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April 30, 2024

The White House Is Sticking With This Narrative on Border Security

The Biden White House has gone back and forth plenty of times teasing as to if the president will actually do anything when it comes to fixing the crisis at the southern border. Even though what negotiators in the Senate came up with was objectively a bad border bill killed almost three months ago now, the White House is still trying to bring back the idea of voting on and passing such a bill, rather than having Biden take executive action.

On Monday morning, POLITICO published an article highlighting how "Biden said he’d take another stab at a border bill — but nothing appears in the works." It already was a foolhardy idea, but the headline isn't doing the president any favors. "It was news to those involved in the first round of negotiations over the bill," the piece mentions early on.

The idea came after Congress passed a foreign aid package into law, which President Joe Biden signed on Wednesday. It passed the Senate last Tuesday, and had passed the House on the Saturday before that.

As the POLITICO piece mentions:

Talks around resuscitating the bipartisan border compromise that senators struck in February have been nonexistent in Washington. And despite the president’s proclamation, administration officials and immigration policy experts both say it’s highly unlikely any legislative momentum for border security materializes between now and November.

“They pulled a rabbit out of a hat on Ukraine, but there’s no chance they’re getting anything out of Mike Johnson’s House on border security,” said an immigration advocate familiar with the White House’s thinking, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations with administration officials. “They’ve known that since December, when they realized they had to count votes in the House. There’s no chance of legislation on this, and they know that. It’s rhetorical posturing.”

Biden’s comments last week underscored the administration’s desire to try and turn the politics of the border — long an albatross for Democrats — into something more advantageous. After former President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers tanked the compromise bill, the White House moved to put blame for the crisis at their feet. The president has openly weighed the possibility of taking executive action and, as he did upon signing the foreign aid bill, talked up the need to revisit the legislation.

“I proposed and negotiated and agreed to the strongest border security bill this country has ever, ever, ever seen,” he said last week, speaking about its exclusion from the foreign aid package. “It was bipartisan. It should have been included in this bill, and I’m determined to get it done for the American people.”

But, in reality, there’s been no behind-the-scenes jockeying from the White House to restart talks, in part because the White House believes that the migration crisis has temporarily stabilized, with illegal border crossings dipping again in March to 137,000.

That the White House actually "believes that the migration crisis has temporarily stabilized" shows how tone deaf they are on the immigration issue. Then again, at least they're transparent about how much they don't care. This is not a good luck for the president in an election year. In fact, polls continue to show that it's one of Biden's worst. RealClearPolling has him at a 32.5 percent approval rating on immigration, while 63.2 percent disapprove of his handling of this issue that is still top of mind for many voters.

As U.S. Customs and Border patrol shared earlier this month about the March numbers, "CBP had a total of 189,372 encounters along the southwest border in March 2024." It's still higher than the encounters during the Trump administration. A concerning takeaway from the March numbers, as Sarah covered at the time, is how the Biden administration has flown 404,000 illegal immigrants into the country thanks to the Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.

The Biden administration still holds the distinction for record high encounters, as they did in December 2023, a record which was set before the month was even over.

The March numbers were released on April 12. In the weeks before and that same week that those numbers were released, the Axios Vibes survey was conducted by The Harris Poll, as Leah covered last week. Those numbers are also not good for Biden.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2024/04/29/the-white-house-is-back-to-this-narrative-on-border-security-n2638427

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April 29, 2024

6 Reasons Chinese Nationals Are Illegally Crossing California’s Southern Border

Chinese nationals are crossing America’s southern border at a rapid rate. On Wednesday alone, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered 206 Chinese nationals crossing into the San Diego sector, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported.  

But the illegal entry of Chinese nationals into America through the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector isn’t new. Chinese individuals long have worked with criminal cartels to get into the U.S., former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott says, but the numbers have shot up.  

In January, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported over 3,700 encounters with Chinese nationals on the southern border, nearly all in the San Diego sector.  

But back up to January 2021, when Joe Biden became president, and CBP encountered only 17 Chinese nationals at the southern border. So what changed?

To find out why so many Chinese nationals are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the San Diego sector, The Daily Signal spoke to Scott as well as to Derek Maltz, a 28-year veteran of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and to Michael Cunningham, a research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)

They point to six main reasons.

1. San Diego Infrastructure

“It’s easy,” Scott said of why San Diego is a favorite crossing point for illegal immigrants from China.

Before serving as the 24th chief of the Border Patrol from January 2020 to August 2021, Scott was chief patrol agent for the San Diego sector from 2017 to 2019.  

San Diego, population 1.4 million, long has been a popular illegal crossing point for illegal aliens because it’s easy to disappear on busy city streets, Scott explains.  

“If you’re coming across [the border] in between the ports of entry through traditional smuggling, we used to talk about a vanishing point,” Scott said. “How fast can you get across the border and then blend into society? That’s one of the reasons you look for [urban] infrastructure.”

San Diego is even more popular now for illegal aliens, given the situation at the border, because “it’s a lower risk,” he said.  

To cross into Texas from Mexico, “you’ve got to come across the river,” the former Border Patrol chief explained, adding that globally, smugglers and others seeking to enter the U.S. illegally have seen Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s response to illegal immigration.

In an initiative called Operation Lone Star, the Republican governor placed Texas National Guard troops along sections of the border with Mexico and installed concertina and razor wire, creating a greater challenge for migrants seeking to cross the border illegally.  

And in Arizona, the harsh realities of the desert are a turnoff for illegal aliens trying to cross into the U.S., Scott said. Although such conditions don’t prevent illegal crossings, he said, Arizona is “hot” and “desolate.”

Mexico’s border with California in the San Diego sector offers a safer, more comfortable crossing option, he said.  

A migrant can go to Tijuana, Mexico, “be in a hotel drinking coffee, watching TV, get the ‘go,’ and in 15 minutes [he] can be in the United States,” Scott said.

In 20 more minutes, he said, that same migrant can be getting processed inside a Border Patrol station with “air conditioning, food, and water.”  

When illegal aliens are released in San Diego, the city offers “this massive nongovernmental organizational network system that’s going to provide free bus tickets [and] shelter,” he said.  

California also is a sanctuary state, meaning it doesn’t cooperate with federal authorities to enforce immigration law.  

“From a marketing standpoint, it’s the easiest place to convince people to cross illegally,” Scott said of San Diego. “And then from a cartel perspective … that smuggling infrastructure has been well-established for years.”  

2. Money Motivates Cartels

Chinese migrants are “lucrative” to the drug and smuggling cartels in Mexico, Scott told The Daily Signal.

“It’s pretty hard to get out of China,” the former Border Patrol chief said. “Nobody just goes to an airport and flies to the United States without specific permission from the government, so you have to be smuggled out of China and then into the United States.”  

Chinese nationals buy “travel packages” from the cartels that are similar to commercial vacation travel packages, Scott said, and they pay based on what is included.  

For example, he said, one package for Chinese nationals requires them to travel to Ecuador and then on to Mexico.

“And when they came into Mexico, they got legit legal travel documents so that they could fly on domestic airlines in Mexico. But for a lower fee, you didn’t get that.”  

3. Because They Can

Established smuggling routes, urban or suburban infrastructure, and the cartels’ financial motivation long have driven illegal Chinese migration to the U.S. So again, why the spike now?  

“The difference now,” Scott said, “is there’s no real response from the federal government of the United States to slow it down. There hasn’t been since 2021.”

Biden, a Democrat, was inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021, and quickly dismantled the border security policies of his defeated Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.  

Now, with a Biden-Trump rematch looming in November, Scott speculated, migrants and smugglers are concerned that U.S. border security will return if Trump or another Republican wins. That may help explain the rapid rise in crossings in recent months.  

Illegal crossings in the San Diego sector by Chinese nationals were relatively few at the beginning of the Biden administration.

CBP records only 75 encounters with Chinese migrants in the San Diego sector during fiscal year 2021, which ended that Sept. 30. The number climbed to 942 in fiscal 2022, then exploded to 10,520 in fiscal 2023.  

So far in fiscal 2024, which ends in five months, CBP has encountered 23,890 Chinese nationals in the San Diego sector.  

Cunningham, the research fellow in Heritage’s Asian Studies Center, told The Daily Signal that Chinese nationals “see all over the news that the border is wide open, that Biden is not protecting the border.”

So the question, he says, is “why wouldn’t they” attempt to cross into the U.S.?  

4. ‘A Better Life’

“A lot of people are desperate to get out of China now,” Cunningham said.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese citizens endured about three years of lockdowns and restrictions that dwarfed those in the U.S. These “draconian lockdowns” led many Chinese to lose faith in their communist government, he said.  

China’s older population lived through the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, if not previous repressive political campaigns, Cunningham said, before the regime implemented a strict “zero-COVID” policy.  

“They saw zero-COVID as what it was—a political campaign. And they’re worried about China’s future,” he said of ordinary Chinese citizens.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping gained an opportunity to rule the nation indefinitely when the communist regime ended formal presidential terms in 2018.  

China’s economy is struggling as young people try to find jobs, the nation’s real estate market is in trouble after the failure of two major property development companies this year, and its stock market saw a $7 trillion decline in just a few years.

“People for years have wanted to get their money out of China, and it’s very difficult because of capital controls,” Cunningham said. “Now more of them are just wanting to get out of China altogether for a better life.”  

5. Chinese Influence on America

Through its Belt and Road Initiative, China plans to develop trade routes with other nations, expand infrastructure, and invest in foreign economic development initiatives.  

With Chinese leaders’ end goal of expanding “their power and control dramatically,” Scott said, it is “not a hidden secret that they have long allowed and or even facilitated and helped getting people out of China into the U.S. through whatever means possible.”

The former Border Patrol chief pointed to reports that Chinese nationals are “systematically coming into the United States and buying property, buying foreign property, buying property near military bases,” as evidence that they are crossing the border intentionally.  

China owns 384,000 acres in the U.S., about 1% of foreign-held acres, according to a Department of Agriculture report in 2021, the latest data available.  

Although illegal immigrants could achieve some cultural and economic influence on America, Cunningham said, it’s unlikely that significant numbers of Chinese nationals cross the southern border with the intent of spying on the U.S.  

Legal ways to enter the U.S., he said, provide greater opportunity for Chinese spies to access sensitive U.S. data than an illegal alien could get at.  

“The idea that China is desperate to get their spies in the U.S. and so they’re sending them across the border illegally where they’re going to have no identity, they’re not going to be capable of getting the high-access jobs that they want their spies to get—it’s just not reasonable,” Cunningham said.   

But, he added, it’s reasonable to believe that Chinese spies are infiltrated within criminal cartels and are “keeping tabs on some of the Chinese who are coming to America.”  

6. Marijuana Farms  

The Chinese are heavily involved in the domestic growth of marijuana in America, both legal and illegal, federal officials say.

In February, 50 members of the House and Senate sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland expressing concern about and asking for answers to “reports from across the country regarding Chinese nationals and organized crime cultivating marijuana on United States farmland.”

