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KRGV the ABC affiliate in Texas Rio Grande Valley (RGV) reported recently that the morgues in Maverick County, Texas, are running out of space due to the number of migrants found dead on the Rio Grande at a rate of one body per day. Two weeks later, Fox News reported that the Biden administration has awarded $41 million in taxpayer-backed government contracts to a new liberal nonprofit working to help illegal immigrants fight deportation amid the escalating border crisis. Theres a lot tying those grants and the administrations border policies generally to the morgues of Maverick County.

Refrigerated Trailers to Handle the Dead. Eagle Pass is the county seat of Maverick County, and KRGV quoted the towns fire chief, Manuel Melo III, who explained his jurisdiction is recovering one migrant found dead daily, approximately 30 a month, although he admitted: There were some days where we did recover six bodies.

There is a lot in that one statement. First, if you have never been there, Maverick County at 1,287 square miles is big (about 20 percent larger than Rhode Island), but with a population of just over 58,000, is also sparsely populated. Nearly half of the countys residents live in Eagle Pass, itself largely just a dusty outpost on the ride from Laredo to Del Rio.

Its no wonder that, at a rate of one body per day, the local morgues (capacity: fewer than eight) are overwhelmed. As KRGV reports:

In a scene eerily similar to the height of the pandemic, the dead are being stored in refrigerated trucks. The county is also currently borrowing a refrigerated trailer from Eagle Pass with the capacity to store up to 30 bodies.

Jeannie Smith, a Maverick County justice of the peace for Precinct 3-2, explains that the recovery and disposition of the corpses is causing a strain on the county (likely an understatement), while according to KRGV, the local medical examiner is not surprisingly facing a backlog in cases.

Open Borders and the Untold Dangers of Illegal Migration. Second, and most importantly, each of the dead was a human being with a family, hopes, plans, a life. They showed up at the Southwest border to enter illegally because their hopes and plans were to continue that life in this country.

And why wouldnt they? Ever since Joe Biden was sworn in as president, and administration assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, the U.S. border hasnt just been open, its been nonexistent for all intents and purposes.

In fact, Bidens DHS Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has admitted that the administrations objective is not to sharply reduce the total number of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border, but rather to make sure that we have safe, orderly, and legal pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system once they have entered. I will get back to that point below.

While the administration can spend tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to provide transportation, food, and shelter for illegal entrants once they are on this side of the border, there is little to nothing it can do to make the trip to our Southwest border any safer.

That is the nature of the illicit trek north, particularly given the fact that the journey is largely stage-managed by rapacious (in the truest sense of the word) smugglers and criminal cartels on the other side.

Many would argue that migrants understand and accept the risks before setting out from their home countries, but I seriously doubt that is true. What kind of parents would knowingly expose themselves and their children to rape, robbery, kidnap, and extortion, let alone dangerous and terrifying crossings in remote desert areas, across rivers, over fences, and through razor wire, if they understood those dangers ahead of time?

As I explained back in 2018, there was a time (under the Obama administration) that outlets as diverse as NPR and National Geographic reported on those dangers, likely because they were taking their lead from the White House. When was the last time that you heard President Biden, Vice President Harris, or any other administration official talk about the hellish journey to illegally enter the United States?

Why the silence since? I can offer a couple of opinions, one of which is that migrant deaths to say nothing of rapes, robberies, and assaults paint the administrations border policies in a bad light. That said, it is undeniably true as my colleague Mark Krikorian explained a year ago that such policies create an attractive nuisance to the illegal migrants coming to take advantage of them.

Attractive Nuisance Doctrine. Attractive nuisance is a tort doctrine, generally defined as a dangerous condition on a landowner's property that may particularly attract children onto the land and pose a risk to their safety. Think unfenced pools and ladders left propped against houses.

Most of those illegal entrants are not children (though more than a hundred thousand under Biden have been), but as Krikorian explained, consistent with that doctrine, if you dont put a fence around your country, and migrants suffer harm trying to get in, your government is liable.

Not only has the Biden administration drawn illegal migrants to enter at their peril by increasingly facilitating their indefinite presence in this country once they make it to this side of the line, but also by providing them with food, shelter, and transportation here. Which brings me to the $41 million in grants to provide them with lawyers in the United States.

