands and thousands of dollars. They are protecting it because that’s how they’re making their money.” . . .

They are at least one or two hours away from any civilization, with no cell phone reception. Given that there is no permanent federal, state, or county law enforcement presence to protect them, Edwards told me his ranchers are too scared to share their stories with the media. But he did direct me to a Facebook post of Kari Wade, a constituent in his county, who responded to those who don’t see any emergency at our border:

Isn’t this why we have a military? Why are our own citizens less worth protecting than citizens of foreign countries in the Middle East?

This is not even right at the border. Edwards tells me that anything south of Interstate 10 is within the drug trafficking corridor. That is roughly 70 miles into the state. Yet the state’s governor doesn’t even think there is a problem!

Many of the illegal aliens passing through are growing bolder and more belligerent. Tisha Green, who is the county manager appointed by Edwards and his two colleagues on the county commission, told me the ranchers have witnessed a disturbing change in the migrants’ attitudes, which is further concerning the ranchers. “When ranchers would encounter criminals on their property, in the past, they used to ask to use the rancher’s phone, ask for food, water, and/or transportation. Now they demand it, by stating you will give me a ride, you will give me food, and you will give me your phone.”

What about fencing? As I reported in my last article on Hidalgo County, Edwards warned that the fencing is so poor that the cartels even drive vehicles over the wired fencing and place ramps over the Normandy barriers. That “happens a lot” in his county.

What allows the cartels to tie down border agents, who are essentially the only law enforcement lifeline for the ranchers? The endless flow of the migrants and the caravans. Last week, El Paso Sector Border Patrol Agent Fidel Baca told Fox News that the large groups of migrants are not showing up specifically in this remote location “by coincidence.” It’s the criminal organizations taking advantage of the remoteness of the area to do their work.

Thus, as long as the magnet of catch-and-release continues, the cartels will have their strategic diversion to tie down the agents and endanger the local residents with their smuggling activity. Yesterday, Breitbart Texas posted leaked photos of the overcrowded conditions in the El Paso CBP detention center. But a large number of those migrants initially pass through Hidalgo County, New Mexico, which has much fewer resources and is being strained every day. David Whipple, the head of the seven-man EMS team in Lordsburg, the Hidalgo County seat, confirmed to me last week that the migrants are usually transferred to El Paso after about three days. Thus, everything you see in the large holding facility in El Paso begins as a colossal strain on a county of 5,000 residents.

This is important as the president considers his next steps following his declaration of an emergency at the border. While a border wall is effective, catch-and-release is the cause of the problem and something that can be ended using executive power. Moreover, we need the military to protect these residents as Border Patrol deals with the legal land mines of asylum processing. This is why we have a military. This is not about using military personnel for immigration processing, but to repel what is quite clearly a foreign invasion of paramilitary groups.

The media and politicians living in their gated communities could never relate to what Edwards deals with as a county official at our frontier, because to them, an emergency is if they only get three bars of signal on their phones one day. (For more from the author of “Border County Commissioner: Ranchers Are Scared to Report Drug Trafficking Crimes” please click HERE)

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Democrats Don’t Want ICE Notified When Illegal Aliens Try to Purchase Guns

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By Townhall. As the debate over illegal immigration continues to rage, Democrats continue to prove they are proponents of open borders and lawlessness.

The latest example comes from Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is berating Democrats for protecting illegal aliens who attempt to purchase firearms and fail a background check.

Last year a record number of illegal aliens, millions of them, tried to purchase firearms in the United States. Not only is it illegal to enter the United States without permission, it’s also illegal to purchase or possess a gun.

(Read more from “Democrats Don’t Want ICE Notified When Illegal Aliens Try to Purchase Guns” HERE)

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ICE Detainees Stage Partial Hunger Strike Over ‘Sarcastic Remarks,’ ‘Weird’ TV Sounds

By Boston Herald. ICE detainees in Boston say they’re on a hunger strike, citing a range of grievances including “sarcastic remarks” from guards, bland food, insufficient bathroom breaks and “weird”-sounding TVs — though some are eating food bought from the canteen.

The detainees — held at Suffolk County House of Correction while awaiting deportation and immigration hearings — wrote in a Feb. 10 letter to the sheriff’s office and ICE: “Food is always bad. There is no energy. Most of the time, the food is bland and there is no condiment such as salt and pepper. The food portion is very unbalanced. One tray might have a very small portion while others might have a very ridiculously big portion. There is no fruit.”

