As 2019 began, newly empaneled Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi vowed, “There’s not going to be any wall money,” referring to legislation needed to fund the government.
Pelosi’s Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, was even clearer about Democratic leadership’s view of the border wall. “Democrats are against the wall,” Schumer stated with uncharacteristic brevity. Thankfully, the president still managed to secure nearly 100 miles of wall construction and border fencing over the last three years by using Department of Defense money dedicated to related purposes.
Documented is an online newsletter that claims to report on “immigration as it matters to New Yorkers.” And despite the fact that every day life in New York City has been severely impacted by widespread protests and civil disturbances, the publication is worried that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) isn’t spending millions of taxpayer dollars testing detainees and deportees for COVID-19.
Last week, the Mexican government abruptly stopped readmitting Central American migrant families who were removed from the U.S. border under Title 42 — a public health order that enables U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to quickly send illegal immigrants back to Mexico in order to mitigate risks from COVID-19.
The Mexican government is now only accepting the returns of single adults, while families are to be released into the interior of the United States. History has shown that “catch and release” practices fuel border and humanitarian crises, increase our illegal immigrant population and can exacerbate public health risks amidst a global pandemic.
A 2,200-word memo from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, released March 16, attempts to convince the front-line defenders of our nation’s borders, along with the American people, that the crisis thrust upon us by the Biden administration isn’t really a crisis at all but merely a “difficult” situation.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is projecting that some 117,000 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) could end up at our southern border this year.
February figures were the largest for the group and month in history. These alarming numbers are not what the Biden administration should want — especially this early in the term and amidst a global pandemic.
Rather than address any element of the ongoing Biden border crisis, House Democrats spent their time moving legislation that only worsens the already grave situation at our southern border. The NO BAN Act jeopardizes our national security and public health, while the Access to Counsel Act further overwhelms our immigration courts and creates unnecessary burdens to already strained immigration authorities. Passage of both bills reveal how detached House Democrats are from properly addressing the nation’s most pressing immigration matters.
In March, as the impact of President Joe Biden’s open borders policies turned a border problem into a full-blown border crisis, the president handed his second-in-command the task of trying to convince the American public that the administration sincerely wanted to fix the mess he created.
Last week, the Biden administration announced that it would extend the Title 42 public health order. Title 42 allows immigration authorities to quickly remove illegal aliens from the country to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in processing facilities and within American communities. The extension reveals that the administration views the order as effective and should rightfully keep it in place as apprehension totals remain at historic levels and COVID-19 variants continue to proliferate.
The new regime in Kabul has reneged on its assurances of respect for human rights, women’s rights and free passage for those seeking to escape the Sharia hellhole the Taliban is imposing. As they rolled across Afghanistan, the Taliban freed some 5,000 prisoners who had been held at the Bagram Air Base, which the U.S. abandoned. In addition to the Taliban’s fighters, the hardened terrorists turned loose from Bagram reportedly include some associated with ISIS and al Qaeda.
With a more than seven-fold increase expected in the next few weeks, these flights should be expanded. In addition to allowing for safe and quick repatriation, they would also serve as a deterrent, discouraging more Haitians from attempting to cross the southern border unlawfully. With fewer individuals attempting to enter the country unlawfully, areas along the border would become decongested and help prevent the squalor and packed conditions seen last month.