Immigration violations can be both criminal and civil offenses. Illegal entry is a misdemeanor as a first offense carrying a maximum sentence of six months, and consequently a charge for that crime does not trigger a constitutional right to counsel. Not that the administration is prosecuting many illegal entrants anyway.

Illegal entry is also a civil violation, which renders the offender removable from the United States. Although section 292 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides that aliens in removal proceedings shall have the privilege of being represented, that provision is clear that any such representation shall be at no expense to the Government.

How, then, is the Biden administration providing grants to provide lawyers to aliens facing removal? Good question.

As I explained in July, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA) directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure, to the greatest extent practicable that all unaccompanied alien children [UACs] apprehended by DHS have counsel to represent them in legal proceedings or matters and protect them from mistreatment, exploitation, and trafficking.

Similar language appeared in the Homeland Security Act (HSA), as well. That said, both the HSA and TVPRA make clear that the provision of such counsel for UACs must be consistent with section 292 of the INA which, as noted, provides for representation, but not at government expense.

Despite this fact, the HHS FY 2022 funding bill provided $300 million for legal services, post-release services, and child advocates for UACs. Whether the $41 million in grants for lawyers to which Fox News refers is part of that funding is unclear from its reporting.

That said, it should not be the policy of the United States government to encourage aliens to enter the United States illegally at their peril, and that is particularly true when it comes to children. But that is exactly what funding schemes of the sort to which Fox News refers do they provide incentives, in the form of paid counsel, drawing aliens to risk life, safety, and dignity to enter illegally.

Not only does such funding provide incentives to would-be migrants, but it also sends out a message to the world that the United States is not serious about enforcing its laws or its borders. Thats even though, as former President Obama explained last September, [W]e're a nation state. We have borders. The idea that we can just have open borders is something that ... as a practical matter, is unsustainable.

Through the end of August, Border Patrol agents have engaged in nearly 20,500 searches and rescues at the Southwest border in FY 2022, more than four times the total during the border emergency in FY 2019. Why are so many aliens risking their lives and the lives of those agents? The Biden administration isnt trying to stop them from coming and, worse, is providing them incentives once they get here. Thats what ties the presidents border policies to the overwhelmed morgues of Maverick County, Texas.

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Paid Counsel for Illegal Aliens Fills the Morgues of Maverick County - Immigration Blog

The remaining migrants who landed on Marthas Vineyard last month and were temporarily housed at Joint Base Cape Cod have left, the Baker administration said Friday.

A group of 35 primarily Venezuelan migrants was housed at the base in Buzzards Bay as of Tuesday, while another 14 had already left. State officials said then that they planned to transition the remaining individuals to long-term housing with the help of case managers.

A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said Friday that the sheltering operation at the base is over, with all individuals transitioning into alternative housing or leaving the Commonwealth for opportunities in other states.

The administration is grateful for the collaborative efforts between several state agencies and non-profit providers to ensure each individual received necessary humanitarian resources and access to new housing options, the spokesperson said in a statement.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis organized flights for the migrants to Marthas Vineyard from San Antonio, Texas, a move that has triggered a federal lawsuit, renewed a contentious debate around federal immigration policies, and drawn sharp pushback from both Florida and Massachusetts Democrats.

They landed to the surprise of residents on the island, though locals quickly provided immediate shelter, food, medical services, and eventually, legal assistance. State officials transitioned the group to Joint Base Cape Cod several days after their arrival.

The migrants arrival came as other Republican governors shipped immigrants who crossed the United States border into a southern community to Democratic-led cities or states in the north. The decision to transport the migrants, some of those governors have said, is intended to highlight immigration issues in the south.

But it has drawn the ire of many elected officials, including a swath of politicians in Massachusetts, who say Republicans like DeSantis are using vulnerable humans to score political points.

The lawsuit, filed by Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, alleges a group of five unnamed defendants allegedly rounded up the migrants outside a resource center in San Antonio with the promise of employment and assistance in Massachusetts.

But it was not until they were on the plane, according to the lawsuit, that the migrants were informed that Marthas Vineyard was their destination, not Boston or New York as some said they had been told.

Some of the migrants identified two of the unnamed defendants as Perla and Emanuel. And media reports have named Perla as Perla Huerta, a former counterintelligence official and combat medic.