The list also has complaints such as, “When buzzed, the C.O. takes too long to open the door,” and that three TVs “make weird sounds. It’s hard to watch them without getting annoyed.”

Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. (Read more from “ICE Detainees Stage Partial Hunger Strike Over ‘Sarcastic Remarks,’ ‘Weird’ TV Sounds” HERE)

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The Hidden Amnesty Provision in the ‘Border Security’ ‘Deal’

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We’re finding more and more problems in the proposed “border security” “deal” being peddled by congressional negotiators and leaders.

Not only does it fund a laundry list of government programs rather than fully securing the southern border, it also contains a pretty stunning amnesty provision.

Initially flagged by Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, section 224(a) of the almost 1,200-page spending proposal would prohibit federal immigration enforcement from detaining anyone who has any sort of relationship with an unaccompanied alien child (UAC), even as a “potential sponsor” or “member of a household of a sponsor or potential sponsor.”

“That’s de facto sanctuary for anyone near a UAC,” Vaughn said of the measure on social media. “Ridiculous.”

Here’s the text of the section (emphasis mine):

None of the funds provided by this Act or any other Act, or provided from any accounts in the Treasury of the United States derived by the collection of fees available to the components funded by this Act, may be used by the Secretary of Homeland Security to place in detention, remove, refer for a decision whether to initiate removal proceedings, or initiate removal proceedings against a sponsor, potential sponsor, or member of a household of a sponsor or potential sponsor of an unaccompanied alien child ( as defined in section 462 (g) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 279(g))) based on information shared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

This would make obvious further mockery of U.S. immigration law. Additionally, children are already being exploited and trafficked in order to manipulate the loopholes in America’s asylum system. This is a proposal to turn children into the ultimate human shields against deportation for would-be illegal immigrants and cartel traffickers. One can only imagine that will do to the rates of near-border kidnappings and human trafficking associated with illegal immigration. (For more from the author of “The Hidden Amnesty Provision in the ‘Border Security’ ‘Deal'” please click HERE)

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What Happens When Illegal Aliens and Mexican Cartels Shut Down Our Government?

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Why is it that the media and politicians are terrorized at the prospect of a partial government shutdown at the end of the week? Presumably, because they fear certain nonessential functions of government will halt and eventually some essential functions could be slowed down as well. But why is there no concern when brutal Mexican cartels are able to shut down basic services in border counties with waves of hundreds of impoverished and sick migrants, strain their social services, and fleece the pocketbooks of American taxpayers? Isn’t that the shutdown we should be addressing?

Hidalgo County, which fills out the bootheel of New Mexico, has four sheriff’s deputies, seven emergency medical services personnel, a small health clinic in Lordsburg, and a few volunteer EMTs who provide health care out of their homes or in clinics in rancher villages like Animas. It might seem like subpar infrastructure for health and public safety, but it is enough for 5,000 peaceful citizens used to living a life of rugged individualism. However, what happens when cartels target that county for an invasion of at least 28 groups of 100-400 volatile migrants at a time within a period of four months? What happens to their services then? You might call it a government shutdown.

It’s bad enough when such a volume of illegal immigration is driven into more built-up counties along the border with greater infrastructure, such as Yuma County, Arizona. In southwest Arizona, there is a city right at the international port of entry in San Luis with a substantial CBP headquarters to process the illegal immigrants. Yet it’s still a strain on the local counties. As Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot said on my podcast last month, the migration just in Yuma is costing about $1.2 billion. He noted that “the Border Patrol has to buy diapers, feminine hygiene, hot meals, etc.” and “have essentially turned into a bed and breakfast and transportation hub for the cartels to further their criminal enterprise.”

While most of this cost is eaten by federal taxpayers, it also strains the local government. “Just last year alone, the Border Patrol took 1,700 illegal immigrants to our local hospital, which took about 10,000 Border Patrol man-hours off the field, and it cost us taxpayers $700,000 in medical bills,” said the sheriff.

Now picture Hidalgo County, New Mexico, with 5,000 people in 4,200 square miles with not a single village, never mind a town, anywhere in the southern part of the county, and a tiny CBP headquarters at a border crossing that has nothing but a single building with no city around it. Antelope Wells point of entry was originally manned by a single agent and saw, on average, four vehicles per day pass through the checkpoint. The main CBP headquarters, which in itself is not big, is a 90-minute drive northwest in Lordsburg. The nearest hospital is roughly the same distance northeast in Deming, which is in neighboring Luna County. The Deming hospital itself only has a few physicians on staff now treating all these illegal migrants.

