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The administration wasted no time taking its first steps to build the big, beautiful wall President Trump promised the American people. Last Friday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection asked for bids to construct the border wall (one concrete and the other using different materials.) Under the timeline set forth in the proposal, those interested will have two weeks to submit their designs and models should follow soon thereafter.

The U.S.-Mexico border wall, according to the CBP, must be an imposing physical barrier. Department of Homeland Security expects the wall to be: not climbable; able to repel a sledgehammer, pick axe, or other hand-held tools for a minimum of 30 minutes for the non-concrete wall and an hour for the concrete version. Finally, the wall must not be easily tunneled under, making it as impenetrable as humanly possible

No matter who becomes president in the future, the border wall will ensure that uninvited and unwelcome individuals do not gain entry into the United States. Regardless of policy shifts, the wall cannot and will not be asked not to turn a blind eye to illegal border crossers like many Border Patrol agents were pressured to do during the Obama administration. Further, an imposing physical barrier allows Border Patrol agents to pay more attention to drug cartels and those who pose national security threats.

Even before the first block of concrete is poured, President Trumps executive order has already had a positive impact on the border. Illegal border crossing decreased in February by 40 percent, with February 2017 having the fewest February crossings in a decade. People like taking the path of least resistance, and soon, illegally entering the U.S. by jumping the border will no longer be an option.

Despite Congress not yet appropriating a dime, the administration is moving swiftly and decisively to regain control of the borders. In the budget blueprint that President Trump sent to Congress last week, the administration requested $2.6 billion for the border wall in fiscal year 2018. It also requested another $3 billion in its supplemental 2017 funding request to secure our nation.

Predictably, immigration activists blasted the funding for the wall threatening to shut down the government if the money was included in any of the 2017 spending bills. Pandering to them, Republicans who have control over the wall are stalling in order to avoid a funding standoff that could shut down the government.

Perhaps those Republicans who are holding up the process need to be reminded of the cost savings to American taxpayers. Building the wall across the entire southwest border is expected to cost about $15-$30 billion. Even if the cost of the wall exceeded those levels, it would quickly pay for itself. A cost study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform found illegal aliens cost American taxpayers $113 billion every year.

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If You Build It, They Won't Come - ImmigrationReform.com (blog)

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings has proposed offering identification cardsto all of the citys residents, including undocumented immigrants. Doing so would not only grant Dallas large population of Mexican immigrants free access to government or other municipal servicesbut also formally involve them in the local economy, Rawlings told local reporters Tuesday.

The photo IDs would give undocumented immigrants who don't have access to other forms of formal identification the ability to cash checks, pursue legal employment and acquire library cards.

Read:Immigration News: Mexico Creates Legal Aid Centers Across The US To Help Immigrants Through Trump's Executive Orders

The ID cards could also provide undocumented immigrants an avenue to open bank accounts in addition to giving them a wayto identify themselves to local law enforcement officers, Liz cedilla-Pereira, head of Dallas Office of Welcoming Communities and Immigrant Affairs, told Dallas News.

New York City, which committed $30 million towards resources for its 3.1 million immigrants last year, launched its own identification program called IDNYC in 2015, making municipal IDs available to all New Yorkers regardless of their immigration status so they canreceive city benefits. Roughly 900,000 people have signed up for the IDNYC program, Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the Mayors Office of Immigrant Affairs, told the Wall Street Journal Oct. 31, 2016. Los Angeles and Washington D.C. have also implemented similar programs.

Critics of such ID programs have routinely said they contributed to undocumented immigration, illegal voting and identity theft. Texas conservative-leaning state legislature has criticized so-called sanctuary cities like New York City and Los Angeles for refusing to hand over the names of undocumented citizens to federal immigration officials.

Rawlings, a Democrat, said would he work with theDepartment of Homeland Securityto ensure that anyone received the IDs would comply with federal and state laws.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the paperwork required for people to sign up for the IDNYC program wouldn't be given to the federal government to prevent any of its residents from getting deported. It was not immediately clear whether Dallas' program would disclose the names of unidentified immigrants to federal immigration authorities. However, Dallas voted to become adopt sanctuary city policies last month.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area had thesixth largest Hispanic population in the county in 2012, with more than 1.7 million Hispanics. There were roughly 6.3 million Hispanics living across the U.S., NBC News reported in 2012. There were approximately 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2014, making up3.5 percentof the U.S. population, the Pew Research Centerreportedin November. Among those, roughly 52 percentwere Mexican.

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Immigration Reform 2017: ID Cards For Undocumented Immigrants Proposed In Dallas - International Business Times

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that a Maryland rape case, in which an 18-year-old with a pending immigration case is charged with assaulting a 14-year-old girl, is an example of why President Donald Trump is making illegal immigration a priority.

Henry E. Sanchez, 18, and Jose O. Montano, 17, are charged with raping the girl in a bathroom stallduring school hours at Rockville High School in the D.C. suburbs Thursday, Montgomery County police said.