Bexar County Sheriffs Office in San Antonio is also reportedly investigating Huerta, and attorneys with Lawyers for Civil Rights say they are working to confirm Huerta is the same person as Perla before updating the identity in their lawsuit.

LCR Executive Director Ivn Espinoza-Madrigal said Perla played an integral on-the-ground recruiting role in DeSantis scheme, inducing migrants in San Antonio to fly with false promises of employment, education, and housing.

Once we have verified this information, we plan to amend our complaint to substitute Perlas true name for Doe Defendant #1. She will then be formally served with the complaint and required to respond in federal district court, he said in a statement.

A DeSantis spokesperson previously said the lawsuit is activists using illegal immigrants for political theater.

If these activists spent even a fraction of this time and effort at the border, perhaps some accountability would be brought to the Biden administrations reckless border policies that entice illegal immigrants to make dangerous and often lethal journeys through Central America and put their lives in the hands of cartels and coyotes, the spokesperson said.

Continued here:
Migrants leave Joint Base Cape Cod after landing in Mass. last month - MassLive.com

Another Republican who stood up to Donald Trump is on his way out of Congress, with the news that the Nebraska senator Ben Sasse is set to become president of the University of Florida.

Of the 10 House Republicans and seven senators who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, for inciting the January 6 Capitol attack, only two congressmen and four senators are on course to return after the midterm elections.

High-profile casualties include Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the House January 6 committee vice-chair who lost her primary to a Trump-backed challenger in August.

Like Cheney, Sasse, 50, has been thought a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination, a notional 2024 contest still dominated by Trump.

The senator does not have to face voters again until 2026. But on Thursday Rahul Patel, a member of the University of Florida board of trustees, told the Tampa Bay Times the college needed a visionary, an innovator and big thinker who would differentiate us from others a leader who is transformational. The committee unanimously felt Ben Sasse is a transformational leader.

Sasse decried Washington partisanship and called Florida the most interesting university in America right now.

A university president before he entered politics, at Midland in Nebraska, Sasse will in November be the sole candidate interviewed for the Florida position.

If he resigns as a senator, the Nebraska governor the Republican Pete Ricketts, or a likely Republican successor if Sasse resigns in January will appoint a replacement.

NBC News reported that Sasses move was the result of Republican rivalries. Quoting a top Republican insider, the outlet said the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, was behind the move, which was meant as one in the eye for Trump.

Marc Caputo, a reporter, wrote: In May, Trump said he regretted supporting Ben Sasse. Now, DeSantiss man at UF has engineered Sasses hiring. Everyone knows what this is about: Ron and Don, a top Republican insider tells me, echoing others.

As the only Republican who polls even close to Trump, DeSantis is widely thought to be planning a presidential run of his own.

Ricketts, the Nebraska governor, is from the family behind the stockbroker TD Ameritrade and a former co-owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He made headlines in June 2020, amid national protests for racial justice, when he apologised for calling Black leaders you people.

The Ricketts family has ties to DeSantis. On Friday, in messages viewed by the Guardian, a Trump insider said the Sasse move was about Ricketts money to DeSantis. This is what Pete wanted so he can appoint himself to the Senate.

In a statement, Ricketts said he learned about Sasses planned resignation on Thursday, when he called to notify me.

He added: If I choose to pursue the appointment, I will leave the appointment decision to the next governor and will follow the process established for all interested candidates. It is the honor of a lifetime to serve as the governor of Nebraska. It is the greatest job in the world, and it will remain my number one focus for the remainder of my term.

Sasse was elected to the Senate in 2014 and emerged as a critic of Trump and his effect on US politics when the billionaire ran for the White House two years later. Sasse called Trump a megalomaniac strongman and said he would not vote for him or his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Sasses wife, Melissa, said her husband had a need for competition. Also hes an idiot.

From 2017 to 2021, Sasse voted with Trump more than 85% of the time. He voted to acquit in Trumps first impeachment trial, for blackmailing Ukraine for political dirt.

Nevertheless, in November 2020 Sasse claimed: Ive never been on the Trump train.

In February 2021, Sasse said he voted to convict Trump over the Capitol attack because he had promised to speak out when a president even of my own party exceeds his or her powers. Such words earned him his share of Trumpian abuse, including a nickname, Liddle Ben Sasse.

