Mediaboss Marketing

By Bethany BlankleyThe Center Squarehttps://www.thecentersquare.com/

Gov. Greg Abbott is launching the Joint Border Security Operations Center to oversee a 15-agency effort to thwart illegal immigration funded by Texas taxpayers.

Texas shares the largest border with Mexico of 1,254 miles and is bearing the brunt of the surge illegal immigration. Last year, the state legislature allocated $4 billion for border security efforts, Abbott launched Operation Lone Star and Texas began building its own wall.

The command center will oversee these efforts on a larger agency-wide scale. It was launched on Friday in anticipation of a deluge of illegal immigrants expected to flood the southern border on Monday. The CDC has designated Monday as the day to lift Title 42, the public health authority that enables federal agents to quickly deport illegal immigrants.

However, also on Friday, a federal judge halted the administrations plan, keeping Title 42 in place.

Another federal court announced today what we have known all along: President Biden is ignoring federal law with his open border policies," Abbott said after Friday's ruling. "While todays court ruling rejecting President Bidens ending of Title 42 expulsions is a positive development, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants remain at our southern border ready to flood into Texas.

Texas will continue utilizing all available resources and strategies to prevent this mass illegal migration, including the deployment of Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard resources, the coordination with Mexican border governors, and the activation of the Joint Border Security Operations Center. We remain vigilant in fighting the lifting of Title 42 expulsions.

Last month, the attorneys general of Arizona, Louisiana and Missouri sued, asking a federal court in Louisiana to halt the administrations plan; days later more states joined as plaintiffs. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also filed a separate lawsuit in federal court in Texas.

Of the courts ruling, Paxton said, Once again, the courts rule against Joe Bidens lawless agenda. Title 42 is one of the last remaining protections we have from a deluge of illegals coming across our border. I am glad for our state and our nation that It will remain in place.

JBSOC, based at the Texas Department of Public Safetys headquarters in Austin, will coordinate the efforts of 15 agencies, led by the Texas Military Department, DPS and Texas Department of Emergency Management. It will provide 24-7 situational awareness by overseeing intelligence and tactical, marine, air, and ground operations, coordinating live feeds from Texas National Guard and DPS aircraft, UAVs, and detection cameras, and remaining in direct contact with law enforcement on the ground at the border.

"Texas will not stand by as President Biden puts our state and our nation in danger by allowing dangerous criminals, illegal weapons, and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flow unabated into the United States, and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis at our southern border," Gov. Abbott said.

Abbott also recently entered into agreements with four Mexican governors who pledged to work with Texas to combat illegal immigration, the first governor to do so in U.S. history.

Despite the historic agreements, more people are entering Texas illegally through these Mexican states. Shortly after the agreements were reached, one member of the Texas National Guard drowned attempting to save drug smugglers. His death, and the thousands of illegal immigrants pouring into Texas, suggest the agreements are more symbolic than they are effective, critics argue.

On Friday, Abbott said, "We continue taking unprecedented action to secure the border, ramping up every available strategy and resource in response to President Biden's ongoing border crisis, adding that JBSOC will play an integral role in our state's robust response to provide the border security strategy Texans and Americans deserve."

But several strategies exist that he hasnt yet taken, conservatives argue.

Conservatives have repeatedly called on Abbott to use his constitutional authority to protect Texas sovereignty and declare whats happening at the border an invasion, to shut down ports of entry, and to take other military measures, which he hasnt yet done. Theyve also called on Paxton to issue a legal opinion on the matter, which he hasnt done. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is the only one to issue such an historic opinion.

Even with Title 42 in place, due to the Biden administrations widespread reversal of immigration laws, more than 234,000 people were encountered entering the U.S. illegally, the greatest number in a single month in recorded U.S. history.

Thats a 1,376% increase from 17,106 encounters reported in April 2020 under the Trump administration.