“There’s a new term that’s been used a lot lately in local law enforcement—especially [in] Northern California [and] the inland parts of California—called narco slavery,” Scott told The Daily Signal. “And they’re seeing more and more Chinese that are being brought across and they’re being forced to work these domestic marijuana grows; they’re being forced to shovel money around the United States to pay back the smuggling fee that they couldn’t afford up front.”

Chinese-run marijuana grow operations “are all over the country,” Maltz, the former DEA official, told The Daily Signal.  

This isn’t a coincidence, he said.

“The marijuana today has high content of THC, much higher than we’ve ever seen,” Maltz said.  

THC, formally known as tetrahydrocannabinol, is a psychoactive compound found in cannabinoids. Large amounts increase the effects of marijuana on the user.  

“Marijuana use directly affects brain function—specifically the parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, attention, decision-making, coordination, emotions, and reaction time,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

Cannabis products have been legalized for medical use in 38 states and legalized for nonmedical use in 24 states.

The increased levels of THC in marijuana are “causing issues with the brain more than we’ve ever seen,” said Maltz, who also was in charge of the Justice Department’s Special Operations Division for nearly 10 years.  

“Very smart Chinese Communist Party leaders understand this is another way we could take advantage of America’s addiction to marijuana, and dumb Americans will never figure it out,” he said

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/28/6-reasons-chinese-nationals-illegally-crossing-californias-southern-border/

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April 28, 2024

These States Are Making It Illegal for Illegal Immigrants to Enter

Conservative states across the country—Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, and Oklahoma—are taking border security matters into their own hands, proposing or passing legislation targeting illegal immigration.

The Oklahoma legislature just passed a bill designed to prohibit illegal immigrants from entering or living in the state.

HB 4156 states: “A person commits an impermissible occupation if the person is an alien and willfully and without permission enters and remains in the State of Oklahoma without having first obtained legal authorization to enter the United States.”

The bill passed the state House and Senate by wide margins and Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, is expected to sign it into law.

The legislature declared the issue a crisis in the state and stated in the bill: “Throughout the state, law enforcement comes into daily and increasingly frequent contact with foreign nationals who entered the country illegally or who remain here illegally.

“Often, these persons are involved with organized crime such as drug cartels, they have no regard for Oklahoma’s laws or public safety, and they produce or are involved with fentanyl distribution, sex trafficking, and labor trafficking.”

Under the new law, a conviction related to “impermissible occupation” would be considered a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in a county jail, a fine of up to $500, or both.

Subsequent offenses are felonies, punishable by up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.

Illegal immigrants who are barred from the country or have been issued a removal order by an immigration judge, and then enter Oklahoma will face a felony charge carrying a possible sentence of up to two years in prison, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.

In all instances, those found guilty must leave Oklahoma within 72 hours of being convicted or released from custody.

The law requires police to collect fingerprints, photographs, and biometric data, which will be cross-checked with Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation databases.

“The failure of the federal government to address this issue … has turned every state into a border state,” said bill sponsor state Rep. Charles Mr. McCall said in a statement.

“Those who want to work through the process of coming to our country legally are more than welcome to come to Oklahoma; we would love to have them here. We will not reward [illegal immigration] in Oklahoma, and we will protect our state borders.”

U.S. border authorities have apprehended more than 9 million illegal immigrants nationwide under President Joe Biden, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
Under the administration’s catch-and-release policy, many have been released into the United States and have taken up residence all over the country.

Texas’ law, Senate Bill 4, makes it a state crime to enter Texas outside legal ports of entry.

The new law was set to go into effect in March, but has been blocked and is currently tied up in the courts.

New Iowa, Tennessee, and Georgia Laws

Earlier this month, Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 2340 into law.

The new law, which goes into effect July 1, makes it a misdemeanor to be in the state or attempt to enter the state after being deported, denied admission to the United States, or if an individual has an outstanding deportation order.

Being in the state illegally becomes a felony under certain circumstances such as the accused having two or more misdemeanor convictions involving drugs or crimes against a person.

As with the Texas law, it gives judges the discretion to drop the charges if the illegal immigrant agrees to return to the country from which he or she entered the United States.

“Those who come into our country illegally have broken the law, yet Biden refuses to deport them,” Ms. Reynolds stated in a news release.

“This bill gives Iowa law enforcement the power to do what he is unwilling to do: enforce immigration laws already on the books.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a new law this month that requires law enforcement agencies to communicate with federal immigration authorities if they discover people are in the country illegally, requiring in most cases cooperation in the process of identifying, catching, detaining, and deporting them.

The law takes effect July 1.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/these-states-are-making-it-illegal-for-illegal-immigrants-to-enter-5625344

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April 25, 2024

Australia: Conservative commentator slams PM over major problem with immigration after country reached worrying milestone

 Sky News commentator Peta Credlin has taken aim at Anthony Albanese after a record number of immigrants were welcomed into Australia in just one month.

More than 100,000 immigrants came to Australia in February, after 765,900 arrived throughout last year, another all-time record.

The massive influx has raised fears it will strain the crippled housing and rental markets with new housing proposals being accepted at the lowest rate in 11 years.

This is despite the Albanese Government promising to bring immigration down to 300,000-per-year and build 250,000 homes.

Credlin said the inaction was also abetting social disharmony.

Ms Credlin, in her weekly column, said successive governments have 'increasingly sent signals to migrants that the culture of the country they’re coming to is built on a history of shame, illegitimacy, and racism'.

'Is it any wonder that some migrant communities become reluctant to integrate or insistent that Australia must change to accommodate their preferences, when weak officialdom will only fly our national flag apologetically, in company with two other flags representing people with a particular racial heritage?' she wrote.

'Or when our civic culture now seems to revolve around indigenous ancestor worship while denigrating the Judaeo-Christian basis of our fundamental institutions like the rule of law.'

She added that it is 'hardly the fault of immigrants' who chose to come to Australia, but that of governments who failed to 'insist on (them) joining Team Australia'.

'It’s way past time for governments at every level to start stressing unity over diversity, to rebuild a patriotic love of Australia, rather than to preside over the diminution of our national symbols, like Australia Day,' she wrote.

Credlin claimed the 100,000 migrants who came to Australia was 'significant'.

She compared the figure to the Howard government era where 110,000 migrants came on average every year during that period.  

'It’s no secret then, why housing is unaffordable, wages are flat, and roads and public transport are clogged because that’s just what happens when you don’t have a population policy and instead, use migration as a way to make the budget bottom line look better than it really is,' she wrote.

Institute of Public Affairs deputy executive director Daniel Wild said high immigration rates with few properties being built is a recipe for a housing crisis.

'The data proves that the federal government’s unplanned mass migration program is unsustainable,' he said.

'It actively undermines Australians who are struggling to find a home as increasing demand and a lack of supply is pricing them out of the market.'

Australia's median capital city house price of $956,782, based on CoreLogic data, is well beyond the reach of an average, full-time worker on $98,218.

That's because banks are only able to lend 5.2 times their salary to someone with a steady job and a 20 per cent mortgage deposit.

The average wage would only be enough to buy a $639,000 home, which in greater Sydney would only buy a unit or a house 100km away from the city centre.

Renters are also suffering with 175,960 international student arriving in February, adding to competition for somewhere to live.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13332121/Anthony-Albanese-immigration-milestone.html

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April 24, 2024

UK: Rwanda flights to go ahead as asylum policy finally passes into law in boost for Rishi Sunak

Parliament has finally passed Rishi Sunak’s “emergency” Rwanda bill but the controversial legislation is set to run into legal challenges that could still delay flights.

Mr Sunak has said that the first flight would take off in 10-12 weeks and regular trips will take place over the Summer “until the boats are stopped.”

His plan was finally given the green light on Monday evening after peers in the House of Lords gave up their fight with MPs over amending the legislation.

Lords had been trying to force the government to exempt Afghans who supported British troops overseas from being deported to Rwanda. They had also pushed an amendment that would have made sure the terms of the UK’s treaty with Rwanda were met and that it was assessed to be a safe country before flights took off.

However the government refused to cave to pressure and didn’t include the changes to the bill. Mr Sunak had already paid £240m to Rwanda by the end of 2023, and spending watchdog the National Audit Office says that the total cost of the plan will be at least £370m over five years.

Labour peers didn’t press the Afghan amendment on Monday night after Home Office minister Lord Sharpe said they would not deport members of Afghan special forces units who had been given the right to live and work in the UK by the Ministry of Defence. But they did vote in favour once for the amendment on assessing the safety of Rwanda.

Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson told the Lords that their final amendment was “not necessary”, adding: “These amendments have already been rejected, enough is enough.”

Labour’s shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinncok said it was “staggering” that the government refused to concede on the clause ensuring the safety of Rwanda. He added: “This is a post-truth bill. You cannot possibly legislate for something which is in the lap of the gods”.

SNP MP Alison Thewliss criticised Labour peers for not pushing the flights exemption for Afghans who supported British troops. She told MPs: “If they think this is some kind of concession I’ve got some magic beans to sell them.”

Despite the bill finally passing through parliament, it will likely face additional legal hurdles before flights actually take off.

Charities and unions will now see whether they can bring any legal challenges to the bill itself. One union, the FDA, is considering a challenge over the whether civil servants would have to ignore their professional code to follow minister’s instructions to ignore directions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Refugee charities will support asylum seekers who are chosen to go on the first flights to challenge their deportation. Although the courts will not be able to consider whether Rwanda is safe, they may be able to consider how a Rwanda deportation would affect each asylum seeker personally - for example if the asylum seeker is a victim of trafficking, or is LGBTQ+.

If they are unable to find a hearing in the UK courts, cases could go all the way to the ECHR - with Strasbourg judges ruling whether deportation is lawful. Mr Sunak has already said he will ignore a ruling from the ECHR and press ahead anyway.

The prime minister said in a press conference on Monday that the government had already booked commercial charter planes for specific slots to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda. He said some 500 escorts had already been trained for the job of removing people, and there were 2,200 spaces in detention ready.

Mr Sunak, who has made stopping the boats one of his five key pledges, was left scrambling to save his flagship plan after the Supreme Court ruled it unlawful late last year.

In a damning judgement, the highest court in the land found that there was a real risk asylum seekers sent to Rwanda could be returned to their home countries to face “persecution or other inhumane treatment”.

In response, Mr Sunak pledged new “emergency” legislation to get flights in the air.

But a public call for parliament not to thwart his plans backfired as the government was defeated again and again in the House of Lords, leading to months of bitter wrangling.

Labour’s Mr Kinnock called the bill “deeply damaging” to the UK and said it was “unconscionable” that Britain might now send brave Afghans who fought alongside UK armed forces to Rwanda.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the Rwanda scheme was “an extortionate gimmick”. She added: “The prime minister knows this scheme won’t work, that’s why he tried to cancel it when he was Chancellor, and why even now he won’t say how many people will be on the token flights.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rwanda-bill-vote-lords-flights-sunak-scheme-b2530395.html

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April 23, 2024

Latest ICE Detainee Death Exploited by Anti-Detention Crowd Raises Questions for ICE and Activists

The anti-ICE crowd has found its latest detainee death to dramatize and use as an excuse for ending detention, and this time it’s a mentally ill, convicted murderer who overstayed a tourist visa nearly 24 years ago. Though the anti-detention activists are vocal, they fail to offer any serious recommendations about how ICE could or should have handled the situation differently. As usual, media have parroted activist talking points without asking questions that might offer better insight into exactly what transpired. Some of those questions are presented here.