In 2018, Sasse wrote a book, Them, in which he lamented political polarisation. He wrote: We are in a period of unprecedented upheaval. Community is collapsing, anxiety is building, and were distracting ourselves with artificial political hatreds. That cant endure. And if it does, America wont.

On Thursday, the Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin had a suggestion for what Sasse might do next.

Why not join Liz Cheney to campaign against GOP election liars/deniers. It might even impress his new employers. Otherwise his Senate career has been a total nothing burger.

Read more:
Ben Sasse, Republican who voted to convict Trump, to depart Congress - The Guardian US

Company bosses who employ illegal migrants face tougher penalties under plans by Suella Braverman to deter Channel crossings.

The Home Secretary has been stung by French claims that migrants are crossing the Channel because they see Britain as a soft touch where it is easy for illegal migrants to get work in the black economy. Studies have suggested there are as many as 1.2 million unauthorised immigrants in the UK.

She is considering whether tougher fines and longer jail sentences are needed to penalise employers and illegal workers. Company bosses who take on illegal migrants can be jailed for up to five years and pay an unlimited fine under current laws.

She also wants stronger enforcement of the current regulation, after she discovered the number fines being issued for breaches have slumped - just as the number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel has hit a record high of 33,000 so far this year.

Internal data show the number of fines fell from 837 - worth 13.8 million in the first three months of 2016 - to just 152, worth 2.5 million, in the first quarter of this year.

Ms Braverman signalled her intent at this weeks Tory conference, when she pledged to redouble our efforts to go after rule-breaking employers and stamp out illegal working practices.

It is widely believed in France that the reason people come to the UK is that it is easy to work illegally, said a source.

It is not clear whether we are any better or worse than France, but that is their belief.

It is possibly the belief of a lot of illegal migrants. It is very difficult to judge what makes up the pull factors.

The tougher rules come alongside plans for new legislation, due after Christmas, that will bar anyone who arrives in the UK illegally from the right to claim citizenship or to settle in the UK.

The new law will also aim to sweep away obstacles to sending illegal migrants to Rwanda. This will include measures, previously set out in the abandoned Bill of Rights, to stop the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from blocking UK immigration measures.

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Stiff penalties for firms that employ illegal migrants as UK seeks to lose 'soft touch' reputation - The Telegraph

I think that silent group of people is going to have an effect on this election, said Klinefelt, who is running in one of Michigans most hotly contested state legislative races.

Democrats are counting on those silent women voters to join them in Michigan and other battleground states across the country, where abortion has scrambled the calculus on how they may vote this fall. The campaigns in Michigan show Democrats are not just leaning on abortion policy to juice turnout amongst the partys base, especially the large portion of it composed of college-educated women. Abortion is also a key part of the effort to persuade blue-collar women to switch sides, particularly in states where their Republican counterparts advocate a no exceptions approach to abortion access.

What were seeing is that women are outraged that rights that we thought were locked in are now very much at risk of being gone, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in an interview with POLITICO after rallying voters in Trenton, Mich. The fact that so many people appear to be getting engaged on this issue, I think, is a good sign.

Back at the doors, Klinefelt met a 44-year-old Eastpointe woman who declined to share her name but exemplified Klinefelts search for swing voters motivated by abortion. Ive always been pro-life, the woman said. But in realizing how many [abortions] are medically necessary, but then theres no exceptions? Thats big for me.

The woman said she plans to vote for Whitmer this fall because shes much better than the alternative, and abortion, truthfully, weighed heavily on that decision.

Even some Republicans in the state privately acknowledge that they need to do some soul-searching to get in line with the people on abortion policy, said one Michigan Republican consultant, who was granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly.

People are not on the side of late-term or abortions without parental consent, and theyre [also] not on the side of no exceptions, the person continued. Dobbs has thrown a monkey wrench into what should be a great year for us here and the no exceptions thing is the killer.

Abortion-rights protesters cheer at a rally in Lansing, Mich. on June 24, 2022, following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.|Paul Sancya/AP Photo

Nationally, the picture is more complicated for Democrats looking to draw in white, non-college-educated women, especially in places where the debate around abortion is more nuanced, several GOP pollsters said. They also point to public and private polling that consistently finds economic concerns outweighing abortion for these voters.

