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Nearly three years ago, I sat before a Congressional committee and warned of a coming humanitarian and national security catastrophe on the U.S. southern border.

Today, America is in the grips of it.

There's no downside to less illegal immigration, I told the lawmakers back in 2019. There's no downside to less illegal drugs. There's no downside to taking money out of cartels' hands that are murdering our agents.

I recognized then, based on 34 years of experience as a Border Patrol agent and as President Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director, that Democrats were creating dangerous new incentives for desperate men, women and children to risk their lives to get into greatest country in the world.

Sanctuary cites that shielded the undocumented from law enforcement, free medical care and free college educations for the children of illegals were all magnets pulling the world's poor to America.

At the same time, Biden's White House was systematically dismantling Trump policies that secured the borders and blocked criminals and terrorists from entering the United States.

>>>Biden Wants Open Borders All the Way South to Guatemala

It could only end in disasterand it has.

On Monday, 14,000 migrants rushed Eagle Pass, Texasa city home to just 30,000in just 24 hours. Border security in the region has collapsed and one cannot look at these migrants, huddled with small children, and not think that there must have been a better way.

I have sympathy for these people escaping poverty, violence and hopelessness. I didn't hang up my humanity when I put on the Department of Homeland Security badge. But I couldn't ignore the consequences of the Democrats' thoughtless actions.

Though for my testimony, I was called inhumane; a racist; a monster.

I was even smeared by members of Congress.

I think it's important to really make sure that the jingoistic, bigoted testimony of Mr. Homan is called out as nearly completely untrue, as being an outrage, spat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz from her desk.

I now look back and say: No, Congresswoman, I am not inhumane. You are.

Just look at the carnage that you've wrought.

What is humane about a record high of nearly 1,400 migrant deaths on U.S. soil over the last two years?

What is humane about hundreds of rapes of migrants who travel north from South America through lawless stretches of Columbia and Panama?

In 2022, a record 250,00 migrants made this crossing. In 2023, that number rose to 460,000.

What is humane about the nightmare faced by unaccompanied migrant children even after they arrive in America?

Biden's Department of Health and Human Services admits that they've lost track of more than 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children placed with sponsor families. There are documented cases of these vulnerable minors being forced to work in dangerous facilities without proper protections.

And what of the lives of American citizens lost or upended by the flow of deadly drugs from Mexico?

It's no coincidence that fentanyl overdose deaths in the U.S. have hit dismal new highs as an unprecedented 9 million-plus illegally crossed into America since Biden took office.

As a majority of Border Patrol agents are pulled off the frontlinesto mix baby formula in Border Patrol stations, ferry sick migrants to U.S. hospitals, or process their asylum claimscriminal organization exploit the gaping holes in America's security.

There are more than 1.8 million known gotawaysindividuals who purposefully evaded Border Patrol.

Ask yourself: Why would 1.8 million people pay the cartels to sneak them in when they could simply turn themselves over to U.S. authorities be processed, get a warm bed, a hot meal, medical attention and transportation to the city of their choice?

The answer is that a vast majority of gotaways don't want to be vetted and fingerprinted. Many are either trafficking in drugs, weapons, human beings or have some other nefarious purpose.

During the four years of the Trump administration, U.S. authorities captured 11 people who were listed on the Terrorism Watch List. Under Biden, agents detained 18 individuals in the month of September alone. Today, migrants from over 160 different countries, including Syria, Afghanistan and Iran have illegally crossed the border under the Biden Administration

The bad guys know that the border is open. That should scare the hell out of each and every American.

It's no wonder city and state leadersleft, right and centerare demanding that President Biden do something.

Arizona's Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs has deployed the National Guard to the border to take action where the federal government won't to address an unmitigated humanitarian crisis.

In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill empowering law enforcement to arrest migrants.

>>>Alejandro Mayorkass Designed Failure at the Border Is Disgraceful

And nearly 2,000 miles away in New York City, Democrat Mayor Eric Adams, who has predicted the strain of illegal immigration will destroy his city, called it baffling that there has not been a more determined federal response.

Now, three years after I warned that an open U.S. southern border would unleash misery and death, the White House is finally willing to negotiate on border security measures.

They're reportedly weighing whether to make it more difficult to claim asylum and how to enable U.S. border enforcement official to turn illegal aliens back to Mexico.

To that I ask: Are these policies still racist and inhumane?

Apparently, not. In fact, they never were.

It's clear that the Left will play the race card when it suits them to silence and demonize their opponents and win fleeting political points. But I stopped caring what my critics thought long ago.

