Tag: southern border

Businessman Who Owns Private Border Wall Property Disputes ACLU Claim That Wall Blocks Access to Historic Border Monument

Jason M. Reynolds

  The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico is trying to claim that the construction of the private border wall blocks access to a “historical monument.” The ACLU of New Mexico says the Sunland Park, New Mexico private wall blocks access to Monument One, a border monument dating to 1855 that’s on the National Register of Historic Places, according to a story by KOAT. The ACLU is calling on the International Boundary and Water Commission, who manages the monument’s land, to intervene. The border wall is on private land, but it was built across from Monument One, which is on federal land but accessed from a road and a gate. The commission told KOAT that it has not given We Build the Wall a permit but their application is being reviewed. However, Brian Kolfage, founder of We Build the Wall, says the ACLU is lying and that it is trying to help the drug cartels that are being blocked by the new wall. Kolfage tweeted, “The ACLU is acting like this alleged monument is Yellowstone Natl. Park. The only people coming here are drug smugglers, it’s a dangerous area. Stop LYING TO Americans @ACLU it’s on private property too! Here’s…

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US, Mexico Reach Deal on Migration, Averting Tariffs

Tennessee Star Staff

  The United States and Mexico have reached a deal on migration to avert tariffs, but U.S. officials say President Trump retains the authority to impose tariffs if Mexico fails to live up to it. “I am pleased to inform you that The United States of America has reached a signed agreement with Mexico. The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended,” President Donald Trump said Friday on Twitter. “Mexico, in turn, has agreed to take strong measures to stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border. This is being done to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States,” Trump said. Speaking on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers meeting in Japan, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the Reuters news agency Saturday the U.S.-Mexico immigration deal met President Donald Trump’s objectives of fixing immigration problems on the southern U.S. border, but that tariffs could be imposed if Mexico does not meet U.S. expectations. “Our expectation is that Mexico will do what they’ve committed to do and our expectation is that we won’t need to put tariffs in place,…

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US Opens Mass Shelter in Texas for Migrant Children

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  The federal government is opening a new mass facility to hold migrant children in Texas and considering detaining hundreds of more youths on three military bases around the country, adding a total of 3,000 new beds to the overtaxed system. The new emergency facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, will hold up to 1,600 teens in a complex that once housed oil field workers on government-leased land near the border, said Mark Weber, a spokesman for Office of Refugee Resettlement. The agency is also weighing using Army and Air Force bases in Georgia, Montana and Oklahoma to house an additional 1,400 kids in the coming weeks, amid the influx of children traveling to the U.S. alone. Most of the children have arrived in the U.S. without their families and are held in government custody while authorities determine if they can be released to relatives or family friends. Shelters not subject to child welfare rules All the new facilities will be considered temporary emergency shelters and thus not be subject to state child welfare licensing requirements, Weber said. In January, the government shut down a large detention camp in the Texas desert that was unlicensed and another unlicensed facility remains in…

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Southern Border Arrests Soar, Officials Declare a ‘Full-Blown Emergency’

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by Fred Lucas   The surge of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border in May increased by about one-third from a month before. The Central American migration boom that has been overwhelming Border Patrol agents for almost a year, but they took 144,278 illegal border crossers were apprehended according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “This latest number demonstrates that we are in an absolute crisis when it comes to the security of our border; we are being overwhelmed by a flood of illegal aliens and it really is a national emergency as the president has said,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “It is imperative that Congress act to give the president the resources he needs to regain control of our border and to close the loopholes in federal immigration law that are helping spur this problem,” von Spakovsky added. CBP continues to face a worsening crisis at the Southwest border. In May, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 144,278 individuals along the SWB—a 32% increase over the previous month. Details here: https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb pic.twitter.com/p8kcr5lZ7Y — CBP (@CBP) June 5, 2019 May’s number is a 32 percent increase from April, the…

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Border Patrol Reports a Surge of Africans Trying to Illegally Cross the Border