This is why an invasion of thousands of migrants is so devastating to this particular county. As migrants come in with influenza, scabies, flesh-eating bacteria, and all sorts of sicknesses, not only has the Border Patrol been commandeered into an EMT service, as it has been in all border sectors, the paltry services of Hidalgo and surrounding counties are marshalled into this free service for illegal aliens as well.

I spoke with David Whipple, the head of the seven-man EMS team in Lordsburg, the Hidalgo County seat, and he told me that while CBP has stepped up in recent weeks to provide its own EMTs, his tiny ambulance service has had to drive all the way down to the border, pick up sick migrants together with at least two border agents at a time, and drive them to the hospital in Deming and then back again.

“That is a six-hour trip, so it takes one crew and ambulance out of service for six hours for just one patient. That definitely strains us because we have a crew gone for so long. … We might only leave two people in our service area during these trips.”

Hidalgo County can bill Border Patrol for the cost, but the feds don’t pay back in a timely fashion. This small service is owed between $40,000 and $50,000, according to Whipple. But the lost time that endangers county residents who pay taxes can never be paid back. “We can take care of our own with limited staff; we have the same staff now as we had back when I started 30 years ago, and we did fine until this hit. We might have to add more EMS staff in the future if this doesn’t let up.”

Joel Edwards, a retired teacher in Hidalgo who now serves as one of the three county commissioners, expressed his frustration with the lack of resources and attention to the plight of his county. “The clinics try to squeeze everyone in, including the migrants coming with border agents. Nobody is being turned away, so they are doubling and tripling up during the same appointment times and some of our residents are getting irritated for having longer wait periods and less time with the physician.”

Even more disturbing is the fact that for those illegal immigrants who aren’t as severely sick, Border Patrol will often take them to the tiny clinics in Lordsburg (pop. 2,500) and Animas (pop. 237). The facility in Lordsburg has two physicians, and the one in Animas has one nurse practitioner. Local citizens have to wait in line while those who violate our sovereignty get served for free and expose the staff to diseases that we thought were long eradicated.

“We would like to think that we have a safe environment; we’ve vaccinated our kids and eradicated many of these diseases we’ve stopped worrying about,” said Edwards. “Now our population is subjected to having to rub elbows with people who have various diseases, and some of these diseases, we don’t know what they are. Just like with the drugs, we are worried about the safety of our residents.”

Edwards also discussed concerns about the lack of local law enforcement to deal with the cartel activity threatening the ranchers at the border. “Some people think that these ranchers down on the border are a bunch of whiners, but I’m here to tell you they are tough people. They are not used to having to ask for stuff; they are self-sufficient. All they want is an opportunity to ranch and farm their land in a safe manner.”

Edwards confirmed that the ranchers are calling for barriers that will effectively “restrict this illegal traffic coming across with drugs and human smuggling.”

“When you head towards Hachita, the fence disappears and there’s nothing but a barbed-wire barrier. I can walk through that fence without it even slowing me down. There are places where you can just walk under the fence.”

Edwards noted that the low wired fences are even worse than the Normandy barriers because they can’t even fully stop vehicle traffic. “There are places where they simply take the ties off of the barbed wire as it goes onto the ‘T’ posts. They undo the ties and hold the wire down, standing on it, while someone else drives a vehicle over it. After they cross, they turn it loose and put the wire back, so you can’t even tell without close inspection that they took the wires off the post.”

“I’ve heard this all from the ranchers. … We are a real soft spot at the border.”

This the most basic shutdown of the federal and local government, and it’s being done by belligerent and dangerous cartels.

“We had asked for help and didn’t even get an answer to our letter,” said the commissioner, referring to a letter his county manager wrote to state and federal officials asking for more resources.

In the Declaration of Independence, one of the indictments against King George is that he failed to protect the colonists from the Indians at the frontier and even incited their invasions. The core reason why we formed a federal government 13 years after the revolution is because we needed a stronger government to protect the sovereignty of all the states and counties. This is why we have a government. So that ranchers at our border can feel just as safe from foreign cartels and their evil activity as those living in the Acela corridor of the northeast. We don’t have a government to get involved in every aspect of our society and economy. And when the federal government fails to do its job in deterring external chaos, it hurts the internal affairs of counties like Hidalgo. That is the true government shutdown that few in Washington care about. (For more from the author of “What Happens When Illegal Aliens and Mexican Cartels Shut Down Our Government?” please click HERE)

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