The full ICE detainee death report is available online, but a summary and additional questions are as follows. Detainee Charles Leo Daniel, citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, entered the United States in Miami in 2000 and overstayed a tourist visa. The first questions: Why wasn’t he prevented from entry as a potential visa overstayer in the first place? Why wasn’t he immediately deported after overstaying, and what resources are needed to make quick removals of visa overstayers a reality? Undoubtedly this would require better screening upfront, including by the State Department's consular officers, and increased resources for ICE in order to remove visa overstayers, who make up a large portion of the nation’s illegal-alien population. But the anti-ICE crowd complaining about the death of Daniel is not asking for any of this, despite the fact that it might have prevented the death of Daniel’s victim and, in the logic of the anti-ICE activists, Daniel’s own death in an ICE detention facility.

By 2003, Daniel was in Seattle and murdered reggae musician Ras Bongo, stabbing him to death with a 14-inch kitchen knife. Media then called Daniel a "transient" instead of an "illegal alien", perhaps because media never thought to inquire about who this transient was, or perhaps because DHS wasn’t being proactive in defending the importance of immigration enforcement. Daniel had lived for a bit in Arizona and California before making his way to Seattle, according to media reports. Daniel’s victim was described as “a Rastafarian and a loving soul who was a ubiquitous presence in Seattle's small Jamaican-music scene”. The anti-detention activists embracing next to their memorial for Daniel don’t seem to have shed any tears for the murdered musician.

In March 2020, amid the outbreak of the pandemic, Daniel was transferred to ICE custody at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, after having served most of his prison sentence. Removal to his home country was likely complicated by the pandemic, but ICE was undoubtedly arranging for travel documents. Media and activists troubled by Daniel’s long detention that lasted from his book-in to his recent death should be asking the following question: What efforts was ICE making for removal, and was Trinidad and Tobago being cooperative? For many reasons, it’s ideal for detention to be as short-term as possible, and illegal aliens should be quickly returned home.

U.S. taxpayers spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on detainee health care, and Daniel was a beneficiary, though he refused much of recommended treatment. Upon entry to the detention facility, Daniel received a full medical screening and was diagnosed with stage two hypertension. He was on an antidepressant, had elevated blood pressure, and leg swelling, but refused any medications or blood tests.

Between April 2020 and October 2023, medical staff monitored Daniel’s blood pressure when he consented, ordered medications to treat his hypertension, ordered laboratory testing, scheduled chronic care follow-up appointments, and educated him on a healthy lifestyle and the risks of untreated hypertension. However, Daniel repeatedly refused medical services and medication in over 60 medical consent refusal forms. Medical staff ordered Daniel compression stockings for edema in both legs, but he refused to wear them. Here’s a question for the anti-ICE, anti-detention crowd: What would they have ICE do when a criminal alien refuses medical treatment? Should it be forced upon him? This is a serious question that media reporting on detainee deaths like this should ask of the anti-ICE activists they quote.

Daniel reported hearing voices with visual hallucinations, and had delusions of “being electronically harassed, and people putting spirits on him” according to ICE’s detainee death report. He also had a history of marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol use. A psychiatrist evaluated Daniel, documented a history of delusional disorder, and treated him with risperidone (an antipsychotic medicine) for a short period of time, which Daniel quickly refused. A psychiatrist evaluated Daniel monthly and in September 2021, a psychiatrist canceled future appointments due to his repeated medication refusals. Another question for the anti-detention crowd: What would they prefer happens in this situation? Are they demanding that a mentally ill, convicted murderer, illegal alien be released back into the community?

A central complaint being made by activists is that Daniel was in segregation housing for most of his time in ICE detention. It turns out that Daniel was the one who requested it, and medical and behavioral health staff continued to closely monitor him there. Another question for the anti-detention crowd that the media didn’t ask: Do they believe that ICE should refuse a detainee’s request for segregation housing? Do they believe a mentally unsound individual should not be separated from other detainees? What about the safety of other detainees? It may be that Daniel was rational enough to understand that he was a threat to other detainees and considered this to be a way to protect others.

An advanced practice provider gave Daniel an exam and ordered an ultrasound of the neck (result: presumptive thyroglossal duct cyst) and left leg (negative for blood clots), a computed tomography scan of the neck (result: large neck cystic lesion), chronic care labs (all normal except elevated kidney enzymes and prostate antigen), ear drops, and compression stockings, and noted Daniel’s refusal for hypertension treatment. He was also given a referral to an ENT, but refused consultation.

A behavioral health provider completed daily evaluations for Daniel in lieu of previous weekly evaluations because of his significant mental illness classification and segregated housing.

On the day of his death, March 7, 2024, “he presented as smiling, pleasant and non-distressed, [and] denied any suicidal ideations” as of 10:05 a.m. At 10:34 a.m. he was discovered laying on the ground, without a pulse or breathing, and staff immediately began chest compressions and called 911 for emergency medical services (EMS). The EMS was unable to resuscitate Daniel.

Some questions for ICE that media should be asking: Though removal was likely difficult during the first year of the pandemic, why did the Biden administration continue to detain Daniel for years? Was Daniel actively fighting his removal? Were immigration attorneys encouraging him to remain in detention instead of returning home? If so, who are the attorneys and do they have some responsibility here? It seems the media should seek a quote from them if immigration attorneys are involved. Did Daniel actually know that he had the opportunity to be deported home, or was he under the impression that he had to remain in detention? Does ICE need to do a better job informing detainees of their right to return to their country of origin?

Was Trinidad and Tobago cooperating with removal efforts or not? If not, has the Biden administration made sufficient efforts in obtaining travel documents from recalcitrant countries? ICE made a lot of progress in using 243(d) visa sanctions against uncooperative countries, but there doesn’t seem to be any discussion of this effort under the Biden administration. Is a lack of focus on recalcitrant countries by the Biden administration partially to blame for Daniel’s long-term detention?

These are some of the basic questions that the Seattle Times and other news outlets should be asking instead of trying to discredit ICE detention professionals and medical staff, who clearly provided a significant amount of medical care to a dangerous and ill individual who had no right to be in the United States.

https://cis.org/Feere/Latest-ICE-Detainee-Death-Exploited-AntiDetention-Crowd-Raises-Questions-ICE-and-Activists

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April 22, 2024

New York Times/Siena Poll Reveals Partisan Split Over Immigration

 On April 13, the New York Times and Siena college released the results of their latest poll, which was conducted between April 7 and 11 and surveyed 1,059 registered voters. It reveals a huge split between Democrats on the one hand and Republicans and Independents on the other with respect to President Biden’s border policies — and over Donald Trump’s for what that’s worth.

At the outset, I’ll note that this was a Democrat-heavy poll: 315 of the respondents self-identified with the Party of Jackson compared to 274 others who claimed to be Republicans and 365 Independents. By comparison, in Gallup’s most recent survey of party affiliation (conducted in March), 30 percent of respondents identified as Republicans, 28 percent as Democrats, and 41 percent as Independents.

“What One Thing Do You Remember Most About Donald Trump’s Presidency?” Respondents in the NYT/Siena poll were asked: “Thinking back to when Donald Trump was president, what one thing do you remember most about Donald Trump’s presidency?”

You likely won’t be shocked to learn that a plurality, 39 percent, of likely voters said it was either the 45th president’s “behavior”, “leadership”, or “personal characteristics”, including 55 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of Republicans.

In second place were Trump’s “economic policies” and “stimulus”, at 23 percent. Just 6 percent of Democrats put that at the top of their lists, compared to 35 percent of Republicans (it was the most common GOP response) and 28 percent of Independents. As you can tell, this response triggered a pretty strong partisan skew.

The third most common response was “immigration”, the choice of 10 percent of likely voters, including 7 percent of Democrats, 17 percent of Republicans, and 8 percent of Independents.

Interestingly, voters in the Northeast were most likely to identify immigration in response to this question (12 percent) than those in the South (10 percent), West (9 percent), or Midwest (also 9 percent). White and Hispanic voters, at 11 percent, were equally likely to say that they remembered immigration under Trump — but as you’ll see, their impressions were not quite the same.

Approve or Disapprove of Trump’s Handling of Immigration. To understand the divide between the two parties on immigration, consider the results of the next, related question: “Tell me whether you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump handled” immigration as president.

In response, half (50 percent) of respondents either “strongly” approved (36 percent) or “somewhat” approved (14 percent) of Trump’s handling of immigration. That said, 47 percent either strongly disapproved (35 percent) or somewhat disapproved (12 percent) of how Trump handled the issue.

Which brings me to the internals. Just 13 percent of Democratic voters either strongly (5 percent) or somewhat (8 percent) approved of Trump’s handling of immigration, whereas 90 percent of Republicans approved, either strongly (69 percent) or somewhat (21 percent).

On this question, Independents fell somewhere in between, with again half (50 percent) approving and 47 percent disapproving.

When it comes to regions, those in the Midwest had the fondest memories of Trump’s handling of immigration (44 percent of them strongly approved), while those in the West had the worst (46 percent strongly disapproved) followed closely by voters in the Northeast (45 percent strongly disapproved).

All of that said, the highest levels of disapproval of Trump’s handling of immigration were expressed by Hispanics and college-educated non-whites: 59 percent of each stated that they strongly disapproved of Trump’s performance on this issue.

Biden Approval and Disapproval on Immigration. The pollsters also asked respondents their impressions of President Biden’s handling of immigration, and the results were about what you would expect.

Less than a third, 32 percent, of likely voters either strongly approved (9 percent) or somewhat approved (23 percent) of the manner in which Biden is addressing immigration. By contrast, 64 percent of those expected to show up for the general election in November either strongly (49 percent) or somewhat (15 percent) disapproved of Biden’s performance on this issue.

The partisan skew on this was remarkable. First, 62 percent of Democrats either strongly (20 percent) or somewhat (42 percent) approved of Biden’s handling of immigration.

By contrast, fewer than 1 percent of GOP voters and just 7 percent of Independents strongly approved of Biden’s handling of immigration, and a mere 9 percent of Republicans and 21 percent of Independents somewhat approved.

Biden’s net approval on immigration: 62 percent of Democrats, 10 percent of Republicans, and 28 percent of Independents. Biden’s net disapproval: 33 percent of Democrats, 95 percent of Republicans, and 68 percent of Independents.

And there’s no region that Biden can go to looking for support for his immigration policies: Northeast, 59 percent disapprove and 35 percent approve (24 percent net disapproval); West, 61 percent disapprove and 38 percent approve (23 percent net disapproval); South, 65 percent disapprove and 29 percent approve (36 percent net disapproval); Midwest, 69 percent disapprove and 30 percent approve (39 percent net disapproval).