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by Jason Hopkins   Border Patrol is reporting “a dramatic rise” in the number of African migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in recent days. Border Patrol agents have apprehended over 500 individuals from the continent of Africa in the Del Rio Sector since May 30, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The migrants — most of them family units from Congo, Angola and Cameroon — are increasingly found trying to cross the Rio Grande River, exacerbating an immigration crisis primarily driven by Central Americans. “The introduction of this new population places additional burdens on processing stations, to include language and cultural differences,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L. Ortiz said in a CBP press statement Wednesday. “Our agents continue to meet each new challenge as the ongoing humanitarian crisis evolves.” Agents at the Del Rio Sector, a stretch of border between Texas and Mexico, apprehended their first large group of African migrants on May 30, nabbing 116 Africans crossing the Rio Grande together. A group of migrants is considered “large” if it’s made up of 100 or more persons. U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to Del Rio Sector apprehended a large group of 116 individuals—from…

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About 1,000 Migrants Cross Into Mexico, Start Walking to US

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  Hundreds more Central American migrants have crossed into Mexico from Guatemala, and a group of about 1,000 has started walking en mass to the north. State and local police accompanied the migrants Wednesday as they walked along a highway leading from the border to the first major city in Mexico, Tapachula. In recent months Mexico has used raids and roadside checkpoints to discourage highway marches such as the massive migrant caravans that occurred in 2018 and early 2019. But no such dissuasive force was seen Wednesday. The migrants say they aim to reach the U.S. border, where many plan to request asylum. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on Mexican imports unless Mexico does more to stop the passage of migrants through its territory.             VOA News

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Immigration Talks Already Underway as Mexico Rushes to Stave Off Tariff Threat

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by Jason Hopkins   Top Mexican government officials are in the United States as they attempt to dissuade the Trump administration from following though on tariff threats. A high-level delegation of Mexican officials, including Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and Economy Minister Graciela Marquez, held a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday. Speaking from the Mexican embassy, the two leaders publicly called on the U.S. to reach a deal with their government instead of resorting to a tariff war. The press conference and meeting come before the two countries are set to kick off official negotiations Wednesday. Mexican and U.S. delegations will try to reach a deal on the immigration crisis before a White House-imposed deadline quickly approaches. The rush to reach a compromise comes after President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a 5% tax on all goods coming from Mexico beginning June 10, unless their government can prove that it is doing more to stop the record-flow of illegal migration running through its borders. Tariffs on Mexican goods, he added, would increase by 5% every month, with the rate reaching as high as 25% by October if Mexico fails to satisfy U.S. demands. Trump on Sunday continued to hammer the country for its perceived inaction…

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Mexico Says It Will Negotiate with US Over Tariff Threat

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  WASHINGTON — Mexico’s foreign minister says he has started negotiating with U.S. officials after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Mexican products related to the migrant surge at the border. Marcelo Ebrard said on Twitter Friday that he had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by phone and said face-to-face talks between the two would take place Wednesday in Washington. “The summit to resolve the U.S. dispute with our country will be on Wednesday in Washington,” Ebrard said. “We will be firm and defend the dignity of Mexico.” Earlier Friday, Mexico’s president responded to the U.S. tariff threats with caution urging “dialogue” over “coercive measures.” “I want to reiterate that we are not going to fall into any provocation, but we are going to be prudent, and we are going to respect the authorities of the United States and President Donald Trump,” said Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. His statement Friday morning followed a two-page letter to Trump made public late Thursday, similar in tone, responding to Trump’s announcement on Twitter earlier in the day that the United States would begin imposing an escalating tax on imports from Mexico. “On June 10th, the…

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Not Many Companies Actually Get Busted for Hiring Illegal Immigrants, Study Finds