See the original post here:
Texas launches operations center to oversee 15-agency effort to thwart illegal immigration - The Highland County Press

Border Patrol encountered more than 234,000 illegal border crossers in April, according to a court document filed this week. It's an all-time monthly record, and speaks volumes about what the Biden administration is telegraphing to migrants and the cartels that traffic them. The border is for all intents and purposes open, and everyone is taking full advantage.

But controlling immigration is not only something that's accomplished at the border. Most of the folks crossing our southern border are coming in search of better economic opportunitiesopportunities they have no problem finding. It's supply and demand, Economics 101. And what it means is that if you want to control the flood of illegal immigrants, you need to make it costly for businesses to hire to them. End the demand, and you'll staunch the supply.

And yet, the Biden administration is doing the exact opposite. Earlier this year, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a memo that he was putting an end to workplace immigration raids. Unsurprisingly, illegal immigration began to skyrocket soon after the policy shift was announced last fall, as migrants realized that once they made it into the United States, they'd be able to work under the table with little chance of detention and deportation.

Word spread in impoverished communities around the world, and folks started making preparations to illegally migrate to the United States, where even the lowest wages and worst working conditions are often better than what's available in their home countries.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas presented the end of ICE workplace raids as compassionate. He's wrong: It's not. It will only incentivize more illegal immigration and lead to more human suffering, as unscrupulous employers realize they can abuse undocumented workers with virtual impunity.

Ending the raids effectively grants amnesty not to undocumented workers but to the most inhumane, criminal employers in the country. After all, their illegal hiring isn't a victimless crime. Honest citizens and legal immigrants get passed over for jobs that would otherwise be theirs. Wages fall. And of course, the illegal workers themselves often face appalling abuse.

It has already happened in industries like agriculture, construction, and meatpacking, and the practice will only spread as long as the government turns a blind eye.

Consider a recent example from Georgia, where a human smuggling ring trafficked 200 undocumented workers across the border to work in conditions a U.S. attorney described as "modern-day slavery." These farm workers were bartered like cattle and sexually assaulted.

Scofflaw employers have almost total control over undocumented workers, who know that any complaints about unsafe working conditions or unfair labor practices could cause their managers to summarily fire themor report them to ICE.

As a recent story in the progressive magazine The American Prospect details, contractors often stiff undocumented workers injured on their job sites, leaving them on the hook for ruinous medical bills. Particularly cruel contractors will even report their injured employees to ICE rather than provide medical care.

Moreover, by effectively ignoring illegal hiring, the government is complicit in driving down wages for blue-collar Americans. The presence of undocumented workers in the labor force suppresses the average American's wages by 5 percent, and less-skilled workers by as much as 12 percent.

Black Americans, in particular, suffer. One study showed that mass migration could be responsible for around 60 percent of the Black-white wage gap. Honest employers also lose out because they can't compete with the artificially low wages and inflated margins of their exploitive rivals.

The prospect of a raid keeps many employers at the margin honest, which in turn helps keep illegal immigration levels down. During his first week in office, President Trump signed executive orders expanding the use of workplace raids, along with other border security and immigration enforcement measures. In just a few months, illegal immigration fell 70 percent, to a 17-year low. Not coincidentally, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, workers' wages rose faster for the bottom 10 percent than the top 10 percent of American earners, and fastest of all among Blacks and Latinos.

Taking away that deterrent incentivizes employers and migrants alike to flout the law.

Just a few months after President Biden took office and reversed the Trump-era immigration policies, the southern border was overrun. 2021 saw the highest number of illegal crossings ever recorded, along with a looming humanitarian crisis. 2022 promises to be even worse, with Border Patrol prepping for 18,000 daily migrant encountersmore than double the current ratestarting later this spring.

Raids deter illegal immigration and help prevent the worst sorts of workplace abuses. Ending them helps no one except the unscrupulous companies that use de facto slave labor to pad their bottom lines.

Mark Thies, Ph.D. is an engineering professor at Clemson University whose research is focused on energy and sustainability.

The views in this article are the writer's own.