They approached her in a hallway and asked her to walk with them, police said. Montano asked her for sex, and after she refused, he and Sanchez forced her into a boys' bathroom, where they both raped her and sodomized her, police said.

"Lets remember the human side of this, that this is a tragic event that no child, no person, no parent should ever have to deal with," Spicer said. "School should be a place where a parent puts their child on a bus or drops them off or sees them off and knows that theyre safe."

According to court documents, Sanchez, who admitted to having sex with the victim, has had an immigration case pending since August.

According to court records, Montano, who was charged as an adult, was born in El Salvador, where he lived for 16 years, the Associated Press reported. ICE officials would not discuss Montano's immigration status because he is a juvenile.

"I think part of the reason that the president has made illegal immigration and crackdown such a big deal is because of tragedies like this," Spicer said. "We act so many times when we talk about this and say why is the president dealing with this, because of this priority. Well, part of the reason is because of the tragedy that this young girl dealt with, had inflicted upon her, whatever the word is, but this is why he is passionate about this."

This horrible incident shouldnt change anyones minds that those schools are safe for our students, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Smith said.

He pledged he wont allow the assault to become a political issue and denounced comments he has seen since the attack.

While some would try to make this into a question and an issue of immigration, what comes down here is that we serve every student that walks in our door, he said. We are a public school system.

Spicer also questioned the age of the suspects, who have been called ninth graders.

"I think he was 17 or 18 years old," Spicer said. "How does that person get put into the ninth grade?"

Smith explained they entered the school system in the fall with no credits, which technically makes them freshmen despite their ages. The victim is in the ninth grade.

Spicer said crime is just one aspect of immigration policy.

"People are victims of these crimes and theyre victims of the economic piece of it; theres a national security peg, but immigration pays its toll on our people if its not done legally and this is another example," he said.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan also commented on the crime Tuesday.

"I am outraged by the brutal and violent rape of a 14 year old girl in a Rockville public school. Our prayers are with her," Hogan posted in a Facebook statement Tuesday. "The State of Maryland is calling on Montgomery County to immediately and fully cooperate with all federal authorities during the investigation of this heinous crime. The public has a right to know how something this tragic and unacceptable was allowed to transpire in a public school."

Hogan accused the school system of withholding information from the Maryland State Board of Education about the rape and the students involved.

Montgomery County government and the Montgomery County police are cooperating and the school system is not and it appears as if they have something to hide, he said.

Smith said all the information they have about the case as of Tuesday afternoon was sent to the state board.

A spokesman for Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett said his administration is cooperating.

We want to get bad eggs out of our county, basically, but we dont want our county police enforcing immigration law, but in this case I think everybody can agree that if these folks are convicted that we dont want them in our county, Patrick Lacefield said.

Investigators arrested Montano and Sanchez on school property. They are charged with first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sexual assault.

"These are very serious allegations carrying a life sentence," Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office spokesman Ramon Korionoff said last week. "The potential of life in prison would be available as we prosecute these individuals."

Both suspects were ordered held without bond.

Montano is charged as an adult. However, a court-appointed attorney wants him moved to a juvenile facility. He is due in court March 31.

Sanchez will be back in court April 14.

Montgomery County Public Schools records show 27 high school sexual assaults or sexual incidents requiring police response in the previous school year, the News4 I-Team reported, including at least one incident at Rockville High School.

In 2014-2015, the school district reported 14 sex-related incidents requiring police response at county high schools.

In April 2014, MCPS told the I-Team it installed mirrors and cameras to reduce blind spots in some hallways of another high school in Rockville after a consensual sexual encounter wasn't noticed by staff or administrators.

Police described the bathroom where the rape occurred as being in a remote area of the school and said the rape took place early in the morning.

In a Freedom of Information Act request from 2015, the school district reported to the I-Team that it had 5,000 security cameras district-wide.

Smith said Tuesday the district will review all safety procedures in response to the rape.

Published at 1:08 PM PDT on Mar 21, 2017 | Updated at 7:36 AM PDT on Mar 22, 2017

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Spicer Cites Rape Case in Push for Immigration Reform - NBC Bay Area

The U.S. border has been thrown into the spotlight these last few months, with border agents detaining travelers for hours, demanding travelers unlock devices, and even demanding passwords and social media handles as a prerequisite for certain travelers entering the country. As the U.S. government issues a dizzying array of new rules and regulations, people in the U.S. and abroad are asking: are there meaningful constitutional limits on the ability of border agents to seize and search the data on your electronic devices and in the cloud?

The answer is: Yes. As well explain in a series of posts on the Bill of Rights at the border and discuss in detail in our border search guide, border agents and their activities are not exempt from constitutional scrutiny.

In this first post, well focus on the First Amendment.

