Michigan is very much in play for November.
Our new poll shows a dead heat, with Trump and Biden tied at 43% each and 14% undecided for this key swing state. With Trump leading comfortably right now in Georgia and North Carolina, a win in Michigan could well tip the entire election to the 45th president.
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There are rumors—likely trial balloons—that Joe Biden is about to get serious about controlling the border. Along with inflation and our country’s repeated humiliations on the global stage, the border debacle is one of the major sources of Biden’s persistent unpopularity.
He tried to use the border situation as leverage in negotiations with congressional Republicans over Ukraine funding by pretending he could not close the border until the funding bill passed. This is false, as this authority was the basis of Trump’s “Muslim Ban,” which was upheld by the Supreme Court.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday that he is calling for constitutional reforms to hold leadership in Washington D.C. accountable for the crisis Americans face due to weak border policies and unchecked spending.
The second-term GOP governor and former presidential candidate is calling for a balanced federal budget, congressional term limits, laws being made equally applicable for citizens and members of Congress and line-item veto authority for the president.
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Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would “codify the right of every state along the U.S.-Mexico border to defend its own territory.”
Vance’s State Border Security Act would prevent federal agents from dismantling barbed wire or other fencing erected by state governments within 25 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
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Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Mark Green (R-TN-07) announced that another full committee hearing continuing the impeachment proceedings against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will take place on Thursday, January 18.
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Investigative journalist Ben Bergquam of Real America’s Voice and Frontline America has been documenting the chaos on the U.S. border with Mexico, especially along Arizona’s border. On Tuesday, he stopped by the border in Lukeville, where the Border Patrol told him there are large numbers of Syrians and Pakistanis illegally coming over the border.
“That’s what we’re doing right now,” Bergquam said in a video taken at the border showing migrants in tents. “Again. Day after day after day. You saw the footage I just put out two days ago. This is today. And it’ll be like this tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And this is one point on our border and it’s like this across our entire border.”
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The House on Wednesday approved U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany’s amendment blocking so-called sanctuary cities from receiving federal funds.
The Wisconsin Republican’s measure was included in the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t declared a winner in this week’s GOP presidential debate, but he does know who the loser is: The American people.
The Kennedy family scion and Democrat challenger to President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party presidential nomination blasted the eight Republican candidates who took the stage in Milwaukee as out of touch with the average American.
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As the scourge of fentanyl continues to rack up victims across the nation, U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI-01) was joined on Thursday by local and national law enforcement officials in Milwaukee County for a roundtable discussion on combatting the deadly drug.
The event, held in the suburban Milwaukee community of Franklin, included officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and North Central High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA), state legislative leaders, and medical experts.
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Rising in the Hawkeye State polls, U.S. Senator Tim Scott did the Iowa State Fair Tuesday, rediscovering the sweet joys of funnel cake and sitting down with Governor Kim Reynolds for a “Fair-Side Chat.”
The top tier contestant for the Republican Party presidential nomination and proud South Carolinian also made a confession that could cause him some heartburn in the Palmetto State.
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Some Republicans have of late quipped, is it any wonder the United States is facing a deadly fentanyl epidemic when the Biden administration can’t even keep cocaine out of the White House?
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) certainly isn’t surprised.
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U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI-06) and his subcommittee have opened an investigation into the Biden administration’s decision to end familial DNA testing at the U.S. Mexico border.
DNA testing is a key tool used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to prevent fraudulent entry of migrants posing as family members — critical in targeting child trafficking, according to security officials.
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The federal government lifted Title 42 restrictions on the border Thursday, prompting Arizona and other border states to take action to deal with the surge of illegal immigrants beginning to pour over the U.S.’s southern border with Mexico. Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs held a press conference on Monday to announce the plans her administration made to handle the surge, which consist of assisting the migrants, not turning them back to Mexico.
Merissa Hamilton, head of EZAZ and a former candidate for mayor of Phoenix, live tweeted the press conference, expressing her dismay. “Her law enforcement spokespeople say it’s a humanitarian issue ONLY,” she said.
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Lauri Badura lost her son Archie to an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2014. Back then, she had no idea what the synthetic opiod was.
Now, the Oconomowoc activist who has committed her life to fighting the scourge of the deadly drug knows better than any that “fentanyl is America’s new ‘F’ word.’”