Read the original post:
Ending Workplace Immigration Enforcement, Biden Incentivizes Slavery and Abuse | Opinion - Newsweek

Readers, I have an American success story for you. Years ago, I visited Magadan, Russia, a former Joseph Stalin gulag. During my sojourn, Sergey was my interpreter. Sergey was an extremely bright lad of 17 who spoke impeccable English. His mother was an accomplished seamstress; his father a laborer whose hands were permanently contorted from a lifetime of shoveling coal at the citys main power plant.

On the second day of my tour, while visiting The Mask of Sorrow a memorial to those unjustly imprisoned Sergey asked if I could help him immigrate to America. The sincerity in his request was as evident as that Siberian winter in February, which I envisioned as his powerful incentive to seek an alternative living arrangement.

I sponsored Sergey so he could obtain a student visa he was admitted at the University where I taught. As part of the visa process, he was required to list a sponsor, prove that he or his sponsor had adequate resources so as to not be dependent on the American government, and show that he or his sponsor could cover any future medical needs.

Sergey moved in with my family and four years later, graduated with honors as the top student in his program. He then lived with my mother in Enumclaw until he obtained a job which allowed him to receive his green card. Sergey is now a United States citizen, working for the United States government, with a wife, two wonderful kids, a Range Rover and a nice home in the suburbs the American Dream!

I share this true Horatio Alger story to illustrate that Americas immigration system works for those who are willing to abide by its rules. Our immigration system is generous, allowing more foreigners to enter, stay, work and seek a pathway to citizenship than any other nation. Some claim the system is broken, but its not broken merely because everyone who wants to come to America cannot. America is not the lifeboat for an entire drowning world.

Americans do not despise fair immigration practices nor do they detest immigrants.

The Americans I know are the product of an America which has developed in its people an innate sense of fairness. What Americans do categorically reject, however, is the conundrum created by an immigration system which allows migrants to obtain more rights and rewards by doing wrong then if they had simply done whats right. Most Americans do not object to our immigration laws but instead, take offense to the manner in which our government operates our system in applying those laws. Incompetence has produced unfair, unjust, and simply wrong immigration results, has incentivized more illegal immigration and Americans are simply fed up.

For comparison, take Klaus from Moldovia. Klaus bucket list includes a visit to Cawker City, Kansas, to personally view the Worlds Largest Ball of Twine. He fills out the online visa application, DS-160, pays his fee, and is interviewed by a U.S. consulate official. During his interview, Klaus explains his Moldovian drivers license has been suspended due to drunk-driving. His visa is denied. For Klaus, theres no appeal or reimbursement of his application fee. For now, his bucket remains empty and at least for a time there is no twine in his future.

Now take, Sam, from El Salvador. Sam desires to live with Daniel, his brother, a resident of Washington state. Sam doesnt bother with a visa. Instead, Sam pays a nighttime transit tour guide to help him navigate our southern border.

Successful in his crossing, Sam resides with Dan. He obtains a drivers license by showing his Salvadorian I.D. and proof of residency and, like his brother Dan before him, obtains a fraudulent social security number in order to work. Sam obtains a job because the employer can accept at face value the validity of the false information Sam included on the IRS I-9 form.

Sam is on his way. If he is injured on the job, he is entitled to workmans compensation. He has access to emergency medical care, as no medical facility receiving federal dollars may turn away any patient and no facility in Washington state may inquire as to Sams immigration status. Moreover, despite the assorted crimes he committed in crossing our southern border and working without legal right, Sam is entitled to due process of law before he may be removed. He now has access to our courts, can claim asylum, and may even receive free legal representation from one of the many non-governmental organizations funded in part by your federal tax dollars to plead his asylum case.

If you doubt the validity of the prior example dont, for in numerous legal consults I have encountered just such a scenario under similar situations.

So, are you not troubled by the fact that Sam received more rewards from our government by doing wrong than Klaus, who tried to do things right?