I go to bed every night knowing that I've tried to do what was necessary to save lives be they American or foreign.

The tragedy is that these race-baiting Democrats took so long to recognize that for themselves.

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Race-Baiting Dems Smeared Me as an Heartless Bigot for Demanding Secure Borders. 3 Years Later, the Left Has ... - Heritage.org

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Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Opponents of restrictions on immigration routinely stress the humanitarian element of the ongoing crisis. Supporters of restrictions often focus on the financial strains that massive illegal immigration imposes on the country. But a very real problem with illegal immigration is its effect on national security.

In FY 2023, 169 migrants apprehended by CBP were on the US Terrorist Watch List. Who knows how many of the 1.7 million who evaded apprehension are potential terrorists? But when it comes to illegal immigration, there is an even greater threat to US national security on the southern border: the cartels. In June of 2021, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said that the cartels dictate everything, ensuring that nothing moves (families, unaccompanied minors, single young men, women, fentanyl, heroin, cocaine) unless the cartels say so.

In this environment, the cartels have flourished. Their earnings have jumped from 500 million dollars in 2020 to an estimated 13 billion dollars last year. Much of the cartels earnings have come from the deadly opioid, fentanyl, which has killed 109,000 Americans over the last two years.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration has undermined border security. For instance, it has violatedthe Immigration and Nationality Act by releasing millions of dubious asylum seekers into the country before their claims were legally adjudicated. It has frozen all deportationsincluding those of criminal aliens guilty of manslaughter, vandalism, assault, and other offenses.

It has ended the Remain in Mexico program and Title 42 of the Public Health Service Act of 1944, programs put into place during the Trump administration that limited the overwhelming number of migrants entering the country and temporarily eased the burden on local communities and the outnumbered border patrol. It has violated immigration law by granting mass paroles to large numbers of illegal migrants.

In response to the crisis on the southern border, the House of Representatives has passed HR 2. A companion bill has been introduced by Republicans in the Senate and is still pending. Among other provisions, this legislation would: require the Biden administration to follow current law and detain, not release, illegal migrants; tighten rules to make sure that those seeking asylum are, in fact, genuine refugees; limit the parole authority of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and protect vulnerable children from human traffickers and cartels by keeping families together during removal proceedings and reuniting children with their families back in their home countries.

HR 2 also criminalizes visa overstays, which traditionally account for about half of all illegal immigration, mandates (as required by current law) that asylum seekers have their finger-prints and DNA taken, and requires the resumption of construction on the border wall. In addition, it funds enhanced border protection infrastructure and more border patrol agents. And finally, it mandates E-Verify to insure that employers are not hiring illegal aliens.

Republicans have linked support for funding Ukraine and Israel to the Senate companion of HR 2. Opponents of what critics call the draconian nature of the immigration bill in the Senate have decried this action. But although there is a strong case to be made for US aid to Israel and Ukraine, the idea that securing the southern border is somehow less important than foreign aid is a dangerous illusion.

For most of its history, the United States has, thanks to the fact that our American neighbors have been weak and/or friendly, been able to focus on distant security threats arising from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Accordingly, we have sought to establish alliances and alignments enabling us to dominate the rimlands of Eurasia.

But we have always been vigilant regarding the possibility that our adversaries would exploit weaknesses in the Americas. France attempted to establish an American empire while the United States was involved in civil war. Germany sought support from Mexico during World War I. The Soviet Union sought to undermine US support for NATO by supporting Cuba and revolutionary movements in Latin America. China has established significant footholds in the Western Hemisphere.

Certainly, our ability to deal with crises abroad is undermined by weaknesses at home. Our inability to control our southern border is a major cause of such weaknesses, e.g. crime, drug use, economic dislocation. Regaining control of the southern border should be understood as nothing less than a major national security objective.

Mackubin Owensis a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He previously served as editor ofOrbis: FPRIs Journal of World Affairs (2008-2020).From 2015 until March of 2018, he was Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. From 1987 until 2014, he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.

He is also a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, where as an infantry platoon and company commander in 1968-1969, he was wounded twice and awarded the Silver Star medal. He retired from the Marine Corps Reserve as a Colonel in 1994.