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President Joe Biden announced his re-election campaign Tuesday, insisting he’s running again to “stand up for fundamental freedoms.”
Republicans in the nation’s presidential battleground states say the out-of-touch 80-year-old Democrat has cost Americans their freedoms — and their finances.
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In an interview Tuesday with The Star News Network, former Arkansas Governor and freshly declared Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson said a Manhattan grand jury’s indictment of former President Donald Trump is a “sad day for America.”
Hutchinson, the latest Republican to announce his run for the White House, talked about his campaign, the border and the “tainted” prosecution of Trump in a conversation with The Star.
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Democratic Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs announced shortly after entering office in January that she would eliminate the Border Strike Force (BSF) that former Governor Doug Ducey created in 2015, sparking outrage from Republican lawmakers concerned about rising crime and violence related to Arizona’s porous border with Mexico. Hobbs said as part of her budget, she would reroute the funding for the BSF elsewhere.
“In the same manner that Joe Biden has destroyed our country with his welcomed support for the prolonged lawlessness and drug crisis along our southern border, Katie Hobbs is destroying Arizona in three short months since taking office by her reckless dismantling of the Border Strike Task Force,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-09) told Fox News. “Countless more people will die from Hobbs’ open border policies.”
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Republican Presidential candidate Nikki Haley asserts the war in Ukraine is about freedom and “one we have to win.”
The former South Carolina governor discussed national security and foreign policy with U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) Friday morning in suburban Des Moines at an event sponsored by the Bastion Institute.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealed recently that it saw tens of thousands of illegal immigrants for medical services in 2022, with the agency reporting a nine-figure budget to address the health needs of noncitizens.
The bureau said in its annual fiscal report last week that over the course of the fiscal year it “provided direct care – including medical and dental health services – to over 118,000 noncitizens housed at 19 [ICE Health Service Corps]-operated facilities throughout the United States.”
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President Joe Biden said Thursday that he will visit the southern border Sunday.
The announcement came in a speech on illegal immigration, where Biden promised more border security and pushed for increased legal immigration.
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Entering the new year, it is traditional to set goals and pronounce resolutions to improve ourselves and our lot in life during the coming 12 months.
Although these resolutions are more often honored in their breach than their fulfillment, they are nonetheless a useful tool to focus our attention on our weak points, whether we have the fortitude to correct them or not.
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s lawsuit that keeps Title 42 restrictions in place until the justices hear a challenge in February. Brnovich led a coalition of 21 Republican states in trying to keep the Trump-era rule in place.
Title 42, named in reference to a 1944 public health law, is a policy implemented under the Trump administration in 2020 which allows immigration officials to turn illegal immigrants back at the border due to COVID-19. In the interests of public health, they are not allowed to apply for asylum. Multiple efforts have been made to halt it but have faced stiff opposition from proponents like Brnovich.
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As Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey leaves office next month, there have been numerous questions about the transition to Democratic Gov.-Elect Katie Hobbs and Ducey’s recent meeting with President Joe Biden at the Taiwan Semiconductor manufacturing plant on Tuesday.
Ducey spoke with The Center Square on Thursday following his last meeting with agency leaders to discuss this pivotal moment.
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The month of October alone saw the arrest of 40 different suspects on the FBI’s terror watchlist as they attempted to cross the border into the United States.
According to the New York Post, nine individuals were arrested attempting to sneak across the border, while another 31 were stopped by authorities at various ports of entry, and were subsequently arrested upon identification. Of the 31 who attempted to enter legally, 25 tried to come across the Canadian border while six tried to cross the southern border.
The terror watchlist was first established by the FBI after the 9/11 attacks, initially consisting of known terrorists who are not American citizens, but later expanded to include potential threats and associates of known threats. The actual list of names is kept secret for security purposes.
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A paid “Mark Kelly for Senate” staff member is heard revealing to an undercover Project Veritas Action (PVA) journalist Kelly’s campaign deception strategy to “play both sides” of the abortion issue by saying “Mark Kelly is pro-life” when, in reality, he is not, in order to win over ‘Independents’ and ‘Moderate Republicans’ in Arizona.
In the video released Tuesday, Evynn Bronson of the Mark Kelly for Senate campaign – a Mission for Arizona field organizer – is recorded explaining to the undercover PVA journalist how to win votes from Independents and “moderate Republicans” for the Democrat senator by deceiving Arizonans on the issue of abortion.