And while Hispanic voters didn’t like Trump’s policies, they aren’t fans of Biden’s either. Some 60 percent of this cohort disapproved of Biden’s handling of immigration compared to 40 percent who approved.

Biden v. Trump Match-Up. While it does not directly involve immigration, one other question in that poll bears comment: “If the 2024 presidential election were held today, who would you vote for if the candidates were Joe Biden the Democrat or Donald Trump the Republican?”

Trump holds a razor-thin one percentage-point advantage in that poll over Biden among likely voters, 47 percent to 46 percent, with 91 percent of GOP voters choosing their party’s candidate and 90 percent of Democrats opting for the incumbent. In case you are curious, Independents split 47 percent to 44 percent for Trump.

Biden is 12 points down among white voters, 41 percent to 53 percent, but he holds a commanding 60-point lead (76 percent to 16 percent) among Blacks.

And then, there are Hispanic voters, a traditional Democratic base, but one in which Biden holds just a 13-point advantage over Trump, with a split of 52 percent for the incumbent to 39 percent for the challenger.

The high-water mark for a GOP presidential candidate among Hispanic voters was the 40 percent support then-President George W. Bush received in his 2004 reelection campaign. By comparison, and although 2020 numbers are hard to come by, Michigan State University estimates that Trump received about 27 percent of Hispanics’ votes in the last general election while 70 percent voted for Biden.

That was an increase for the Democratic candidate compared to 2016, when 66 percent of Hispanic voters chose Hillary Clinton, and a slight decline for Trump, who received the support of 28 percent of this cohort during his first foray.

If these latest numbers hold, Trump likely has the parlous state of the economy to thank for the boost, not immigration.

According to the NYT/Siena poll, 78 percent of Hispanic voters either strongly (45 percent) or somewhat (33 percent) approved of Trump’s handling of the economy. Meanwhile, 76 percent of the voters in this demographic in that poll disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, with 53 percent strongly and 23 percent somewhat disapproving.

Key Takeaway. Why does President Biden maintain immigration policies that seem unpopular with voters? Because those policies play well to his Democratic base. Conversely, if Trump wants his base to show up at the polls, he should highlight the distinctions between his border performance and the incumbent’s — with due consideration to how his policies play in the increasingly key Hispanic voting bloc.

https://cis.org/Arthur/New-York-TimesSiena-Poll-Reveals-Partisan-Split-Over-Immigration

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April 21, 2024

DC Mayor Silent on Motorbikes on City Streets Without License Plates

The mayor’s office in Washington, D.C., has remained silent on widespread license-plate violations in the city following a Daily Signal investigation of the phenomenon of unlicensed drivers.

Men and women alike—many of them in the country illegally—are driving motorized bikes around the District of Columbia without license plates. Some of the riders of the motorcycles and other motor-driven cycles are using the bikes for food delivery in the city.  

The Daily Signal sought comment from the Metropolitan Police Department during an initial investigation into the illegal operation of the bikes in the city, and police said those riding motor-driven cycles without a license plate are “testing their luck.”

The Daily Signal then reached out to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser by email and phone to find out whether the mayor was aware of the situation and working with local law enforcement to enforce the city’s license-plate laws, but did not receive a response.  

Because the Biden administration is not enforcing immigration laws at the border and is instead allowing illegal aliens to remain in the U.S., that “passes the buck to the states and cities, who have to deal with the federal government’s failure,” Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told The Daily Signal. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“Nonetheless, public safety is job No. 1 for any elected official,” Hankinson added. “Letting unscrupulous motorcycle vendors and their unlicensed, uninsured, illegally present riders off the hook will only encourage more lawbreaking.”

The Daily Signal became aware of an increased number of motor-driven cycles without license plates operating in the District. If operating a motorized bike in the District at speeds above 20 mph, not only does that vehicle require registration, the driver is required to “have on his or her possession a valid [driver’s] license” and insurance, per the city’s Department of Motor Vehicles.    

D.C. law requires that a motorcycle or a motor-driven cycle—a motor vehicle that has a gas, electric, or hybrid motor no larger than 50 cubic centimeters (cc) and cannot go above 30 mph—be registered with the District’s DMV within 30 days of purchase and display a license plate on the back of the two- or three-wheeled vehicle.  

The Daily Signal launched an investigation to determine whether the drivers of these motor bikes have the legal requirements to operate them, and whether D.C. police are striving to eliminate the operation of vehicles that are not registered in the city.  

After speaking to about 10 drivers, a retailer at a motor-driven cycles shop, and the Metropolitan Police Department, The Daily Signal determined that illegal aliens are acquiring motorized bikes through a number of sources and that D.C. police do not appear to be enforcing registration laws.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/16/dc-mayor-bowser-silent-illegal-activity-nations-capital/

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April 18, 2024

Australia has reached a new immigration milestone with more than 100,000 foreigners arriving in just one month for the first time ever

The landmark total is eight times the number of new homes approved and is set to further fuel the worsening housing crisis.

February's net intake of permanent and long-term arrivals was 105,460 - almost double January's 55,330 level, new Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.

This occurred as a large number of international students moved to Australia for the first semester of the university year.

Australia's capital cities also have rental vacancy rates under one per cent as construction activity fails to keep pace with booming population growth.

The 12,520 houses, apartments and government units approved in February was only one-eighth the monthly net immigration arrival figure, with capital city rents surging by double-digit percentage figures during the past year.

Institute of Public Affairs deputy executive director Daniel Wild said this was a recipe for a housing crisis.   'Australia's migration intake remains out of control, with promises to "normalise" arrivals in tatters,' he said.  'Combined with plummeting housing construction approvals, Australia is being set up for a disaster.'

Treasury's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook forecast Australia's annual net overseas migration figure would moderate to 375,000 in the 2023-24 financial year.

But that is hardly happening, with 498,270 net arrivals in the year to February, covering permanent skilled migrants and long-term arrivals like international students.

A record 548,800 migrants arrived in the year to September, with the foreign influx making up 83.2 per cent of Australia's population increase.

The population growth pace of 2.5 per cent, with births included, was the fastest since 1952.

Mr Wild said high immigration was locking Australians out of the housing market.

'The data proves that the federal government’s unplanned mass migration program is unsustainable,' he said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/money/article-13317021/Australia-100000-immigration-milestone-housing-cris.html

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17 April, 2024

Indefinite detention of queer Iranian 'not punitive': Australian government lawyer

He is right to think he would be hanged if he returned to Iran but the "refoulement" regulation says you cannot send him to any other place where he might be persecuted. That rules out the Muslim world and Africa. So where do you send him? Who else would want a queer Iranian?
And you cannot give him permission to live in Australia as both major parties have a policy that illegal arrivals will not be resettled. And any wavering on that policy would restart the flow of parasitical Muslim illegals


An Iranian asylum seeker's indefinite detention is not punitive, Australia's solicitor-general has argued, because he would be freed if he co-operated with attempts to deport him to his home country, despite his fears of the death penalty.

The detained 37-year-old man, known as ASF17, has taken his legal bid for freedom to the High Court in a case that could determine the fates of hundreds of immigrants and government policy.

Authorities have attempted to deport him to Iran every six months since 2018, when his asylum seeker visa was refused.

But as a bisexual man, ASF17 could face the death penalty upon return.

As a result, he has refused to co-operate and Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue KC says this means his detention is not punitive.

"Where a person can be removed with their co-operation, that can't be characterised as punitive, whether or not the reason for non-co-operation was a genuine fear of harm," he told the court on Wednesday.

ASF17 had previously urged the government to remove him to any country other than Iran.

"Take me back to where you picked me up in the high seas, even take me to Gaza," the asylum seeker said during a Federal Court cross-examination, his lawyers recalled on Wednesday.

"I have a better chance there of not being killed than if you take me to Iran."

Dr Donaghue argued refugee applicants can genuinely fear what may happen on return to their home countries, but this may not be "objectively well-founded".

The government had investigated the possibility of deportation to a third country, but this could inflame diplomatic tensions or lead to the risk of refoulement, Dr Donaghue said.

ASF17's barrister Lisa De Ferrari SC said without being offered other deportation options, her client remained indefinitely detained.

"They've straitjacketed themselves and now they're turning the table on my client, saying 'you've been very unreasonable by not helping us get you to Iran'.

"How can it not be punitive (when) there's never any end point?"

His case springs from a November High Court ruling, which found it was unlawful to indefinitely detain people with no prospect of deportation.

About 150 immigration detainees were released as a result.

The appellant wants this expanded to cover people who refuse to co-operate with authorities on their deportation.

The Federal Circuit Court previously ruled the continued immigration detention of a Baha'i man from Iran was unlawful and he was immediately released.

"This is another case that says, whatever has been happening to people who are vulnerable and have come to Australia for protection, they cannot be indefinitely detained," his lawyer Alison Battisson told AAP.

"It creates a precedent that somebody has non-refoulement obligations owed to them."

Baha'is are a persecuted religious minority in Iran and Australia has signed international human rights treaties which include the principle of non-refoulement, meaning refugees cannot be sent back to countries where they face persecution.

ASF17, who is not Baha'i, first arrived on Australian shores by boat in 2013 and has been in detention for a decade.

There are about 200 other people in a similar situation, and Human Rights Law Centre legal director Sanmati Verma said the government was using indefinite detention as a way to "coerce people into returning to danger".

In an attempt to pre-empt ASF17's hearing, the government tried to ram through laws to prevent a release of people from immigration detention.

Under the proposed laws, which could affect more than 4000 people, those who refuse to co-operate with the government over their deportation could spend up to five years in prison.

The legislation would also give the home affairs minister  power to ban visa classes of relatives of asylum seekers who come from blacklisted countries that do not accept deportees.

But it was blocked in parliament and sent to a senate inquiry.

The High Court has adjourned and is yet to decide when it will hand down its decision.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/indefinite-detention-not-punitive-solicitor-general-20240417-p5fkmp

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16 April, 2024

Immigration Court No-Shows Soar in FY 2024

The latest disclosures from the Department of Justice (DOJ) reveal that the number of alien respondents who failed to appear for removal proceedings is soaring — on track to exceed 170,000 in FY 2024, which would best last year’s record of nearly 160,000. Those aliens may be under orders of removal, but the Biden administration has no inclination — let alone plans — to remove them. Which is why so many aliens likely didn’t bother to appear.

In Absentia Orders of Removal. Section 240 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), governs removal proceedings in immigration court.

Removal cases are heard by immigration judges (IJs), a position I held for more than eight years. Those IJs determine whether alien respondents are removable, consider bond requests, adjudicate applications for “relief” from removal (asylum, adjustment of status, cancellation of removal, etc.), and when appropriate, issue orders of removal.

That entire process is generally dependent, of course, on respondents actually appearing in court. While the Biden administration detains a tiny fraction of the three million-plus aliens currently in proceedings, the vast majority are free to live here while their cases are proceedings.