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by Jason Hopkins   A new study finds that, despite a record-setting number of immigrants illegally entering the country, relatively few employers are prosecuted for hiring undocumented aliens. From April 2018 to March 2019, only 11 individuals were prosecuted for knowingly employing migrants without proper documentation, according to information compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. No individuals have been prosecuted in the past two months, and no companies were prosecuted in the last year. The low levels of legal reprimand appear as an oddity given the surge of illegal aliens appearing at the U.S. southern border — many of them claiming they emigrated in search of better work opportunities. Border apprehensions have increased every month since January, with the months of March and April witnessing back-to-back migrant encounters of over 100,000. Altogether, over half a million illegal immigrants have been apprehended since the beginning of the fiscal year. “Given the millions of undocumented immigrants now working in this country, the odds of being criminally prosecuted for employing undocumented workers appears to be exceedingly remote,” the study noted. “Not only are few employers prosecuted, fewer who are convicted receive sentences that amount to more than token punishment.…

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Report: Migrant Children Are Being Detained Longer than the Law Allows

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by Jason Hopkins   The sheer number of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) arriving at the U.S. southern border is bottlenecking law enforcement resources, reportedly forcing Border Patrol to keep migrant children longer than the legal requirement. Hundreds of the 2,000 or so UACs currently held in Border Patrol custody have been detained at stations and processing centers longer than the 72-hour limit, according to a report by The Washington Post. Around 1,000 of the UACs are reportedly held longer than the legal limit, while more than 250 children 12 and younger are being detained for an average of six days. The law mandates that Border Patrol must transfer UACs to a children’s shelter run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) within 72 hours, but immigration officials say the record number of illegal immigrants appearing in their custody has overwhelmed their operations. “It’s a daily battle,” one border agent told The Washington Post said about the crisis. “You catch a thousand people a day, and then you can only process 750 a day. The agents are working their tails off trying to get this squared away, but it’s a daily struggle with the amount of people we’re encountering.”…

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More Asylum-Seekers Sue Trump Administration

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  A group of detained asylum-seekers sued the U.S. government Thursday claiming immigration officials in five Southern states are systematically denying them parole. In the second lawsuit of its kind filed against the Trump administration, legal advocacy groups representing 12 plaintiffs are seeking class-action status on behalf of hundreds of asylum seekers being held in detention centers in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. In addition to Central American migrants, the plaintiffs include a member of a Cameroonian opposition party and Cuban and Venezuelan political dissidents. Migrants who arrive at U.S. ports of entry and ask for refuge in the United States are not eligible for bond hearings in front of a judge, but they can be released from detention on parole for humanitarian reasons under a 2009 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy. Denying parole The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center, claims that in recent months there has been an “unwritten policy and practice of categorically denying parole to asylum-seekers” that violates the government’s “own directive and guidelines.” According to ICE data cited in the complaint, the New Orleans Field Office, which…

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Border Agents Just Made the Biggest Migrant Apprehension Ever: Report

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by Jason Hopkins   The U.S. Border Patrol reportedly apprehended the largest single group of illegal immigrants in history, more than doubling the previous record. Border Patrol agents nabbed 1,036 migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday morning, according to a report by NBC News, citing two U.S. officials and a document. The number marks the biggest group ever apprehended by law enforcement, with the previous record being 424. The demographics of the caravan closely matched what’s been seen at the border in recent time. Of the 1,036 who were apprehended, 934 were part of a family unit, 63 were unaccompanied minors, and 39 were either single adults or not yet identified. All of the individuals were from the three Northern Triangle countries of Central America — 515 people from Guatemala, 135 people from Honduras and another 76 from El Salvador. The record-smashing apprehension comes as more and more migrants are reaching the U.S. southern border, igniting a crisis that is breaking immigration enforcement resources. Migrant encounters have increased every month since January. March and April — the most recent months Customs and Border Protection has on record — marked two consecutive months where migrant…

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Cartel Control, Carrizo Cane, Fake Families and More: Eight Factors Enabling Illegal Border-Crossers at the Laredo, Texas-Mexico Border