Illegal immigration should not be encouraged a thought evidently lost on our government and it has not gone unnoticed by the world. Recently, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expressed that foreign nationals see President Joe Biden, As the migrant president and as a result, many feel theyre going to reach the United States. Wow!

So just what is the status of illegal immigration under Biden?

Over two million confirmed illegal border crossings in 2021 and another 389,000 undetected gotaways.

Around 836,000 migrants were released into the United States since January 2021, a number larger than the entire population of the state of North Dakota. During March 2022, under his catch and release policy, Biden released more than 80,000 border crossers into the U.S. interior a population larger than his hometown of Scranton, Pennyslvania.

This catch and release policy poses a real problem. According to its 2020 Enforcement Lifecycle Report, DHS notes that only 15 precent of migrants released under the policy will actually be deported, even after a court order of removal. In contrast, migrants detained in ICE custody will be successfully removed 98 percent of the time. One cannot remove what one cannot find and if that migrant resides in a sanctuary jurisdiction like Seattle, good luck and godspeed in trying to enforce the removal order.

This policy has gotten so out of hand that Federal Court Judge T. Kent Wetherell for the Northern District of Florida recently held that the Biden administration has adopted and are implementing policies that contravene explicit mandates and restrictions in the immigration statutes and that the policies have effectively turned the southern border into little more than a speedbump for the hundreds of thousands of aliens who have flooded across the border into the country since January 2021

Moreover, despite this migrant wave, Biden further proposes removing Title 42 Public Health Authority Restrictions which currently allows for immediate removal of migrants caught at the border. If Biden is successful, its estimated another 18,000 illegal aliens could be released into the United States interior each and every day.

In addition to catch and release, your government provides migrants free cell phones and further proposes transferring doctors and nurses from the Veterans Healthcare System to the southern border to treat them. Last year alone, Americans subsidized medical care for migrants to the tune of $18.5 billion including more than $316 million in medical care for those actually detained in (ICE) custody.

Add to that amount the additional costs of free transportation, including flights to the hinterland. Free air travel and bussing has gotten so prevalent that sources within the DHS remark that they are acting as a full service travel agency for migrants all thanks to Bidens policies.

Is it any wonder why migrants would attempt the dangerous border crossing when our government provides free phones, travel, allows them to legally drive, access free medical care, and grants unimpeded freedom within the confines of America until their asylum case is heard which by the way may be years down the road due to the sheer number of such claims being brought?

Then again, as with our government, you too can ignore the fact that almost 90 percent of all asylum claims are denied because economic hardship is not grounds for asylum, but by then the proverbial cat is no longer in the bag. Its a bit hard to enforce a removal order when ICE can no longer locate the party for whom the claim was brought.

All of this mass of humanity is not invisible. Congressman Tom McClintock recently asked DHS how packing classrooms with non-English speaking students, flooding emergency rooms with migrants demanding care, making it harder to deport criminal illegal aliens, and flooding the labor market with cheap foreign labor benefitted Americans.

The silence was deafening.

Some advocate for open borders. For those who believe that everyone has a right to enter America, why not do as I did and sponsor a foreign national? At least you will not be writing checks that the rest of America has to cash.

Read the rest here:
Illegal immigrants are a burden on our public resources | The Smartest Man in the Room | Courier-Herald - Enumclaw Courier-Herald

Thomas L. Knapp| Palm Beach Post

On May 10, Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy & Technology released a report "American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century" which you should find disturbing but shouldn't find surprising.

The part you should find disturbing: "ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has created a surveillance infrastructure that enables it to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time. In its efforts to arrest and deport, ICE has without any judicial, legislative or public oversight reached into datasets containing personal information about the vast majority of people living in the U.S."

In responding to the report, a number of commentators pronounce themselves shocked shocked! that a federal agency which the U.S. Constitution says can't be allowed to exist would do things the U.S. Constitution says it can't be allowed to do.

According to Article I, Section 9; Article V; and Amendment 10, the federal government has no legitimate power to regulate immigration. Zero. ICE has no lawful function whatsoever. It's just a bunch of guys with guns, running around harassing, abducting, and sometimes murdering, travelers.

