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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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.”

Here's a gem from the spending bill. Section 224 (a) says that ICE may not remove any sponsor or *potential sponsor* or *member of a household* of a UAC. That's de facto sanctuary for anyone near a UAC. Ridiculous. 30-40% of MS-13 arrests have been UACs.

— Jessica Vaughan (@JessicaV_CIS) February 14, 2019

“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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Do we really need to shelter millions of dangerous criminals from other countries?

In fiscal year 2013, the DHS estimated, based on ICE programs in local jails, that there were 1.9 million criminal aliens in this country and that 900,000 aliens were arrested every year. Chillingly, the report noted that “550,000 criminal aliens convicted of crimes exit law enforcement custody every year” and that “this population of criminal aliens poses a major threat to public safety.”

That was before the massive surge of immigration from Central America and the gang and drug crisis engendered by the flow of young males pouring over our border since 2014. Also, that data was from the Secure Communities Program, which matches fingerprints to federal databases, and from information provided by ICE officers working in local jails. Over the past five years, many of the biggest criminal alien cities refuse to cooperate with ICE. Thus, the number of criminal aliens is likely exponentially higher.

Why is it that, amid this monthlong shutdown over immigration, we are not having a discussion on how to deport at least those illegal aliens who commit other crimes as expeditiously as possible and without judicial intervention? How could anyone oppose ridding ourselves of other countries’ criminals when we have so many of our own?

In 2014, when defending his illegal executive amnesty, President Obama touted the need to focus on criminals. “Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day.”

Four years later, why are so few of these people deported and why are the courts permitted to violate our statutes and grant so many reprieves to even the worst criminals who have no right to be here to begin with?

The answer is because Republicans have failed to forcefully educate the public on the severity of the criminal alien problem and have shielded Democrats from taking tough votes on sanctuary cities. For that matter, sanctuary cities haven’t even been a subject of the current debate, and Republicans failed to act on them when they had full control for two years, even as the courts were declaring sanctuary policies. Needless murder and mayhem are continuing because we refuse to deport the criminal aliens we already know about.

The astounding amount of avoidable crime by illegal aliens

What do Connie Koontz, 56, Sophia Renken, 74, Gerald David, 81, and his wife, Sharon David, 80, all have in common? They were American lives cut short between January 10 and January 16 when an illegal alien allegedly broke into their homes in the Carson City/Reno region of Nevada and murdered them. Wilbur Martinez Guzman is an illegal alien who was able to enter thanks to the lack of a defensible barrier at our border. He has now been arrested and is suspected of murdering the four victims. According to the Reno Gazette, he is turning 20 years old. In other words, before last week, he would have been considered the quintessential “dreamer” who came here from Central America sometime after the 2014 wave.

How many more young violent males from other countries are in this country and already have criminal records, yet have still not been apprehended and deported? Think of the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens arrested every year for DUI, assault, drug trafficking and other offenses that our weak criminal justice system considers low-level. So many of them live in sanctuary cities, where they will not be turned over to ICE…

You can imagine how many more were arrested but never convicted and never turned over to ICE. California, the biggest sanctuary of all, is home to one-third of the nation’s illegal immigrants. Thanks to the state’s new bail laws, authorities will immediately release many low- to mid-level offenders without requiring them to post bail. The feds have been trying to ramp up apprehensions on their own, without the state’s cooperation, but they are clearly missing thousands of these criminals.

Why is it too much to ask that we follow the laws and deport foreign criminals? Every day that we fail to immediately deport these two million known criminal aliens is a day that more Americans will be murdered, raped, sexually assaulted, robbed, or killed by a drunk driver. It’s not that these crimes are worse when they are perpetrated by an illegal than by an American. It’s just that they are more preventable and are rooted in the failure of the federal government to protect us from external threats.

Here’s an important point many in the media miss about the number of illegal alien homicides and how avoidable they are. Basic criminology teaches that most murderers first build up a prior rap sheet before committing the ultimate offense. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), 70 percent of violent felons from 1990 to 2002 had a prior arrest record, and 57 percent had at least one prior arrest for a felony. In other words, murderers are generally those who have repeat histories of DUI, burglary, weapons charges, drug trafficking, gang activities, etc. Those crimes are particularly prevalent among illegal aliens, yet are treated as low-level, and they are often released. Only a relatively small percentage of them are deported; many more aren’t even detected or tracked by ICE.

Illegal aliens should be immediately deported upon arrest. Thus they should never be allowed to remain in this country long enough to continue their criminal careers and graduate to violent felonies. Not all murderers have prior records, especially the very young ones, as we saw in the Nevada case, but most do. That means, by definition, most violent crimes committed by illegal aliens are not only avoidable because they should never have been in the country in the first place, but also because they should have been deported after their first arrest for other crimes.

According to BJS, 83.4 percent of all prisoners released in 2005 re-offended within nine years, and 40 percent of the new offenses were violent crime. We deported 5.6 million illegal aliens between 1998 and 2016. ICE reports from most years show that the majority of them (recently, the overwhelming majority) had prior criminal convictions.

The symbiotic importance of border and interior enforcement

The importance of deportation and the need to keep out criminals also ties back into the debate over the wall at the border. Many of these criminals, even the ones we wind up deporting, come right back over the border, smuggled in by the cartels. I’m particularly skeptical about the efficacy of the wall in stopping the general migration if we continue to allow this bogus asylum, because they will just come over the fence and surrender themselves to the agents. But there is no doubt that the wall will always work, other policies notwithstanding, against criminal aliens, because they do not want to see a border agent.

Matt Pinsker, former federal special prosecutor on the border, explained the problem of criminal aliens and an open border best in an interview with Townhall. He recounted how, as a young prosecutor, he was “struck” by “just how many persons illegally entering the United States have criminal records. … They enter illegally because they cannot enter legally, and the reason why they cannot enter legally is because they have criminal records.”

They are able to get the cartels to smuggle them in while the border agents are tied up with the hundreds of bogus asylum seekers. The wall will definitely help slow down those who don’t want to get caught.

Just this week, Hector Montez, a Honduran illegal was arrested for raping and impregnating a minor in Kings County, California, after being deported twice before. In another part of the state, Macario Cerda, an illegal alien from Mexico, was just sentenced on numerous rape and child sexual assault charges, including impregnating one of his victims. He was able to come back into the country and commit all these crimes after being deported. The prosecutor argued that he should be locked up for life and “never grant him any possibility at being deported because he has crawled his way back into the States illegally way too many times.”

I totally agree with that sentiment in this particular case, but the ultimate goal should be to deport all these people once arrested for lesser crimes to prevent bigger ones. At the same time, we need the wall so that they can’t come back once they are deported. The problem of criminal aliens sits at the nexus of border and interior enforcement and demonstrates why we need to focus on both of them with full force. Many terrible people are able to continue committing heinous crimes because we refuse to either deport them, secure our border, or both.

Trump had the perfect opportunity to harness the biggest bully pulpit of all time with a unique State of the Union address next week from an unannounced location. He could have looked the American people in the eye and promised to be the president to finally protect America from the millions of foreign criminals who should never be in the country. Now we may have to wait until it’s too late. (For more from the author of “Why Don’t We Deport the 2 MILLION Known Criminal Aliens?” please click HERE)

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