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by Fred Lucas   LAREDO, Texas – Guarding this sector of the southern border involves a set of challenges that is quite different than nearby stations in the Lone Star State. I learned this during a tour of the border last week that included this city of about 250,000 across from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, just a few hours away across the Rio Grande Valley station. I traveled along the 171-mile stretch of the border as a reporter for The Daily Signal, and here’s some of what I learned firsthand from Border Patrol agents who guard it. 1. Cartel Control The violent Cartel del Noreste controls and profits from illegal immigration across the southern border. “The Laredo sector is unique compared to our bordering neighbors to the left and to the right of us, up river and down river, in that we sit right across the border from the headquarters of the Cartel del Noreste, formerly known [as] the Zetas Cartel,” Joel Martinez, deputy chief of the Border Patrol for the Laredo sector, told me during an interview. “They are the main reason we are not getting the massive humanity coming at us,” Martinez said of the drug cartel, “because they…

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We Build the Wall to Hold Rally Today in Sunland Park, New Mexico, Where Liberal Mayor’s Cease and Desist Order Has Temporarily Halted Construction

Jason M. Reynolds

  We Build the Wall plans to hold a rally today for the wall it is building in New Mexico to gather support against the city that is trying to shut them down. Meanwhile, construction is halted while the builders work on the fight with the city, Kris Kobach, general counsel for We Build the Wall, was quoted as saying by The Washington Times. Brian Kolfage, founder, of We Build the Wall, on Wednesday afternoon tweeted, “WE are having a MASSIVE wall rally tomorrow at We The Peoples Wall, in Sunland Park, WATCH HISTORY TAKE PLACE!  We want all country loving patriots to get down here ASAP! Contact @TheAmandaShea @DustinStockton if you plan to come.” https://twitter.com/BrianKolfage/status/1133809031825547265 Registration for today’s 4 p.m. rally is here. The location is the headquarters of American Eagle Brick Company at 1000 Brickland Road in Sunland Park, New Mexico, which is about one mile north of the approximately three-quarters mile section of wall that was built in just five days on land the company owns. Another one-quarter mile section of the wall, which would have been almost completed by now,  remains to be built after the City of Sunland Park’s Mayor Javier Perea, a 2016 Bernie…

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Border Patrol Creating a New Position to Stymie the Immigration Crisis

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by Jason Hopkins   The U.S. Border Patrol announced that it’s creating a new position specifically tailored to processing and caring for migrants that reach the southern border, allowing agents to refocus their work on enforcement. The “Border Patrol Processing Coordinator” will assume certain responsibilities that have consumed the agency’s time as it deals with a surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release on Tuesday. The new position is meant to bring relief to agents who have long complained that the humanitarian crisis has kept them from performing their main role at the border. Coordinators are to be tasked with feeding, cleaning, transporting and other general tasks for illegal immigrants in Border Patrol custody. Migrants in need of medical care will be transported to hospitals by coordinators, who will also be assigned to watch over migrants as they receive care. “I am committed to providing the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol the resources they need to accomplish their border security mission,” Carla Provost, Chief of the Border Patrol, said in a prepared statement on Tuesday. “Border Patrol Processing Coordinators will take on processing, transportation, and custody responsibilities,…

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We Build the Wall Builds First Half-Mile Section of Border Wall in New Mexico – in Four Days

Jason M. Reynolds

  The group We Build the Wall announced Monday it has completed construction of a large section of wall spanning between a half-mile and a mile along an open area of the Southern border previously believed to be unbuildable. According to a story by The Washington Times, the wall section is along the southern border in New Mexico, and the organization says that is a first in the history of the border. The wall is made of 18-foot steel bollard like what the Border Patrol uses, the Times said. Just late last week, a federal judge ordered a halt to part of President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration and shifting of money within the Pentagon to make up for Congress’s refusal to fund the wall, the Times said. The new section closes a gap that was between the end of the El Paso, Texas border wall and Mount Cristo Rey, across from the City of Juarez, The Gateway Pundit said. Kris Kobach (pictured with builder Tommy Fisher, right) of We Build the Wall spoke to the Pundit about the former gap. “The gap is a half mile wide corridor and it’s literally a parking lot on the Mexican side and then you…

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Migrant Surge Accelerates at US-Mexico Border