The First Amendment is meant to safeguard five fundamental rights: speech, assembly, religion, press, and petition to the government for redress of grievances. The First Amendment also protects the right to exercise these basic rights anonymously because, as Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote:

But when border agents scrutinize the massive volume of sensitive information in our digital devices or in the cloud, they infringe on First Amendment rights in at least four distinct ways.

Border searches of our digital devices and cloud data thus implicate core free speech rights. Therefore, border agents should at least be required to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before any such search of our private digital information.

Indeed, the First Amendment requires even more. For example, when police officers demand purchasing records from booksellers (implicating the right to access information anonymously), the First Amendment requires not only probable cause, but a compelling need, the exhaustion of less restrictive investigative methods, and a substantial nexus between the information sought and the investigation. Given that a digital device search is far more invasive upon First Amendment rights than disclosure of what books a person buys at a single bookseller, border agents should be required to do the same.

And the government should take special care with respect to journalists. The Privacy Protection Act prohibits the government from searching or seizing a journalists materials without probable cause that the journalist has committed a crime. While the statute exempts border searches for the purpose of enforcing the customs laws, it does not exempt border searches for other purposes, such as a criminal investigation.

Unfortunately, so far, courts have refused to recognize the free speech implications of digital border searches. But we hope and expect that will change as courts are forced to weigh the increasing amount of sensitive information easily accessible on our devices and in the cloud, and the increasing frequency and scope of border searches of this information.

Without First Amendment protections at the border, the threat of self-censorship looms large. Travelers faced with the risk of border agent intrusion into such sensitive data are more prone to self-censorship when expressing themselves, when considering private membership in political groups, or when deciding whether to access certain reading or media material. This is especially true for people who belong to unpopular groups, who espouse unpopular opinions, or who read unpopular books or view unpopular movies.

Likewise, confidential sources that provide invaluable information to the public about government or corporate malfeasance may refrain from whistleblowing if they fear journalists cannot protect their identities during border crossings. This is why EFF is calling for stronger Constitutional protection of your digital information and urging people to contact Congress on this issue today.

Were also collecting stories of border search abuses at: borders@eff.org

The good news is theres a lot you can do at the border to protect your digital privacy. Take the time to review our pocket guides on Knowing Your Rights and Protecting your Digital Data at the border. And for a deeper dive into these issues, take a look at our Border Search Guide on protecting the data on your devices and in the cloud.

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The Bill of Rights at The Border: The First Amendment and the Right ... - EFF

We are in an unprecedented era when it comes to the First Amendment and what happens in the next few years could decide the limits of our right to free speech for generations to come. Part of what makes this time feel so foreign is the amount of outlets people now have access to for exercising free speech. The internet has given rise to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, where open public discourse can happen easily and frequently. And nobody has taken advantage of the power of social media more than President Donald Trump through his infamous Twitter account. But this era is also unprecedented because of the unique way in which President Trump has tried to suppress the press so early in his presidency.

The President has a very strained relationship with the truth and has shown his capacity to use his influence by branding media outlets who dont align with his reality as Fake News. President Trump has even called what is known as the mainstream media the enemy of the American people. Breitbart a heavily right-winged outlet whose wanton reports more often than not instigate the Presidents Twitter tirades is getting preferential treatment over outlets like CNN. Both conservatives and liberals have agreed that the Presidents suppression of the media is troubling. Former President George W. Bush recently said that the media is indispensable to democracy and necessary for holding people in power accountable.

While the Loyolan is a university publication, we are responsible for truly expressing our First Amendment rights. In the world of today, the press is an easy target. If someone doesnt like something written about them, they blame the media for their image rather than themselves. As a college paper, it is our duty to ensure that the First Amendment remains vital to the people, calling attention to wrongs that the people cannot fight themselves. It is our job to make the world more transparent and try to keep the government honest in this age of confusion.

We at the Loyolan are not the only journalists who have cause for concern. In light of the current political climate and President Trumps clashing relationship with the media, the Washington Post updated its slogan in Feb. to Democracy Dies in Darkness. True though that slogan may be, we maintain that the Loyolan is Your Home. Your Voice. Your News. Especially in this nation where our president is constantly trying to shut out and shut down the press, it is crucial that people in positions of power, like Trump, understand that at the end of the day, we are just that, Your Voice.

This week marks the Loyolans annual First Amendment Week. However, this doesnt necessarily imply a celebration. While the current administration is trying to strip our freedoms from us, we must use events like these to open a discussion within the community so that we can all reach a common understanding of what the role of the media is.

Americas freedom of the press serves as a pillar to the First Amendment. In regards to the media and journalism in the face of the Trump administration, Oscar Wilde once said, In America, the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever. With this in mind, take this week to reflect on the importance of our First Amendment rights and how pertinent freedom of the press is to our democracy here in the U.S.

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Board Editorial: What will happen to the First Amendment? - Los Angeles Loyolan (subscription)