Congress anticipated that some respondents would fail to appear, and consequently section 240(b)(5)(A) of the INA provides, in pertinent part, that:

Any alien who, after written notice required ... has been provided to the alien or the alien's counsel of record, does not attend a proceeding under this section, shall be ordered removed in absentia if the Service establishes by clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence that the written notice was so provided and that the alien is removable. [Emphasis added.]

Simply put, Congress has made clear that respondents must show up in immigration court or they will be deported. That said, the whole process requires DHS enforcement to function.

The Decline in DHS Removals. DHS’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) has made significant progress of late in pulling back the curtain on the department’s enforcement efforts — likely to the chagrin of the Biden administration.

In its most recent report, current through the end of December, OHSS reveals that DHS removed just over 179,400 aliens in FY 2023. That may sound like a lot, but it’s important to keep in mind that CBP alone encountered more than 3.2 million aliens at the borders and the ports last fiscal year.

Those 179,400-plus removals in FY 2023 are even less impressive when you place them into historical context. In FY 2014, under the Obama administration, DHS removed just fewer than 405,000 aliens, and as recently as FY 2019, removals exceeded 347,000.

Why are removals down so markedly? Because DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is actively attempting to limit the number of removable aliens subject to “enforcement actions”, that is, questioning, arrest, detention, prosecution, and removal by DHS officers and agents. As he explained in a September 2021 memo titled “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law”:

The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them. We will use our discretion and focus our enforcement resources in a more targeted way. Justice and our country's well-being require it.

That memo identifies three classes of aliens who are “priorities” for enforcement action: (1) threats to national security (terrorists and spies); (2) threats to public safety (serious criminals); and (3) threats to border security (aliens who entered illegal after the arbitrary date of November 1, 2020).

Notably absent from that list are aliens ordered removed in absentia after they failed to appear for their removal proceedings. That notable omission is despite the fact that each of those individuals received their due process rights and that section 241(a) of the INA mandates that aliens under final removal orders be detained and removed within 90 days.

The No-Show Statistics. In the first quarter of FY 2024 — October to December 2023 — IJs issued 42,714 in absentia orders of removal for alien respondents who failed to appear in immigration court, putting the court on pace to issue about 170,000 such orders this fiscal year.

To put the most recent in absentia figure into context, that’s more no-show orders in just three months than IJs issued in all of FY 2014 (25,909), FY 2015 (38,260), FY 2016 (34,305), or FY 2017 (42,044).

Part of that massive increase has to do with the fact that there are more IJs today than there were 11 years ago, and that the immigration court is now able to hear more cases and issue more decisions. The number of total IJs on board increased 77.5 percent between FY 2014 (249) and FY 2019 (442), and grew by an additional 64 percent by the end of the first quarter of FY 2024 (725).

That said, while there were about three times as many IJs at the end of December as there were in FY 2014, the total number of in absentia orders increased by nearly 560 percent over that same period, so increased hiring cannot be the sole factor at play — there must be more to it.

I can’t tell you dispositively why the number of aliens who failed to appear at their removal hearings has soared under President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, but I do have an educated guess.

In all of its policies — from its announcement the day of the 2021 inauguration that it would pause alien removals for 100 days, to its “overarching non-detention” regime for illegal migrants, to the Mayorkas guidelines themselves — the administration has signaled to aliens with no legal right to be here that it has no interest in enforcing Congress’ dictates in the INA. If the White House doesn’t care, why would the aliens?

In much the same way, Secretary Mayorkas has concluded he has the discretion to determine which immigration laws he’ll enforce — few, if any, as it turns out — and so alien respondents in removal proceedings have concluded that they, too, had the right to decide which court orders they’ll comply with.

What happens if 725 IJs held removal proceedings in three months and 42,714 respondents failed to appear? For the time being, not much. Immigration enforcement has become kabuki theater. Enjoy the show — you’re paying for the enforcement the administration refuses to provide.

https://cis.org/Arthur/Immigration-Court-NoShows-Soar-FY-2024

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15 April, 2024

ISIS and the National Security Vulnerabilities of an Insecure Border

If they’d attack Putin and Iran, what will stop them from attacking our homeland?

Any number of experts are warning about potential terrorist threats to our homeland, but missing from most analyses is the source of such threats. The group you should be most worried about is Islamic State (ISIS) and especially its subsidiary, ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K), which has both the motive and — thanks to President Biden’s border policies — the opportunity to strike the heart of America. Worse, ISIS-K has few concerns about the ramifications of its actions: Militants from the group recently carried out attacks in Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and if they are not afraid of Putin or the mullahs, there’s no reason to think they’d hesitate to attack us.

ISIS, Syria, Iran, Russia, and the United States. In 2004, notorious terror mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi founded an al-Qaeda offshoot, al Qaeda in Iraq or “AQI”, a Sunni coalition of former Iraqi military and foreign fighters opposed to the U.S. occupation of that country.

Al-Zarqawi himself was killed in a U.S. attack in 2006, and AQI fell victim to its own brutal tactics (which alienated many of its would-be adherents), but the group quickly reinvented itself as Islamic State of Iraq.

A 2007 U.S. military surge managed to undermine the new group’s effectiveness, but ongoing sectarian strife in majority-Shia Iraq and instability in Syria provided an opening for the group to engage in yet another 2013 rebranding as “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”, known variously as “Daesh”, “ISIS”, or “ISIL”.

In June 2014, ISIL declared an Islamic caliphate in a vast region of western Iraq and Syria under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, headquartered in the Syrian city of Raqqa, and it is at this point that the story gets strange.

Ever since 1970, Syria has been controlled by the Assad family, first by Hafez al-Assad and after his death in 2000 by his son, erstwhile London-based ophthalmologist Bashar al-Assad. Both Assads are members of a religious Muslim minority, the Alawi sect, in a country that is 74 percent Sunni.

The United States supports an oppositionist group there known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which also has the backing of the United Kingdom, France, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries. SDF was created to oppose ISIL, and the United States has been assisting in that effort since around 2014.

You can read the U.S. State Department’s October 2023 factsheet, “U.S. Relations With Syria”, and see how confusing all of our assistance to various entities in the country has been, but suffice it to say that our government is officially both anti-Assad and anti-ISIS there.

Meanwhile, Iran has been providing the Assad government with military assistance since at least 2012, and they were joined in that effort (for various regional and economic reasons) by the Russian government in 2015.

In an August 2023 paper, the Institute for the Study of War explained that the Syrian-Iranian-Russian coalition is actively attempting to push the United States out of Syria, even while opposing an ongoing ISIS threat.

ISIS-K. Meanwhile, around 2014, a group of disaffected al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan formed ISIS-K, pledging loyalty to the ISIS effort then gaining ground in Iraq and Syria. As NPR has explained, “the group has sought to distinguish itself among jihadi fighters by adopting a radical Islamic worldview more militant and uncompromising than its rivals”.

ISIS-K has already launched one major attack against the United States. During the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021, suicide bombers from the group set off explosions outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, killing 13 U.S. service members and approximately 150 Afghan civilians.

Then, in January, the group claimed responsibility for two bombings that killed about 100 and wounded 200 more during a ceremony in Kerman, Iran, commemorating the third anniversary of the death (in a U.S. airstrike) of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, leader of the Quds Force of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Next, in March, the group took credit for an attack on the Crocus City Hall, a venue near Moscow, when four assailants dressed in fatigues opened fire during a concert that killed more than 140 and wounded countless others.

Apparently, the United States gave both Tehran and Moscow a heads-up prior to both of those attacks, to no avail.

ISIS Threat to the United States? One could view the ISIS-K attack at Karzai airport as purely opportunistic, given that the group is hostile to both the Taliban and American interests, but does ISIS pose a threat to our homeland?

On the one hand, Gen. Michael Kurilla, leader of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee days before the Crocus attack that “ISIS-K ... is rapidly developing the ability to conduct ‘external operations’ in Europe and Asia”, but “will not be able to strike the U.S. homeland in the near future”.

On the other hand, days after that attack, Max Abrahms, associate professor of political science at Northeastern University, opined:

The United States would be considered a very juicy target for ISIS and any of its affiliates or supporters around the world. I suspect it’s just a matter of time before there is another ISIS attack in the United States.

The Border Threat. In the past, most alien terrorists entered the United States legally but fraudulently, as my colleague Steven Camarota explained in his seminal May 2022 work, “The Open Door, How Militant Islamic Terrorists Entered the United States, 1993-2001”.

That said, at least one would-be terrorist, Jordanian national Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, crossed illegally. Mezer was apprehended three times while entering illegally through Washington state before he was eventually released and travelled to New York, where he was later arrested and convicted for plotting to plant bombs in the New York City subway.

Two factors, however, make it more attractive for terrorists to cross illegally today. First, in the wake of September 11, both Congress and the executive branch tightened the restrictions on aliens seeking to enter legally, largely to blunt the terrorist risk.

That’s not to say that aliens with terrorist intent wouldn’t try to exploit our lawful immigration system, but the risks of getting caught are much higher today than they were two decades ago.

Second, the Biden administration has loosened the restrictions on aliens coming here illegally, and in particular has expanded the opportunities for those aliens to be released on their own recognizance and parole.

That has encouraged more aliens to cross the border illegally, which in turn has overwhelmed the ability of Border Patrol to secure the border. That, in turn, has allowed more than 1.8 million aliens — identified in statute as “got-aways” — to evade apprehension and move into the interior illegally since President Biden took office.

Given that — by my conservative estimate — some 88.5 percent of aliens apprehended after entering illegally who weren’t expelled under (the now-expired) Title 42 were released into the country, many of those 1.8 million-plus got-aways likely had a reason to want not to be caught.

As it is, more than 350 aliens on the federal government’s terrorist watchlist have been apprehended after crossing the Southwest border illegally since FY 2021 — nearly 32 times as many as in the prior four fiscal years. Perhaps agents have just gotten better at nabbing terrorists, but this suggests that something more sinister is afoot.

“Motivated by the Logic of Outbidding in its Attacks”. Even by terrorist standards, ISIS-K is exceptionally brutal in its methods. BBC reports that the group has “been blamed for some of the worst atrocities in recent years, targeting girls' schools, hospitals and even a maternity ward, where they reportedly shot dead pregnant women and nurses”.

And the group is interested in making a name for itself. The New York Times recently quoted Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace, who explained:

ISIS-K has long been motivated by the logic of outbidding in its attacks. ... It seeks to outperform rival jihadis by carrying out more audacious attacks to distinguish its jihadi brand and assert leadership of the global jihadi vanguard.

Consistent with that agenda, German authorities on March 19 arrested two suspected ISIS members who were allegedly plotting to attack the Swedish parliament, the same week that Dutch police arrested a husband and wife from Tajikistan “on similar terrorism-linked suspicions”.

Few ISIS-K attacks would be more “audacious” than one along the lines of — or bloodier than — the Crocus City Hall attack here in the United States. Perhaps it’s time that the “Department of Homeland Security” live up to its name and start securing the Southwest border, and the homeland with it.

https://cis.org/Arthur/ISIS-and-National-Security-Vulnerabilities-Insecure-Border

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April 14, 2024

Living paycheck to paycheck and crammed into Chinese-style high rise apartments: Prominent philanthropist predicts a future Australia that NO-ONE wants to see..