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  The Trump administration on Thursday said a surge of migrant arrivals at the southern U.S. border continues to accelerate, with more than 300,000 mostly Central American undocumented immigrants apprehended or requesting asylum so far in the current fiscal year, which began last October. “We are in the midst of an ongoing humanitarian and security crisis at the southwest border,” acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary KevinMcAleenantold a Senate panel. “Almost 110,000 migrants attempted to cross without legal status last month, the most in over a decade, and over 65% were families and unaccompanied children.” At the current pace, 2019’s total for migrant arrivals would more than triple the number reported for all of 2018, which was 169,000. Factors in migration McAleenan said that while gang violence and rampant insecurity in three Central American nations have started to ebb, other factors, such as persistent droughts and a lack of economic opportunity, continue to compel a large number of people to trek north. The DHS acting secretary also highlighted U.S. policy as a “pull factor” for migrants. “Families [apprehended at the border] can no longer be held together through an appropriate and fair proceeding, and essentially have a guarantee of release…

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US to Fly Migrants From Texas to San Diego

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by Reuters   Hundreds of detainees from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities in Texas and elsewhere are being flown to San Diego for processing beginning Friday, the agency said. Border officials said they are developing plans to fly potentially thousands of migrant families to other places away from the southern U.S. border with Mexico. The agency said the number of people apprehended at the border since Oct. 1 was nearly 520,000, the highest in a decade. In the past week, there was an average of 4,500 arrests a day. This is making it difficult to process and release family units within 20 days of their arrival at a detention center, as required by law, the CBP said in a statement. Three flights a week U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this year declared the immigration influx a national emergency, which allowed him to circumvent Congress to redirect more than $6 billion in funding to start building the border wall that he campaigned on in the 2016 presidential election. His move has been challenged in courts. Three flights a week will arrive in the San Diego area from the Rio Grande Valley carrying about 130 people per flight, a CBP…

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CBP Chief: Border Patrol Has Made 2,500 Migrant Rescues This Year Alone

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by Jason Hopkins   A Border Patrol chief on Friday broke down how many times his agents have put their lives on the line to save illegal migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, an area laden with deadly deserts and river currents. “We have had 2,500 rescues this year,” Border Patrol Law Enforcement Operations Chief Brian Hastings said Friday on Hill.TV. “About 400 of those are water rescues where agents have put their own lives on the line, jumped into a fast-moving current to save children, or to save adults, or to save those that are in distress, and that’s on a daily basis.” Hastings, who has worked in border security since 2005, noted that this was the “most dangerous” time to be a border agent since he can remember. .@CBP Chief Brian Hastings told me this AM that Border Patrol agents have made 2500 rescues of migrants this year w/ 400 of those being water rescues, putting agents at risk. He says it is most dangerous time in his 3 decade career to be a BP agent today https://t.co/uCvpJkldie pic.twitter.com/MrixFqFvqr — Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) May 17, 2019 Hastings noted that many of the rescues take place in the…

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Democrats Agree to Billions in Humanitarian Assistance for US-Mexico Border

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by Jason Hopkins   Top Democrats in Congress have acquiesced to some of the administration’s request for billions in southern border aid, but the offer comes with notable limitations. As lawmakers continue to negotiate over a humanitarian relief package, Democrats have offered to include a portion of President Donald Trump’s $4.5 billion request for emergency border spending, according to Democratic leaders and aides. However, Democrats say they will not agree to more money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or additional detention beds. “Democrats refuse to give this administration a blank check, which is why we are insisting on oversight provisions that will protect the dignity and rights of migrants,” a Democratic aide said, according to The Hill. Instead, Democrats want funds directed to the Office of Refugee and Resettlement, the office within Health and Human Services that has handled the thousands of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) arriving at the southern border. “Democrats recognize that there are serious humanitarian needs at the border,” the aide continued. “We gave Congressional Republicans a thoughtful offer to address those needs.” Congressional leaders believe a disaster relief bill can pass before lawmakers take a recess for Memorial Day. The vast number of UACs entering…

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Former ICE Director: Congress Hates Trump More Than They Want to Fix the Border