Owens is the author of the FPRI monographAbraham Lincoln: Leadership and Democratic Statesmanship in Wartime(2009) andUS Civil-Military Relations after 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain(Continuum Press, January 2011) and coauthor ofUS Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Rise of an Incidental Superpower(Georgetown University Press, spring 2015). He is also completing a book on the theory and practice of US civil-military relations for Lynne-Rienner. He was co-editor of the textbook,Strategy and Force Planning, for which he also wrote several chapters, including The Political Economy of National Security, Thinking About Strategy, and The Logic of Strategy and Force Planning.

Owenss articles on national security issues and American politics have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, International Security, Orbis, Joint Force Quarterly, The Public Interest, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Examiner, Defence Analysis, US Naval Institute Proceedings, Marine Corps Gazette, Comparative Strategy,National Review, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor; The Los Angeles Times,the Jerusalem Post, The Washington Times, andThe New York Post.And, he formerly wrote for the Providence Journal.

Originally posted here:
Immigration and National Security- Dr. Mackubin Owens - GoLocalProv

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The Biden administration has bypassed the immigrant and nonimmigrant visa provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), choosing instead to catch and release most of the illegal crossers the Border Patrol apprehended.  

When the number of illegal crossings got too high, it offered lawful pathways as an alternative, expecting the availability of lawful pathways to reduce illegal crossings. It didn’t work. Illegal crossings?dropped?from 183,921 in April 2023 to 99,538 in June, but they rose back to 181,059 in August and were at 218,763 in September.  

The administration’s admission policies are increasing our immigrant population, and we do need more immigrants. It isn’t enough, however, just to increase the immigrant population — the additional immigrants have to be able to meet America’s needs. 

The visa system does this by issuing employment-based and family-based visas, and it includes safeguards to ensure that visas aren’t given to migrants who will become a financial burden to state or local governments. 

This administration isn’t basing its admissions on America’s needs, and it isn’t ensuring that the migrants it admits will be able to take care of their financial needs without relying on government assistance.  

Many of the administration’s migrants were released into the country for an asylum hearing, but the administration has overwhelmed the asylum system by admitting too many people. The immigration court?has a backlog?of 2,930,934 cases, and the administration is not making any progress on reducing it. 

According to the Congressional Research Service, even if the size of the immigration court were to be increased from approximately?600 judges?to?1,349 judges, it would still take 10 years to clear the backlog. 

Visa safeguards 

Immigrant visas are issued to foreign nationals who intend to live and work permanently in the United States. They are inadmissible if they are likely to become a public charge. 

Nonimmigrant visas are issued to foreign nationals seeking to enter the United States on a temporary basis for a specific purpose, such as tourism, business or specified types of temporary work. They have to establish that they will not need to work while they are here unless their visas are employment-based. 

All visa applicants are screened when they apply for a visa and again when they appear at a port of entry seeking admission to the United States; some of the visas have numerical limitations. Notwithstanding these restrictions, the United States issued 1,018,349 immigrant visas and 6,815,120 nonimmigrant visas in fiscal 2022.  

Few safeguards 

The Border Patrol has apprehended 5,815,600 illegal crossers since the beginning of Biden’s presidency, from 160 countries. This has severely reduced the time available to screen individual migrants. Notwithstanding this problem, the Border Patrol released more than 2 million illegal crossers. 

The main legal pathway is the?CBP One?mobile application program, which permits migrants without visas to schedule an appointment to present themselves for inspection at a designated port of entry.?The extraordinarily high CBP One admission rate indicates that CBP isn’t doing meaningful screening in this program either. From January 2023, which is when the interviews started, through September, CBP admitted 99.7 percent of the 225,000 undocumented immigrants it interviewed. 

Burden  

The tsunami of migrant admissions has been especially hard on border towns. 

Since spring 2022, New York City, with a population of 8.3 million, has received 118,000 migrants. Chicago, with a population of 2.6 million, accepted around 15,000. The mayors of these cities have complained bitterly about the burdens this imposes. 

But Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas, with combined populations of 63,433, have received a total of 347,572 illegal crossers in the first 11 months of fiscal 2023. The officials from these cities say they have exhausted their resources trying to meet the migrant demands for social services, food and housing.  

Eagle Pass has one small hospital with 101 beds, and it has to bear $100,000 a month in uncompensated migrant care that the federal government won’t reimburse. The Eagle Pass mayor issued an emergency declaration to get state resources and funding to handle these expenses. 

El Paso, Texas,?is receiving approximately 2,000 migrants per day. Mayor Oscar Leeser has warned that, “We have come to what we look at [as] a breaking point right now.” 

Dozens, sometimes hundreds, of migrants walk across private property along the California-Mexico border every day. The border town of Jacumba, Calif., has a population of 600 people, and it is providing a camp for more than 300 recently arrived migrants. 