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If elected governor of Arizona, how would Kari Lake handle illegal immigration?
Sending illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts is not a part of her plan.
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In the arena of politics, incompetents and charlatans can have long careers in ways that others in fields like medicine and architecture cannot. If someone botches a heart bypass operation or designs a wobbly skyscraper, the consequences of those mistakes arrive quickly and cannot be explained away. Even when their policies fail spectacularly, politicians can obscure, deflect, and mislead for years and not be held accountable.
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Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) came to the Youngstown area this weekend in support of Ohio Republican JD Vance’s U.S. Senate campaign against U.S. Representative Tim Ryan (D-OH-13), whose district includes Youngstown.
“It is important that the people of Ohio send JD Vance to the U.S. Senate this year,” the Florida chief executive, whose mother is from Youngstown, told an audience at the Metroplex Expo Center in Girard. “Yes, Republicans need to take back the majority, and I think we will. But just as important as having the majority, we need people who are willing to go up there and do something with the majority; stop talking and actually get something done. And I think JD is somebody who’s going to be a leader and not just be a follower and we need that in that swamp more than ever.”
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a legal opinion in February declaring that Arizona has the constitutional authority to declare an invasion on its border with Mexico, but since Gov. Doug Ducey has not done so, Brnovich is now urging him to. In a letter sent to Ducey on July 6, Brnovich, who is now running for U.S. Senate, laid out the reasons why.
“This horrible situation is a ticking time bomb,” Brnovich said. “It’s just a question of when, and not if, the unspeakable will occur.” He went on, “[W]e have every indication that the border crisis will continue to escalate. If there is more that we as a state can and should do, it can be pursued with your declaration of an ‘invasion’ at our southern border.”
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In the month of April, at least 234,088 illegal aliens crossed the border into the United States, smashing all previous records for the highest monthly total of illegal border crossings in modern history.
As reported by the Washington Examiner, the over 234,000 figure comes from successful interceptions by border authorities, and thus does not account for so-called “gotaways” who evaded the Border Patrol. The numbers were reported by a court document obtained by the Examiner on Monday.
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Jim Lamon, who is running to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate, will host a town hall discussion with former acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tom Homan.
The event, which will take place on Friday, will focus the discussion on how to “preserve America,” according to a release from the Lamon campaign.
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At least 42 suspects on the United States terror watchlist have been arrested by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) trying to enter the country illegally across the southern border.
As reported by Fox News, the U.S. Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations reported that they have “arrested 42 subjects who were on the terror watchlist and attempted to enter the United States illegally” since January 20th, 2021. These individuals were all found in the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), which archives information on all foreign individuals who are “reasonably suspected” of being involved with terrorist organizations and activities.
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With the Biden administration’s decision to rescind Title 42 COVID-19 restrictions on the border by May 23, local officials near Arizona’s border with Mexico are bracing for a surge in migrants. The border situation was already dire, with Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issuing a legal opinion in February declaring that it had reached the level of an invasion under the U.S. Constitution due to the crime, violence, and drug smuggling.
Republicans and even some Democrat officials in Arizona denounced the move. Both of Arizona’s two U.S. Senators, Democrats Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, condemned the move. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, a Democrat, said she supported the move, but admitted to NPR that it will require federal assistance. “What we are asking the Biden administration is that they have the resources necessary to be able to have these local communities take over, because it costs money to be able to offer a safe place for asylum-seekers to come.”
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blasted President Joe Biden Friday for making what he called another “reckless” immigration policy decision to terminate the public health rule known as Title 42. By doing so, the number of illegal immigrants expected to enter the country will more than double those who entered illegally last year, law enforcement officials estimate.
“President Biden’s open-border policies are an unmitigated disaster for national security,” Abbott said in a statement. “His recklessness has forced the State of Texas to take unprecedented steps to fill the gaps – including deploying Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and over 10,000 Texas National Guard soldiers, jailing illegal immigrants who are charged with trespassing, and becoming the first state ever to build a wall to secure the border.
“Instead of listening to the millions of Americans that his administration has endangered – and instead of enforcing immigration laws passed by Congress – President Biden has chosen to jeopardize the safety and security of those very Americans he swore to protect and defend by ending Title 42 expulsions.”
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The White House said Wednesday that it expects an “influx” of migrants at the border when Title 42 ends.