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by Jason Hopkins   Thomas Homan, the former acting director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), eviscerated Democratic lawmakers who oppose the president’s border efforts. “Look, I’ve been saying for months: Congress doesn’t care,” Homan said Friday on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” “Look, I think their resistance to Trump … they want to see the president fail on the number one campaign promise. I said it many times. They’re putting their hatred of this president above their responsibilities to secure this border.” “They can’t be ignorant to what’s happening,” Homan, a longtime veteran of immigration enforcement, continued. “All you got to do is watch the videos, watch the borders. The borders … I’ve done this 34 years. It is unprecedented. I’ve never seen it this bad on the border. They’re sitting there watching the parade go by. Nothing is happening and they’re watching.” The former ICE chief, who said that 9 out of 10 migrant families do not show up to their court hearing, claimed that the situation is “out of control” and the “worse I’ve ever seen it.” Homan’s comments come as the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border continues to escalate. A total of 109,144 illegal migrants were either…

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Acting Pentagon Chief Wants Secure Border Without Continuous Military Aid

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  On a trip to a border city in Texas, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Saturday he intends to accelerate planning to secure the border and bolster the government’s ability to accomplish that without the Pentagon’s continuous help. He also offered assurances to perhaps two dozen Border Patrol agents and other officials at the McAllen Border Patrol Station that the Pentagon would not withdraw its military support prematurely. “We’re not going to leave until the border is secure,” he said, adding, “This isn’t about identifying a problem. It’s about fixing a problem more quickly.” Shanahan told Congress this past week that there are 4,364 military troops on the border, including active-duty and National Guard. They are erecting barriers, providing logistics and transportation service and other activities in support of Customs and Border Protection. The troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement duties. Troops have been deployed on the border since last October and are committed to being there through September. While flying to Texas, he dismissed any suggestion that active-duty forces will extend their mission for the long haul. “It will not be indefinite,” he told reporters traveling with him. Shanahan also said he has instructed a two-star Army…

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Pentagon Shifting $1.5B to US Border Wall Construction

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  The Pentagon is shifting $1.5 billion in funds originally targeted for support of the Afghan security forces and other projects to help pay for construction of 80 miles of wall at the U.S.-Mexican border, officials said Friday. Congress was being notified of the move, which follows the Pentagon’s decision in March to transfer $1 billion from Army personnel budget accounts to support wall construction. Some lawmakers have been highly critical of the Pentagon shifting money not originally authorized for border security. The combined total of $2.5 billion is in response to President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border, where Customs and Border Protection personnel are struggling to cope with increasing numbers of Central American families attempting to gain entry. Trump vetoed Congress’ attempt to reverse his emergency declaration. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who has said he plans to visit the border on Saturday, said in announcing the shift of funds that the Pentagon is “fully engaged” in fixing the border crisis. He said more than 4,000 troops and 19 aircraft are supporting Customs and Border Protection personnel. “Today, I authorized the transfer of $1.5 billion toward the construction of more than 80 miles of…

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13,000 People Are Waiting at Mexican Border to Claim Asylum

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by Jason Hopkins   Thousands of foreign nationals are waiting south of the U.S.-Mexico border to claim asylum. The backlog is a direct result of the Trump administration’s efforts to clamp down on burgeoning asylum claims. Approximately 13,000 people are on waiting lists to claim asylum in the U.S., an Associated Press investigation found. The AP determined the amount after traveling to eight Mexican cities dotted along the border. Tijuana, the city with the longest line, had 4,800 people on the waitlist. Ciudad Juarez and Nogales were two other cities with major lines, with 4,500 and 1,000 people, respectively, waiting to get into the U.S. The backlog is a consequence of the U.S. government controlling how many people can claim asylum a day, a process known as “metering.” Each day at ports of entry, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers communicate with their Mexican counterparts, telling them how many immigrants are allowed to cross the border. Officials who handle the massive wait lists then direct the chosen individuals to cross the border to make their asylum claims. The metering process — which has sparked intense ire from progressive and Democratic circles — has allowed the U.S. government to somewhat manage…

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Commentary: Democrats Move to Defund Wall Even As April Border Apprehensions Top 100,000