Even so, [Dobbs] has given Democrats a second look with them, said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who works on elections across the country.

Its given them another shot, a foothold, which they wouldnt have otherwise, Newhouse continued. Is it enough? No. Are [Democrats] still going to lose the House? Yes. But is it enough to make it closer than it wouldve been? No question about it.

Both national and in-state Republicans argue a big part of the problem in Michigan is that Democrats barrage of attacks on abortion has gone unanswered. Dixons campaign has failed to air a single TV ad since she won the August primary, according to AdImpact, an ad-tracking media firm. In contrast, Whitmers campaign and Democratic allies have dumped millions into TV ads, primarily hammering Dixon on her comments about abortion and the states 1931 law that would criminalize abortion and put nurses in jail just for doing their job, one TV ads narrator says.

Some help is on the way for Dixon. The Republican Governors Association has reserved $4 million of TV ads over the final four weeks of the campaign, while a pro-Dixon group, Michigan Families United, has spent about $1.3 million on attacking Whitmer for pushing sex and gender theory in schools, the ads narrator says.

As ads take hold, things are going to change tremendously, said James Blair, Dixons chief strategist. Democrats went too hard, too heavy, too early. The election will still be a referendum on Whitmers failures and the state of the economy whether she likes it or not.

Republicans insist that blue-collar women will still vote primarily on pocketbook problems. Gas prices ticked up again this week, and cost of living continues to rank as the top one or two issues for women voters, according to public and private polling.

But there is evidence that a post-Dobbs bump is manifesting for Democrats, as Whitmer maintains a hefty public polling lead and voter registration swung towards women and younger voters, according to an analysis by Tom Bonier, the chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm.

Richard Czuba, an independent pollster in the state who regularly conducts statewide polls for local news outlets, said that based on his data, once abortion is the focus in a race, statewide or in the legislature, those non-college women move away from the Republican coalition, which is a huge loss to them.

Every time Tudor is frustrated that all Whitmer talks about is abortion well, yeah, youre getting your head handed to you on this issue and they have no response, Czuba continued. This decision came out in June, but they still have no coherent response or strategy to deal with it.

Dixon vented that frustration at a recent rally with former President Donald Trump in Warren, Mich., another town in Macomb County. The candidate told rally-goers that Whitmer is out there saying that Im going to be able to do something about that issue in this state, but as you all know, its on the ballot, its been decided by a judge, dont let her shiny thing distract from the fact that she has done nothing but hurt this state.

Tudor Dixon addresses the crowd during a Save America rally on Oct. 1, 2022 in Warren, Mich.|Emily Elconin/Getty Images

Dixon is citing a statewide ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the Michigan state constitution one of a few measures that will appear on November ballots this fall following success for abortion-rights supporters in a Kansas ballot measure in August.

To reporters, Dixon reiterated that abortion shouldnt be an issue for the gubernatorial race, but [Whitmer] hasnt come out with a plan, so shes trying to run against me on that, she said.

She also argued that the ballot initiative was the most radical abortion law in the entire country, so I expect to have quite a few people coming out that maybe, historically, would not have come out.

Whitmer, for her part, called Dixons argument ridiculous.

Even if the ballot initiative passes, the next governor and legislature can start enacting all sorts of laws that make it more difficult, more confusing and are going to stand in the way of women being able to exercise this fundamental right, Whitmer said. Voters are smart. They know when someone tells you who they are, you better believe them, or you might all of a sudden be losing your rights.

Democrats acknowledged the framing matters as they run on abortion, including trying to put the issue in economic terms.

Its the most important economic decision a woman makes in her lifetime, Whitmer said, noting that sometimes Democrats dont engage in [that messaging frame] as much as we probably should.

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a Democrat who represents a slice of neighboring Oakland County, reinforced Whitmers point.

Heres what pollsters are missing and its not a surprise that a lot of them are men: For women, this is the most expensive decision theyll make in their lifetime. If youre a woman, youre buying groceries, thats another mouth to feed, its more gas to pay for another trip to a school, McMorrow said. If youre talking to women, yes, inflation is the top concern, but theyre also thinking about that in the context of access to an abortion.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report incorrectly described the Kansas ballot measure vote on abortion rights earlier this year.

Continue reading here:
Republican support from this key voting group is in jeopardy. Abortion is to blame. - POLITICO