During a briefing, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield told reporters that they do expect a migrant surge when the order is lifted and that the administration is preparing for such a scenario.
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Journalists with the Real America’s Voice TV network were detained by border patrol agents at the southern U.S. border on Friday, with a reporter describing being “detained at gunpoint” amid the open crossing of illegal immigrants into the United States.
Ben Bergquam, a reporter with Real America’s Voice — with whom Just the News is partnered — posted a video depicting him in the back of a border patrol vehicle, showing what appeared to be a border patrol agent directing Bergquam’s colleagues with his gun drawn.
“And all of this is happening [with] 60 illegal [immigrants] just standing by the wall, no problem,” Bergquam said.
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After an historic year of illegal migrants entering the United States, the Biden administration has belatedly revealed the impact of another leg of its border strategy: a sharp reduction in arrests and deportations.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported Friday interior immigration arrests fell to 74,082 in fiscal 2021, down from 103,000 in 2020 and 143,000 two years ago.
Likewise, deportations fell a stunning 70% to 59,011 last year, the lowest number in 26 years. The lack of deportations marked a precipitous drop from the Obama and Trump years, when expulsions often topped 300,000 or more annually.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in El Paso, Texas, in the last two weeks have intercepted multiple American women carrying fentanyl concealed in their private areas.
“It is tragic that people are willing to put themselves in these dangerous situations,” CBP El Paso Director of Field Operations Hector A. Mancha said in a statement. “This synthetic opioid is so powerful that if a package were to rupture inside the body, the consequences could be life threatening.”
On Feb. 24 a 31-year-old woman, who is a U.S. citizen, was carrying .394 pounds of fentanyl that she removed from her inside private parts after a pat down, where CBP officers at the Port of Ysleta felt something foreign in her private area during a secondary search, according to CBP.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Congressman Tim Burchett live from the Swamp to comment upon Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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The crisis on the Russian-Ukrainian border has been a surreal spectacle for some weeks. This is not how invasions occur and wars begin. The potential aggressor does not mass large forces on the border of a possible target country before full international view and issue continuous statements to the international media about its intentions. And the senior military officials of great powers do not—as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley ( leading man of the Afghan debacle) and some of his colleagues have done—publicly speculate on the psychology and likely intentions of the leader of the country implicitly threatening to start a war. Whatever Milley’s talents may be, there is no reason to believe that mind-reading is among them. It is, in any case, not part of his brief to give regular bulletins on what he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions may be.
This is Gilbert and Sullivan warmongering.
If Putin intended to invade Ukraine he would do so as he did with Crimea in 2008 and attempt to achieve some element of surprise. Instead he has made an international public spectacle of amassing six to 10 divisions on the Ukraine border, which every informed person in the world knows is inadequate to defeat and dominate a resistant country of 40 million people. This is theater: Russia pretends to threaten to be going to war; America pretends to react strongly, the NATO allies send forces to neighboring countries that are not under threat while asserting that they will on no account deploy forces into Ukraine, but will apply sanctions to Russia; some even propose preemptive sanctions against Russia although it has not actually done anything objectionable. (Russia could never be more than moderately inconvenienced by sanctions, especially if China and Germany ignore them.)
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Former President Donald Trump vowed Saturday night to ensure fairness for the Jan. 6 defendants if he is voted back into office, including possible pardons for some.
“If I run, and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” Trump told a raucous rally in Conroe, Tex.
“And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons,” he added. “Because they are being treated so unfairly.”
Trump also dismissed Democrats in Washington as “raving lunatics” who put “America last” and suggested President Biden was more concerned about protecting Ukraine’s border from Russia than America’s border from illegal migrants.
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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is calling on President Joe Biden and the leaders of the House and Senate to “stop posturing” and acknowledge the magnitude of the crisis at the southwest border, which she says is enabling the illicit importation of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, fueling a drug crisis in America.
More than 21 Floridians die every day from accidental opioid overdoses, Moody said.
“Biden’s lax border policy is an open invitation to dangerous criminals, human traffickers and drug traffickers to enter the United States – creating a crisis at the Southern Border like we have never seen,” Moody, who last year sued the Biden administration over reinstating an Obama-era catch and release program, said. “Because Biden is not requiring those crossing the border to go through the legally mandated channels, they are coming into our country without being properly processed.