Also according to the U.S. Constitution,Amendment 4, the government isn't allowed to conduct unreasonable searches and seizures of our "persons, houses, papers, and effects." The ICE "data dragnet" is the very definition of such unreasonable searches and seizures.

Your data and information are yours, not theirs, and absent very specific ("particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized") warrants issued on the basis of probable cause to believe you've committed a crime, ICE (even if it could legally exist) would have no business rummaging through that information even if doing so entailed the off chance it might catch a criminal, which it doesn't (immigration is not a crime -- see above).

But why on earth would anyone be surprised that a criminal organization like ICE would commit, you know, crimes like searching your stuff without a warrant?

Tolerating the very existence of a criminal organization like ICE naturally encourages it to constantly pursue, and frequently escalate, its criminal activities.

The solution to such problems is not "judicial, legislative or public oversight."

The solution to such problems is disbanding criminal organizations like ICE and obeying the Supreme Law of the Land, under which there's no such thing as an "illegal immigrant."

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism in north central Florida.

Continue reading here:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is an illegal agency - Palm Beach Post

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

A Texas woman faces federal charges after allegedly driving an 18-wheeler packed with illegal immigrants that broke down on a highway in Ganado, Texas, last week.

Police have identified the woman as Codi Denise Hartman. A Texas Department of Public Safety state trooper discovered Hartman's disabled vehicle, which was slightly open around 7 a.m. Thursday on Highway 59 and County Road 202.

When Trooper Alvarez stopped to assist Hartman, he first noticed four to five people walking around the trailer, according to court documents obtained by Fox 26 Houston. When police questioned her, she said she "she ran out of diesel" and was transporting "energy drinks."

Coli Denise Hartman faces federal charges for allegedly driving an 18-wheeler packed with illegal immigrants that broke down on a highway in Ganado, Texas. (Jackson County Jail)

IMMIGRATION HAWKS, EX-TRUMP OFFICIALS URGE GOP LEADERS TO UNITE BEHIND FLAGSHIP BILL TO END BORDER CRISIS

Hartman was then asked for cargo documents, which she said must be in the cab. Alvarez noticed several people through the cracked door of the trailer and secured the door for backup. Those inside began to bang on the trailer doors, which Alvarez opened. He noticed a number of disheveled men and women.

Approximately 60-100 people began to flee on foot in different directions, while 12 of them remained on site. Sixty-five of them were detained and treated by Jackson County Medical services. They were arrested, while seven were transported to Jackson County Medical hospital for extreme dehydration.

Hartman was arrested and charged with human smuggling after it was determined 65 people illegally entered the United States by crossing the Rio Grande without being admitted or inspected. The suspects were all taken to Jackson County Jail.

FORMER IMMIGRATION JUDGE WARNS OF IMPENDING TITLE 42 BACKLOG

Under questioning, Hartman reportedly told authorities she was contacted four or five days earlier to make a five-hour trip to somewhere in Houston for $800. When she arrived at a Love's gas station in Donna, Texas, she met an unidentified woman in the passenger seat. The woman took a picture of her driver's license before they began to drive and threatened Hartman's family if she spoke to law enforcement.

When the trailer ran out of diesel, she said, the unidentified woman began walking alongside the highway but left her phone inside the cab. Hartman told police she never opened the back of the trailer and thought there were energy drinks inside . She later gave authorities permission to search her phone, and they reportedly discovered two instances in which Hartman allegedly demonstrated knowledge of the people inside the trailer.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

After speaking with several of the detained immigrants, investigators learned that the refrigeration in the trailer did not work and they were not given any water.

"It was hot like fire. We couldnt breathe. We were going to die," one migrant from Guatemala told investigators.

Another said she had been choking before the trailer door was opened by Alvarez.

Read the original here:
Texas woman charged with driving tractor-trailer carrying over 60 illegal immigrants - Fox News