Dick Smith fears today's young people will have no savings and be forced to live in Chinese-style high-rise apartments unless immigration is urgently slashed.

Younger voters are the group least likely to criticise record-high immigration, even though they are the most likely to be locked out of the housing market, unable to buy or even now rent.

Mr Smith, who has nine grandchildren, said 'woke' young voters are more likely to back the Greens and believe all critics of high immigration are racists.

But the veteran businessman and philanthropist says they need to understand the connection between a surging population and climate change.

The entrepreneur, who turned 80 last month, fears homes with a backyard in Australia's capital cities will no longer exist by 2050.

He said the national population will have almost doubled to 50 million by then - and housing will have become even more 'catastrophically' unaffordable.

For young people now, that would mean a future living in overcrowded conditions like China, even if Australia's annual population growth pace slowed to 1.6 per cent, down from 2.5 per cent now which is the highest levels since the early 1950s.

'Basically, we're doomed; we're going to increase our population to staggering numbers,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Jammed into high-rise like China, many very poor and who just live pay packet to pay packet and have no savings at all.

'Mainly capital cities, basically, will be like Shanghai.

'The beautiful houses with a block of land for the kids to play in the front yard and have a cubby house, that will go forever.

'Every house will be knocked down and replaced with high rises.'

Mr Smith has also blamed the ABC for young people being less likely to criticise high immigration, even though they are suffering in the housing market as a result.

'The people at the ABC, being a bit lefty, you would think would support having a population plan,' he said.

'The ABC never, ever suggests we should have a population plan because then you'd have to talk about our high immigration levels, and in the ABC, if you talk about limiting immigration, you must clearly be racist.'

Mr Smith argued most young voters, obsessed with climate change, had failed to make the connection between a surging population and unaffordable housing - because of the ABC.

'We have one great hope, and that's the ABC; it's independent, it should be able to tell young people that you can't have endless growth and we need to have a plan,' he said.

'But they don't say it. I can understand why the young people wouldn't link population growth to unaffordable housing because they're never told about it.'

Mr Smith suggested young campaigners against high immigration could make the link between rapid population growth and higher carbon emissions, with Labor and the Greens both committed to a 43 per cent reduction by 2030.

'Younger people have been so frightened by what could happen with climate change,' he said.

'But there's no leader out there saying, "If climate change is caused by human beings, if we double the number of humans in our country, we're going to have double the problem".'

Unaffordable housing

Sydney's median house price of $1.4million is so expensive, someone would need to earn $293,578 a year, and be among the nation's top 1.5 per cent of income earners, to be able to buy on their own and avoid mortgage stress.

'It's a catastrophe,' Mr Smith said.

The Greens had commissioned those figures from the Parliamentary Library but the party's 32-year-old housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather last month told the ABC's Q+A program criticism of high immigration was a 'distraction'.

Mr Smith revealed his friend Bob Brown, a former Greens leader, admitted his party was reluctant to advocate lower immigration because it didn't want to be regarded as racist.

'It's quite incredible, the Greens have no population policy at all,' said Mr Smith.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13295455/Dick-Smith-immigration.html

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11 April, 2024

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signs law allowing police to arrest certain migrants

Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation on Wednesday that will allow state authorities to arrest migrants who were previously denied entry or deported from the US.

“The Biden administration has failed to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, putting the protection and safety of Iowans at risk,” Reynolds said in a statement announcing the signing of SF 2340.

“Those who come into our country illegally have broken the law, yet Biden refuses to deport them. This bill gives Iowa law enforcement the power to do what he is unwilling to do: enforce immigration laws already on the books.”

The new law, passed by the Iowa legislature last month, makes it an aggravated misdemeanor offense — punishable by up to two years in prison — for migrants to be in the Hawkeye State if they have outstanding deportation orders, were previously deported or were at one point barred from entering the US.

The law, which goes into effect July 1, elevates the crime to a felony offense if the person’s previous removal orders were related to misdemeanor convictions for drug crimes, crimes against people or any type of felony conviction.

Police are barred from arresting suspected migrants in violation of the law at places of worship, schools or medical facilities.

Arrested individuals may be allowed by a judge to leave the country and not face charges, according to the law’s text.

The head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa slammed the legislation last month as one of the “most extreme, discriminatory, and unconstitutional anti-immigrant bills” in the country, arguing that it will  “wreak havoc” on both citizens and noncitizens alike.

“The Iowa law enforcement and state judges tasked with authority to carry out this outrageous legislation are not trained in immigration law and have no proper authority to enforce it,” Mark Stringer, executive director of the Iowa ACLU, said in a statement.

“This legislation encourages and facilitates racial profiling and stereotyping. It undermines — not promotes — public safety and the rule of law,” he added. “It will consume already strapped state court and law enforcement resources.”

The law is similar to Texas’ SB4 legislation, which makes crossing the border illegally a state crime and allows state authorities to arrest, jail, prosecute and deport migrants who enter the country between ports of entry.

Texas’ law, a part of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative, has been blocked by an appeals court pending litigation.

The Justice Department says that the Texas law violates the US Constitution, arguing that the founding document gives the federal government sole authority to enforce federal immigration laws.

https://nypost.com/2024/04/10/us-news/iowa-governor-signs-law-allowing-police-to-arrest-some-migrants/

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10 April, 2024

Judge Sets Whopping Fine on Migrant Bond Issuing Firm, $811 Million

One of the legal ways that non-migrants can make money from the migration business is to lend money (for bonds) to illegal aliens in trouble with the law. The bonds are designed to make sure that an alien involved shows up at scheduled court hearings and meets other requirements.

There is also substantial illegal money to be made in this business. As the Washington Post reported on April 4, a single firm in Virginia took in so much money from this business illegally to warrant a total penalty of $811 million, an amount large enough to threaten the firm involved with bankruptcy.

The firm is Libre by Nexus, and it is located far from migrant populations; it is in Verona, Va., population 4,582, in the northern Shenandoah Valley. A federal judge in Roanoke, Va., found, according to the Post, that the company owed the federal consumer protection agency $231 million in restitution plus massive civil penalties. The company, which operates throughout the United States, plans to appeal the verdict.

Immigration bonds are somewhat similar to bonds in the criminal court system, and perform the same service, making sure that the individual involved shows up in court when needed.

It is also a program that operates on a lot of relatively small-scale cases; TRAC, the Syracuse University research outfit, estimates that in CY 2024, the median bond was for $5,000.

Lending money to lots of people at $5,000 a crack, despite high fees, is not a very profitable business, as Libre must have found, because it added a new element to its dealings with many of the aliens (illegal ones by definition). It insisted that many of them must wear cigarette-package-sized monitors on their legs for $420 a month. And, again according to the Post, the fee had to be paid whether the device worked or not.

The judge ruled that Libre could not do this in the future.

Five entities were charged in the case: Libre, its parent company Nexus Services, CEO Mike Donovan, and two of his associates, Richard Moore and Evan Ajin. The company has been in and out of various state and federal courts in recent years.

https://cis.org/North/Judge-Sets-Whopping-Fine-Migrant-Bond-Issuing-Firm-811-Million

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9 April, 2024

Joe Biden’s ‘secret’ flights of 33,000 migrants to New York passes buck to city taxpayers

Mayor Eric Adams keeps blaming Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as the culprit responsible for the city’s migrant crisis, which has hoovered up millions in taxpayer resources.

In the latest broadside, Adams dared Abbott to spend a night in a NYC migrant shelter, while the no-thanks Abbot fired back that Adams’s sanctuary city policies were “aiding and abetting” the border disaster.

Some 37,000 of New York’s estimated 150,000 migrants — or 25% — were bused from Texas.

But there’s another number, comparable to that, that Adams should blame on another politician: Joe Biden.

A new report from me and my organization, the Center for Immigration Studies, finds that the Department of Homeland Security secretly has okayed the flights of some 33,000 illegal immigrants directly to the New York region from foreign airports. That’s 22% of the city’s migrant influx.

One of Biden’s flying immigrants was a Haitian man, Pierre Lucard Emile, who was recently accused of raping a developmentally disabled teen girl. The administration reportedly authorized him to fly directly from Haiti into John F. Kennedy International Airport as part of the immigrant flights program.

Biden is, of course, far more responsible than Abbott for New York’s troubles because he’s doing nothing to enforce border laws in the first place, thus flooding Texas and other southern states with unsustainable numbers of illegal immigrants.

Yet Adams gives Biden a total a pass on the flights, which Biden could shut down with a phone call, preferring to continue pretending that the Republican Abbott is the cause of Gotham’s problems.

DHS reports that it has approved the flights of more than 386,000 immigrants directly from foreign airports into the U.S. since launching the program without Congressional authorization in January 2023.

The flights were intended mainly for Cuban, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans but since expanded to five other nationalities. It is alternatively referred to as the “CHNV Program” or the “Advanced Travel Authorization Program.” Under it, U.S.-based “sponsors” apply for air travel permission on behalf of aspiring illegal border crossers in other countries who provide information via an online program and mobile cell phone app called CBP-One.

Once Biden’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection approves their applications, the aspiring illegal border crossers arrange for their own flights by commercial air into a government-approved U.S. international airport, and U.S. customs inspectors process them into the country.

A separate twin program has brought in some 420,000 more from 100 countries at eight land ports over the past year.

Both programs are predicated on a legally challenged mass use of an authority in the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows a president to grant temporary “humanitarian parole” into the country of immigrants in emergency situations on a “case by case” basis.

But this administration has applied this highly restricted “case-by-case” parole authority to far greater numbers of foreigners than any other before, more than a combined 800,000 by both land and air ports paroles, to reduce the optics of thousands illlegally crossing the land border at once.

The administration has not coordinated this effort with Adams or other big-city mayors, nor with taxpayers who have to shoulder the costs of hundreds of thousands of people just showing up. Biden has hid where the illegal immigrants are being flown and in what numbers.

The administration was so determined to keep this information from the public that it denied a 2023 Center for Immigration Studies Freedom of Information Act request for it.

In fact, the administration is so bent on obfuscating the basic program details that its monthly border statistics report presents this section as a strange unidentified orphan, amorphously titling it as only “CHNV Program” and not once mentioning potentially interest-flagging immigrant “flights” or “air travel” or “airports.”

But using available public records for the April 1 report, I was able to narrow down the regions receiving these flights, showing that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida is by far the biggest initial landing zone in the country with 326,000 through February first showing up to that state’s many international airports – and the 33,000 flights into the New York area’s airports.

“It is secret because they’re not telling anybody. They don’t tell us anytime somebody comes in,” DeSantis said in an April 4 press conference. “They don’t give us any information on it. They are not coordinating with state government at all. If they throw six people on a commercial flight coming from a foreign country, there’s no acknowledgement at all to state or local authorities. That’s just a fact.”