Trash 

It has been estimated that each illegal crosser leaves behind 6 to 8 pounds of trash on the U.S. side of the border. This includes such things as backpacks, plastics, clothing, human waste, medical supplies, food and chemicals.  

Fox News captured drone footage of trash and clothing discarded along a common crossing point near Normandy, Texas. Thousands of migrants have streamed across the border?there, leaving behind discarded trash and clothing. Similar scenes can be observed at the Eagle Pass border.  

John Rourke went to Brownsville, Texas, to clean up trash that had been left behind by migrants. He found piles of debris such as wet clothing, plastic trash bags, paper, discarded pills and identification cards.  

In Arizona, roughly 2,000 tons of trash are discarded every year along the state’s borderlands.  

If the administration is going to continue admitting millions of migrants without visas, it should at least make an effort to ensure that they will meet American employment and family unification needs, and that they will not have to depend on government financial assistance. It also should do something about the trash they are leaving in their wake. 

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at: https://nolanrappaport.blogspot.com 

The rest is here:
The massive burden of Bidens undocumented immigrants - The Hill

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Texas lawmakers last month approved Senate Bill 4, an immigration law that would allow Texas police to arrest people for illegally crossing the border from Mexico.

SB 4, which Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will sign into law, has sparked intense debate, with opponents saying it will lead to racial profiling by police and supporters saying Texas needs to step in because the federal government isnt doing enough to stop illegal immigration.

When Abbott signs the bill, its scheduled to take effect in early March.

Abbott has taken a series of actions since March 2021, such as sending troopers and National Guard members to the 1,200-mile-long Texas-Mexico border to apprehend immigrants crossing the Rio Grande.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, federal agents encountered nearly 2.5 million migrants at the southern border in fiscal year 2023, which ended in September, breaking the record set in 2022. Those encounters included migrants who went to ports of entry to request asylum.

It is already illegal to enter the U.S. without permission under federal law. Without a state law against illegal crossing, state law enforcement has been charging migrants with trespassing when they cross the Rio Grande into private property.

Heres what you need to know about the proposed new state law.

The bill would make it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border between ports of entry. If a police officer has probable cause to believe a person crossed the Rio Grande, that person could be charged with a Class B misdemeanor, which carries a punishment of up to six months in jail. If the person has been previously convicted of entering Texas illegally under SB 4, the charge could be increased to a second-degree felony, which carries a punishment of two to 20 years in prison.

The bill allows a judge to drop the charges if a migrant agrees to return to Mexico.

If the migrant is convicted and has served their sentence, a judge would be required to issue an order for police to transport them to a port of entry and they could face a felony charge for refusing to return to Mexico.

SB 4 prohibits police from arresting migrants in public or private schools; churches and other places of worship; health care facilities; and facilities that provide forensic medical examinations to sexual assault survivors. The bill doesnt prohibit arrests on college or university campuses.

According to a state House report on SB 4, police are allowed to turn over migrant families to Border Patrol agents to avoid separating children from their parents instead of arresting them.

Federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have ruled that immigration laws can only be enforced by the federal government.

In a landmark 2012 case, Arizona v U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local police didnt have the authority to arrest someone solely based on their immigration status; that responsibility falls to the federal government. That case stemmed from a 2010 Arizona law known as Senate Bill 1070, which made it a state crime for legal immigrants not to carry their immigration papers and required police officers to investigate the immigration status of any person they come into contact with.

State Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, sponsor of SB 4 in the Texas House, has said he believes the proposal is constitutional because it simply follows federal immigration law. He said the intention of the bill is not to spark another Supreme Court case that would overturn the 2012 decision.

People have asked me that: Are you trying to overturn Arizona v. U.S.? And my answer is no, Spiller said.

But other Texas Republicans have indicated that they hope the law will lead to a showdown before the Supreme Court.

Last year, a lawyer for the Texas Attorney Generals Office, which has repeatedly sued the Biden administration over its immigration policies, told lawmakers the office would welcome laws that would spark a court challenge because the makeup of the Supreme Court has changed.

We ask for you guys to consider laws that might enable us to go and challenge that [2012 Supreme Court] ruling again, Texas Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster said.

Spiller has said this law is meant to target people who recently crossed the border, not undocumented immigrants who have been living in Texas for years.

Because the statute of limitations on misdemeanor crimes is two years in Texas, and three years for many felonies, undocumented immigrants who have been in the country longer than that could not be charged with a state crime, the bills authors said.