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Paul Hodgkins, according to Joe Biden’s Justice Department, is a domestic terrorist.
A working-class man from Tampa, Hodgkins committed what Democrats and the media consider a murderous crime comparable to flying a packed jetliner into a skyscraper or detonating a truck filled with explosives under a crowded federal building.
Paul Hodgkins entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
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Remember when President George W. Bush said this?
I’ve had a lot of experience with dealing with borders, as the Governor of Texas. I know there’s a compassionate, humane way to deal with this issue. I want to remind people that family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River.
It was January 2005. Bush had just won reelection with a campaign strong on national security. Then after narrowly defeating John Kerry, Bush did what Bushes tend to do when they think they’re secure: He lurched to the Left and betrayed the base of his own party. He cast Americans who want a strong, secure border as racists—just four years after we had been attacked by international terrorists who exploited our weak immigration system to kill thousands of us. Bush behaved as if Americans didn’t know that Mexicans living south of the Rio Grande believe in family. Millions of Americans have Mexican heritage themselves. But they or their ancestors chose to be Americans.
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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey sent the Arizona National Guard and law enforcement officers to the Arizona border with Mexico near Yuma to address a surge in border crossings, which Arizona Rep. Tim Dunn (R-Yuma) has called for and believes will help combat the drug cartels, but not the number of migrants crossing due to the Biden administration’s policies.
Dunn told The Arizona Sun Times that although only the federal government is allowed by law to deal with the migrants, Arizona troops and law enforcement officers can perform other tasks for the Border Patrol, freeing them up to handle the influx of migrants. He said the migrants “do want to be checked in to the Border Patrol. The last leg of their trip is to get a free ride to another part of the country — the Border Patrol is performing an Uber function.”
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At least 54 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured when a truck full of migrants crashed in southern Mexico on Thursday, The New York Times reported.
The accident occurred when a truck carrying more than 100 people overturned, the head of the state Civil Protection Service, Luis Manuel García Moreno, told Milenio TV, the NYT reported. It is one of the deadliest accidents involving migrants in decades.
The truck contained passengers who were mostly migrants traveling from Central America, and it was moving at an “excessive” speed when it rounded a sharp curve and flipped, a witness told García, the NYT reported. The truck then crashed into a pedestrian bridge and construction close by.
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As another caravan of Central Americans and Haitians heads north to the U.S. southern border, the Biden administration is making little apparent effort to comply with a federal judge’s order to reinstate the Remain in Mexico Policy, while also claiming to be focusing on border security.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has repeatedly sued the administration over immigration, says the administration is inviting illegal aliens to the U.S. while also making it harder for Border Patrol agents to do their jobs.
A caravan of roughly 2,000 Central Americans and Haitians left Tapachula, Mexico recently — the same day President Biden met with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Instead of sending a clear message to the caravan to turn around, the leaders sent an implicit message that the border is open and the Remain in Mexico Policy remains inoperative.
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For decades Americans have witnessed the gradual disintegration of our southern border. It has angered a lot of people, but it hasn’t affected most people’s lives directly, so little has been done about it. Apart from a brief four-year law and order hiatus under Donald Trump, the fire has burned steadily and under current leadership is now an uncontrollable inferno. How did we get here?
We got here in part because the government and the corporate media have peddled a number of myths, also known as lies, to fool enough citizens that the border fire was under control. It is time to identify and debunk some of the biggest ones here.
Lie #1: The recent surges at the border are spontaneous events created by root causes in Latin American countries where people are fleeing persecution and violence.
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The Biden administration is drowning on issue after issue, and many of the bubbles are coming from the Rio Grande River. The problem, which dare not speak its name, is illegal immigration. The administration, its political party, and the mainstream media refuse to say the very word “illegal.” For a while, they called it “undocumented,” pretending the migrants somehow forgot their papers in the top dresser drawer in Guatemala or Haiti. Now, even that bland phrase is deemed too clear and honest. The new woke term is “irregular immigration.” Anything to minimize the problem, sway public opinion, and avoid plain talk.
The obfuscation goes much further than a few phrases. Consider Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’ testimony to Congress last week, where he faced awkward questions about the administration’s decision to stop building the border wall, including portions that had already been contracted and paid for. Mayorkas’ reply, “We are not going to construct a border wall along the ragged and jagged cliffs along certain parts of the border.”
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