DeSantis has a plausible theory about the huge volume of flights landing in Florida: that some perhaps significant percentage of those initially landing there are processed through U.S. Customs to domestic flights and continue onward to cities like New York.

If what the governor believes is true, that means the number reaching Gotham is much higher than 33,000.

How many is it really? Mayor Adams doesn’t want to know. If he did, he could put pressure on the administration to stop the flights. But he won’t. He’ll just keep trying to blame Republicans, when the danger is coming from inside his house.

https://nypost.com/2024/04/08/opinion/joe-bidens-33000-secret-migrant-flights-to-new-york-passes-buck-to-city-taxpayers/

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8 April, 2024

Ohio Police Arrest Illegal Immigrant, Discover He Was Deported 7 Times, Charge Him With Murder

 
An illegal immigrant who had been deported over a half-dozen times was charged with murder in Butler County, Ohio, according to local reports.

Hamilton Police arrested 48-year-old Fermin Garcia-Gutierrez on unrelated charges on March 16, the Journal-News, an Ohio-based newspaper, reported. Authorities highlighted Garcia-Gutierrez’s record of seven deportations in a Friday press conference prior to the discovery of the murder, according to the Journal-News.

“It just so happens we ran into him and had an encounter with him,” Hamilton Police Chief Craig Bucheit told the Journal-News Wednesday. “Unbeknownst to us, he had committed this murder.”

Police received a 911 call Monday about the killing and interviewed Garcia-Gutierrez Tuesday, the Post-Journal reported. He was charged with aggravated murder, which can result in the death penalty, according to Cincinnati-based outlet WCPO.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones blasted President Joe Biden over the situation on the border in the Friday press conference, saying that 999 illegal immigrants had been housed in the county jail at a cost of over $1.8 million, according to the Journal-News.

Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have highlighted crimes committed by illegal immigrants after the murder of nursing student Laken Riley. Riley’s alleged killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, an immigrant from Venezuela who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, was arrested by University of Georgia police and charged with murdering the 22-year-old nursing student on Feb. 23.

According to data released by United States Customs and Border Protection, 849,469 illegal immigrants have been encountered to date in fiscal year 2024, following 2,045,838 encounters in fiscal year 2023, 2,206,436 encounters in fiscal year 2022, and 1,659,206 in fiscal year 2021.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/04/illegal-immigrant-deported-7-times-arrested-for-murder-authorities-say/

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7 April, 2024

Canada's ultra-liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau admits immigration into his country is too high and that number of newcomers must be 'brought down'

Addressing an audience at a housing announcement in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on Tuesday, Justin Trudeau said the number of temporary foreign workers coming into Canada has increased at a rate 'far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb'.

The prime minister, known for his liberal stance on immigration, said the number of temporary migrants in Canada more than tripled in the last seven years, and must be 'brought under control'.

'Whether it's temporary foreign workers or whether it's international students in particular, that have grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb,' Trudeau said.

'To give an example, in 2017, two percent of Canada's population was made up of temporary immigrants. Now we're at 7.5 percent of our population comprised of temporary immigrants. That's something we need to get back under control.'

'We want to get those numbers down,' Trudeau continued.

'It's a responsible approach to immigration that continues on our permanent residents, as we have, but also hold the line a little more on the temporary immigration that has caused so much pressure in our communities.'

Canada is battling a 130 percent spike in the number of Mexicans, Haitians, and others seeking asylum there, overwhelming shelters and leaving officials scrambling with an $822 million crisis.

Shelter systems in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, and other Canadian cities are over capacity, prompting its liberal government to take steps to deter the flows of people north.

Canada's geography means it sees a fraction as many irregular border crossings as the US, but there's been an increase in the numbers arriving by air — particularly from Mexico.

Shelter systems in Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver are also over capacity — exacerbating a shortage of available places for the homeless population.

The influx has prompted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government to make policy shifts.

Mexico is by far the largest source country for those seeking asylum in Canada, followed by Haiti, Turkey, India and Colombia.

The rapid growth in asylum seekers in Canada is happening in tandem with record population gains, driven by foreign workers and international students.

The number of international students in the country has tripled to around 1 million in less than a decade.

Frustration over housing shortages has forced Trudeau's government to scale back on its immigration ambitions in recent months. Among other policies, it's capping the number of foreign-study permits.

Last year, Trudeau and US President Joe Biden agreed to end a pact that had resulted in asylum-seekers crossing into Canada from the US at a location known as Roxham Road.

In February, Trudeau's government reimposed visa rules for many Mexican citizens.

Last month, Canada said it plans to reduce the size of its temporary resident population, a group that includes asylum claimants and foreigners on temporary work permits.

In Peel, a Toronto suburb, the shelter system is running at 300 percent of capacity, with asylum-seekers occupying more than 70 percent of the beds and many more camping on the streets, officials say.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13277827/Justin-Trudeau-admits-immigration-Canada-high.html

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4 April, 2024

Migrant 'smuggled child into the U.S. to use them in porn by lying that he was was their uncle'

Republicans are outraged after federal prosecutors charged an unlawful immigrant with smuggling minors into the country and producing child pornography with one.

'If Joe Biden and the Democrats actually cared about addressing humanitarian issues, they would start by reversing their open-border policies that are exploiting children and fueling human trafficking.

'Every day that their self-made border crisis continues is another day that innocent lives are put at risk,' Republican Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told DailyMail.com.

Natividad Aguilera Garcia, 37, of Shelbyville, Ky., stands accused of smuggling at least three illegal immigrants, including two who were juveniles. Garcia appeared in federal court for his arraignment on Monday.

Garcia had falsely told the federal government he was the uncle of Minor A and produced a fake birth certificate to back up the claim, the indictment says. The Biden administration's Office of Refugee Resettlement handed the child over to him under those pretenses.

'These horrific stories are going to keep happening as long as President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas refuse to enforce our laws,' Homeland Security Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., told DailyMail.com in a statement.

'These minors are regularly abused, exploited, and used by the cartels in all manner of inhumane ways. Once they arrive here, the Biden administration releases most of them to ‘sponsors’ with minimal vetting,' he went on.

'As one witness told my Committee last year, "It’s been said that it is harder to adopt a cat than it is to sponsor an unaccompanied minor." President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, and their Democratic enablers in Congress may see a political benefit in this crisis, but all I see are shattered lives and broken futures for some of the most innocent among us.'

According to the U.S. attorney's office for the eastern district of Kentucky, the scheme began on May 1, 2021 - four months into the Biden administration as illegal immigrants flooded the U.S.-Mexico border.

A bombshell report put out in February revealed the U.S. agency responsible for the care of unaccompanied migrant children could not provide proof it had fully vetted U.S. sponsors before releasing children to them during an onslaught of migration in 2021.

The report, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services inspector general, found 16 percent of child case files in March and April 2021 lacked documentation of sponsor background checks by the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement.

In 19 percent of cases where children were released to sponsors pending FBI or state checks, the case files were never updated with results, the watchdog found.

The report raised questions about the government's ability to vet sponsors - fears that were affirmed in the Garcia indictment.

During the swell of migrants at the start of the Biden administration the HHS refugee office struggled to move children from overcrowded border processing centers to shelters or the custody of relatives.

Garcia has been charged with one count of production of child pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography, one count of online enticement of a minor to engage in prohibited sexual activity, one count of transportation of a minor to engage in prohibited sexual activity, one count of encouraging illegal entry, one count of making a false statement to a federal agency, and one count of presenting a false document to a federal agency.

In recent years it has been revealed that undocumented children were working illegally at poultry plants and car suppliers after being released from federal custody.

Migrant encounters at the border hit new record highs at the end of last year and stayed high through the start of this year. In February, border agents encountered some 190,000 trying to cross the border.

Some 470,000 unaccompanied children have crossed into the U.S. since Biden took office, and border patrol has made 45,000 arrests of illegal immigrants with criminal records - nearly double that of the first three years of the Trump administration.

Currently there are 617,000 non-detained aliens with criminal convictions or pending charges who are currently in the U.S., up from 407,983 in January 2023.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13269383/Migrant-smuggled-child-U-S-use-porn-lying-uncle-Republicans-say-horrific-stories-like-happening-Biden-doesnt-enforce-border-laws.html

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3 April, 2024

ICE to Deport 215 Illegal Immigrants Involved in Riot at Border Wall in El Paso

Customs officials are working to deport 215 illegal immigrants charged with various offenses in connection with breaking through a razor wire barrier in El Paso County and stampeding through a group of outnumbered Texas National Guard troops.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement on April 2 that agents with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had lodged immigration detainers on 215 illegal immigrants involved in the March 21 incident.

Dramatic video shared widely on social media showed that on March 21 hundreds of illegal immigrants tore down razor wire along the Rio Grande and rushed troops posted at a nearby border fence, pushing past the outnumbered uniformed men.
The illegal immigrants were later arrested by the Texas Department of Public Safety and booked at the El Paso County court.

Dozens of Venezuelan nationals were later charged with riot participation following the incident, according to Border Report, which cited state court records.
Some of the illegal immigrants were released on their own recognizance, according to earlier reporting by The Epoch Times.

The ICE spokesperson told The Epoch Times that, to date, 64 individuals have been taken into ICE custody and are being processed for deportation.

Four of the illegal immigrants involved in the stampede were arrested by ERO deportation officers on March 30 after they were released by the El Paso County Detention Facility on their own recognizance.

Another 60 were released directly to ERO El Paso custody on April 1 after they were processed in the El Paso County Detention Facility, per the spokesperson.

Following the March 21 border riot, the Texas National Guard and other local law enforcement officials were sent to El Paso, which is located just across the border from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, according to a March 29 statement issued by the governor’s office.

“Earlier this week, the Texas National Guard surged personnel and resources to ramp up border security activity in El Paso. Approximately 200 soldiers were deployed to support existing ground forces to reinforce existing border barriers and repel illegal crossings,” his office said.

Photos released in local media show troops entering a transport plane and also appearing near the border area.
A spokesperson for the Texas Military Department told KTSM-TV that the troops specialize in civil disturbances.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/ice-to-deport-215-illegal-immigrants-involved-in-riot-at-border-wall-in-el-paso-5620194?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=us-news-left-3

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2 April, 2024

Are illegal immigrants dangerous?

Jeff Jacoby below says that they are not more criminal than others on average.  It is an old assertion that I have looked at before.  He overlooks a few things.

Regardless of averages, if the illegal imigrants who committed crimes had been kept out, their crimes would not have been committed. Fooey to averages.  Just look at the sometimes appalling incidents.  They should not have occurred.  The total incidents should be lower

But if we look at averages we find some complexity.  With whom are we comparing illegas?  If we are comparing them with native-borns, they are less criminal on average.  But if we break the figures out by race, they are less criminal than blacks but  more criminal than whites.

And when we look at the children of illegals, they are, perhaps surprisingly, MORE criminal than their parents.  

So it is clear that stopping illegal immigration would eliminate a lot of crime


TO AMERICANS alarmed by the loss of control at the US-Mexico border, nothing is more enraging than the murder of an American citizen by a migrant who is in the country unlawfully.