The bill does not limit arrests to the border area and allows police to arrest undocumented immigrants anywhere in the state.

Anyone who enters the U.S., legally or illegally, has up to a year to request asylum.

The federal government is asking migrants to not show up at a port of entry and instead make an appointment on the CBP One app to meet with an immigration officer. But the 1,450 appointments available each day across the entire U.S.-Mexico border fill quickly and many migrants opt to cross the border away from ports of entry and surrender to U.S. authorities.

Under SB 4, if Texas police arrest a migrant before they surrender to Border Patrol, it would affect any future asylum claim, said Kathleen Campbell Walker, an El Paso immigration lawyer and the former president and general counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

When an immigrant applies for any type of benefit to be able to stay in the country, including asylum, federal agents research whether the applicant has a criminal history that would disqualify their application, such as serious misdemeanors and felonies.

This person has been arrested under a state law, and under U.S. immigration law, if I've been charged with and convicted of a state crime, there are state crimes that cause me to be subject to removal from the United States, she said.

Neither President Biden nor any official in his administration has made any public comments about SB 4.

Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Brcenas office said in a statement that it categorically rejects any measure that allows state or local authorities to detain and return nationals or foreigners to Mexican territory. The statement did not explicitly say that Mexico would refuse to accept migrants removed under the Texas law.

Immigration experts have said that Mexico is not obligated to receive immigrants from Texas who are not Mexican citizens. In fiscal year 2023, about 83% of the 1 million immigrants encountered by Border Patrol on the Texas-Mexico border were not Mexican citizens. Many are coming from Central and South America, Asia or Eastern European countries.

Tonatiuh Guilln Lpez, the former chief of Mexicos National Immigration Institute, said that like in the U.S., Mexicos immigration policies are set at the federal level and Mexico doesnt negotiate agreements with individual U.S. states.

Texas cant do this because Texas doesnt have a diplomatic relationship with Mexico, Guilln Lpez said.

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Texas is on the verge of making illegal border crossings a state crime. Here's what you need to know. - The Texas Tribune

Hong Kong and mainland Chinese authorities have arrested 78 suspects as part of a wider crackdown on illegal immigration into the city.

The Immigration Department on Friday said its officers and police arrested 52 suspects in an operation that spanned Tuesday and Wednesday, with authorities raiding more than 60 locations and intercepting 29 boats.

Law enforcement officers over the border in Guangdong province arrested 26 people between last Saturday and Friday for allegedly attempting to sneak into Hong Kong, including 10 suspected fixers.

Hong Kong police arrest 4 Pakistani nationals over entering city unlawfully

Among those arrested in Hong Kong were 12 people from Vietnam, four from Bangladesh and two from Pakistan. Three mainlanders were also detained, two of whom were suspected of helping others to enter Hong Kong illegally.

Officers seized one boat during the operation.

Authorities targeted illegal workers in the city, arresting six mainlanders and 18 others for breaching conditions of stay.

Four men and three women, aged 41 to 66, were taken into custody on suspicion of employing illegal workers.

The Immigration Department said it would continue to collaborate with police and other government bodies to combat illegal immigration.

Hong Kong police arrest 2 Indian nationals over illegal entry after ID check

Hong Kong and mainland authorities previously conducted a three-day cross-border operation, code-named Mungoshunt-3, in early November that led to the arrest of 127 people in the two-pronged attack targeting people smuggling.

Authorities in Guangdong on Friday said the recent rounds of arrests marked a significant decline from the 57 people they took into custody during the earlier operation.

Hong Kong authorities arrested 1,241 suspected illegal immigrants in the first 10 months of this year. A breakdown of the figure showed 968 were non-ethnic Chinese and 273 were from the mainland.

In comparison, 482 non-Chinese and 673 mainlanders were arrested last year.

Rise in flights behind illegal immigrant wave into Hong Kong: security chief

Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung recently told lawmakers that this years uptick could be attributed to increasingly convenient travel routes to the mainland and rumours inducing illegal immigrants to come to Hong Kong.

The minister earlier told the Post that many entrants hoped to claim non-refoulement protection, an assurance that asylum seekers will not be sent to a country where they may be persecuted or tortured.

While Tang had also said the government had a duty to process such claims in line with a high standard of fairness, he stressed that only about 1 per cent of applications had been approved since 2014.

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Hong Kong, mainland Chinese authorities team-up for crackdown on illegal immigration - South China Morning Post