A recent grim example was last month's killing of Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student who was abducted while jogging at Augusta University in Georgia. The suspect in the case, Jose Antonio Ibarra, entered the United States illegally in 2022 and was apprehended by Border Patrol agents. But he was released on parole, allowing him to remain until his asylum claim could be adjudicated. Over the next 18 months, though he was arrested on various charges in multiple jurisdictions, he was never deported. He is accused of attacking Riley with a blunt object, fatally "disfiguring her skull," and then attempting to hide her body.

During his State of the Union address on March 7, President Biden mentioned Riley's death, which has become a cause célèbre among Republicans and immigration hardliners. He said his "heart goes out" to the parents of "Lincoln [sic] Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal." Among some members of Biden's party, there appeared to be more consternation over his use of the word "illegal" than over the death of the innocent victim.

There have been other cases of tragic deaths caused by migrants who were in the country unlawfully.

In 2016, Sarah Root was killed when a drunk and speeding driver, Eswin Mejia, slammed his truck into her car. Mejia, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, was charged with vehicular homicide, but he made bail and disappeared.

Just days ago, Brandon Ortiz-Vite — a Mexican citizen who twice broke the law to enter the United States — was charged in Grand Rapids, Mich., with carjacking and felony murder for the killing of Ruby Garcia, whose body was dumped on the side of a highway. In February, police in Maryland arrested Nilson Trejo-Granados in connection with the killing of 2-year-old Jeremy Poou Caceres, who was killed in the crossfire of a shootout. The suspect is an undocumented El Salvadoran national with numerous previous arrests. He was repeatedly set free by Montgomery County, Md., authorities, despite several Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests for his detention.

Such tragic episodes are travesties. They make a mockery of the law. They inflame a sense that disarray at the border has become the most critical threat facing the nation. Above all, they are a boon to anti-immigration demagogues who claim falsely that illegal migrants are more likely to commit murder, rape, and other violent crimes than US-born citizens.

I repeat: who claim falsely. Nativists like Donald Trump have long promoted the idea that foreigners who enter the country without lawful documents are "criminal aliens" and pose an abnormally serious peril to public safety.

However popular that belief may be in some circles, it isn't true.

Researchers have confirmed again and again that immigrants to the United States — authorized and unauthorized alike — are significantly less likely than native-born citizens to commit serious crimes or be in prison. For example, a peer-reviewed 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "undocumented immigrants have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses." Last month, Cato Institute scholar Alex Nowrasteh, who has been studying the connection between immigration and crime for years, released a new paper based on data from Texas, the only state that records the immigration status of people arrested and convicted of various crimes. His calculations established that the homicide conviction rate in Texas is 2.4 per 100,000 among undocumented immigrants — lower than the rate of 2.8 per 100,000 for native‐born citizens.

It should go without saying that statistics on the rarity of violent crime committed by immigrants who crossed the border illegally don't mitigate the horror suffered by victims like Laken Riley and Ruby Garcia or the pain endured by their loved ones. Violent criminals ought to be arrested, prosecuted, and punished regardless of their immigration status, and convicted offenders who aren't citizens should be deported. It's unconscionable that "sanctuary" jurisdictions impede the government's ability to remove the tiny number of undocumented migrants who are discovered to be dangerous lawbreakers.

It is likewise unconscionable to pretend that the violent crimes committed by an atypical sliver of those immigrants prove that immigrants are making the country less safe. Immigrants tend to be unusually law-abiding. True, there are appalling outliers. But public policy should be based on the rule, not the exceptions. Agitators like Trump and other nativists on the right harp on the exceptions because it advances their long-standing anti-immigrant agenda. Yet one could just as readily point to spectacular acts of goodness performed by unlawful migrants as a reason to throw the gates open.

Carlos Arredondo, a Costa Rican who entered the United States illegally in his teens, helped save the life of Jeff Bauman, whose legs were destroyed in the Boston Marathon bombing. He had the presence of mind to use his bare fingers as a tourniquet, tightly pinching a severed artery to prevent fatal blood loss.

On the day of the Boston Marathon terror attack, to mention just one notable local example, Carlos Arredondo instinctively ran toward the explosion, laboring without letup to rescue victims from the debris. In a famous photo, he can be seen helping to rush Jeff Bauman to an ambulance. To prevent Bauman, whose legs were shredded, from bleeding to death, Arredondo had the presence of mind to grip a protruding femoral artery and use his fingers to pinch it shut. Bauman might well have died had Arredondo not reached him in time. Arredondo was a Costa Rican native who entered the United States illegally when he was 19 years old.

Does that prove that migrants ought to be admitted without restriction? Of course not. Some undocumented migrants shed blood. Some turn out to be remarkable lifesavers. The vast majority, however, avoid the limelight and do what immigrants have always done — they work hard to improve their lives and care for their families. Overwhelmingly, they stay out of trouble.

Given the chaos at the border, few would deny that America's immigration policies badly need fixing. But it doesn't help the cause of reform to focus on the aberrations. Rabble-rousers who exploit tragedies to demonize all undocumented immigrants are only making a difficult situation worse and deserve nothing but contempt.

https://jeffjacoby.com/27669/the-border-needs-fixing-but-not-because-migrants

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1 April, 2024

Supreme Court Case ‘Threatens Chaos’ to Immigration System

A complex upcoming Supreme Court case could weaken a key tool the government uses in immigration law enforcement and throw the system into chaos, legal sources say.

The case at hand deals with the doctrine of “consular nonreviewability,” which is the legal principle that a consular official’s decision to refuse a visa to a foreigner is not subject to judicial review.

Cracking down on the doctrine would harm the immigration system and cripple its ability to conduct business, supporters of the nonreviewability principle say. Opponents, such as those who favor expanded immigration, say relaxing it respects constitutional rights and the institution of marriage.

The doctrine is a judge-made exception to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a federal statute enacted in 1946 that governs administrative law procedures for federal executive departments and independent agencies. The late U.S. Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nev.) said the APA was “a bill of rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated in one way or another by agencies of the federal government.”

Decisions about who gets to enter the United States are vested in the legislative and the executive branches, not the judicial branch.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to create policies about the admissibility of individuals to the United States. At the same time, the legislative branch delegates the power to implement those policies to the executive branch.

Foreign citizens have minimal rights in the immigration process, so the Supreme Court is expected to focus on whether U.S. citizens have a constitutionally protected interest in visa petitions sponsoring their spouses.

The case is about Luis Asencio-Cordero, a Salvadoran citizen with no criminal record whose U.S. immigration visa was denied because a consular officer thought his tattoos indicated gang membership. His wife, U.S. citizen Sandra Munoz, challenged the consular decision in court, arguing that her rights as a citizen were violated.

The case goes back to 2005 when Mr. Asencio-Cordero first arrived in the United States. Ms. Munoz married him in 2010 and they had a child together who is a U.S. citizen. The husband was in the country illegally.

Ms. Munoz sponsored her husband for a U.S. immigration visa. In 2015 he returned to his native El Salvador to obtain the visa. At the initial interview at the U.S. consulate in San Salvador, he was subjected to a body search.

The officials photographed his tattoos and asked why he got them. They found a tattoo of comedy and tragedy theater masks, one of a pair of dice, and one of three ace cards. Other tattoos depicted the Virgin of Guadalupe, Sigmund Freud, and a tribal design featuring a paw print.

Officials asked Mr. Asencio-Cordero about his criminal record. He said he was arrested once when he got into a fight with a friend. They were held in jail for three days and released with no charges being laid.

After a significant delay, officials ruled that Mr. Asencio-Cordero could not be issued a visa because he was viewed as criminally inadmissible to the United States.

Officials didn’t elaborate other than to cite a passage in the Immigration and Nationality Act which states “[a]ny alien who a consular officer or the Attorney General knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, seeks to enter the United States to engage solely, principally, or incidentally in … any other unlawful activity” is inadmissible.

The government argues that under federal law the visa denial cannot be challenged in court.

Ms. Munoz sued. Three years after the denial, she learned during the discovery process in federal district court that the government deemed him inadmissible to the country because he was thought to be a member of the MS-13 criminal organization.

The consular official reached this conclusion based on “the in-person interview, a criminal review of Mr. Asencio-Cordero, and a review of [his] tattoo,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the government’s petition to the Supreme Court.

She wrote in a footnote that the government also presented to the court “for in camera review, State Department documents containing sensitive information describing the basis for the consular officer’s belief that Asencio-Cordero was a member of MS-13.”

The district court ruled in favor of the government in March 2021 and noted the consular officer’s finding that Mr. Asencio-Cordero was a member of MS-13.

Because the denial was based on “a facially legitimate and bona fide reason, the court ruled that consular nonreviewability precludes respondents’ challenges to the Department decision,” Ms. Prelogar wrote.

Court of Appeals

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit vacated the district court’s ruling and remanded the case to the lower court for reconsideration.

The 9th Circuit did not reject consular nonreviewability but held that, on the facts of the case, the application of the doctrine violated the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The circuit court affirmed the district court’s holding that Ms. Munoz’s due process rights had been violated because as a U.S. citizen, she had both “a fundamental liberty interest in their marriage” and “a liberty interest in residing in their country of citizenship.” The denial harmed her due process rights because its cumulative effect was “a direct restraint on [her] liberty interests.”

The court also held that because the government had waited three years after the denial of the visa to provide the married couple with the declaration about the tattoo “and did so only when prompted by judicial proceedings,” the explanation was deemed untimely.

The court concluded that the government had forfeited its claim of consular nonreviewability by failing to hand over a timely explanation to the couple. The visa decision cannot be “shield[ed] … from judicial review” and the district court “may ‘look behind’ the government’s decision[.]”

The full 9th Circuit denied a rehearing of the case in July 2023, upholding the panel’s ruling.

Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented from the denial of the rehearing, writing that the panel was wrong to find that Ms. Munoz had a “liberty interest” in the visa denial of her husband.

And this “novel ‘timeliness’ requirement has no basis in the law,” he wrote. Throughout the 100-year existence of consular nonreviewability “no court has invented the rule that the government must act within a certain timeframe[.]”

“Congress has explicitly said that the government has no duty to give timely notice to an alien excluded on security-related grounds,” the judge wrote.

The newly articulated “speedy-notice requirement will be an administrative nightmare. Now consular officers will have to sift through countless visa applications to determine who is entitled to the heightened notice by relation to some citizen.”

Ms. Munoz reiterated to the Supreme Court in a March 21 brief that she has “a liberty interest in living in the United States with her husband[.]”

She argued that she has a due process-based right to be given a reasonable opportunity to respond to the inadmissibility finding.

The Due Process Clause “prohibits consular officers from upending the marital home of a U.S. citizen without providing notice or a meaningful opportunity to respond,” the brief states.

Immigration attorney and former U.S. consular officer Chris Richardson supported Ms. Munoz’s position in The Hill newspaper last month, arguing that consular nonreviewability unwisely places too much power in the hands of unaccountable government officials.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/supreme-court-case-threatens-chaos-to-immigration-system-5613015

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