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by Robert Romano   Apprehensions on the southern border hit 109,144 in April, the highest in a decade, according to data compiled by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. It’s already larger than last year. Seven months into fiscal year 2019, with 531,711 apprehensions it has already topped the amount of apprehensions in all of fiscal year 2018, which was 521,090. This year could top 1 million if it continues accelerating. It also beats fiscal years 2017 and 2015, and after next month could be larger than fiscal years 2016 and 2014. According to a White House fact sheet, of the 109,144, “Over 61,000 of these illegal aliens arrived at the border as a part of family units, while over 9,000 were unaccompanied alien children,” accounting for almost two-thirds the total. And thanks to the 1997 Flores consent decree, the federal government is required to release illegal aliens with minors after 20 days. Plus, the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act makes it illegal to send unaccompanied minors from Central America back home to their countries. Making matters worse, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has just 52,000 beds to detain those apprehended at the border, meaning a good deal of those…

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Self-Deportations Are Rising Dramatically Under Trump Administration

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by Jason Hopkins   The number of illegal aliens who are choosing to voluntarily deport themselves has spiked since President Donald Trump entered the White House. Illegal immigrants who were granted voluntary departure — also known as “self-deportation” — increased by 50% in 2017, according to information compiled by The Marshall Project. In fiscal year 2018, the number of aliens who asked an immigration court to leave the country on their own accord doubled from the previous fiscal year. Applications in 2018, in fact, reached a seven-year high. The rising number of self-deportations far outpaces the 17 percent growth in overall U.S. immigration cases, indicating that a higher percentage of illegal migrants are opting to leave rather than face government-coerced deportation. There are incentives for illegals who choose to voluntarily leave. Instead of being held in a detention center for an indefinite amount of time or undergo a strenuous courtroom battle, undocumented immigrants can simply return to their home country. Additionally, migrants who don’t have a deportation on their record are not required to wait years to apply for a U.S. visa to re-enter the country. For a growing number of illegals who are detained, self-deportation appears to be the…

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Defense Secretary Says 256 Miles of New Border Wall Coming Soon

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by Jason Hopkins   The Pentagon announced that well over 200 miles of physical barrier is slated to be built along the U.S.-Mexico border in the coming months. “We now have on contract sufficient funds to build about 256 miles of barrier,” acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan said Wednesday while testing before the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. Shanahan noted that current funding is sourced from Treasury forfeiture funds, diverted money from the Pentagon, and other border funds secured by the Department of Homeland Security. “How you will see this materialize in the next six months is that about 63 additional new miles of wall will come online,” the acting defense secretary added. The rate will equate to roughly half a mile of border wall a day. President Donald Trump enraged Democrats after declaring a national emergency on the southern border in February, a move that allowed him to allocate billions more for wall construction. After the Pentagon diverted $1 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers in March to build new physical barriers, without first seeking congressional approval, Democratic lawmakers threatened to strip the Defense Department of its budget authority. The Trump administration argues that the funds are not enough…

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Official: US Risks Losing Control of Southern Border

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  A U.S. official on Wednesday said the nation would “lose control” of its border with Mexico unless a massive and protracted surge of undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers, primarily from Central America, is contained and reversed. U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost issued the warning to a Senate panel while announcing an eye-popping number of migrant apprehensions: 460,294 so far in the current fiscal year, which began in October. That figure exceeds the yearly total recorded by Border Patrol in more than a decade. Provost noted that, unlike in previous major migration periods, children, unaccompanied minors and family units constitute a substantial proportion of those reaching the U.S.-Mexico border, placing huge and unprecedented burdens on federal agencies. “I could never have envisioned that, today, agents would spend at least 40% of their time as child care providers, medical caregivers, bus drivers and food service workers,” Provost told the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on border security and immigration. “Every agent that I pull off the line to process and care for families and children increases the risk that illegal border crossers will get past us, including those smuggling drugs and other contraband.” Border security ‘at risk’ She added, “Simply put, we have…

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Border Patrol Chief Says Agency Has Made Over 30,000 Arrests in the Past 10 Days

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by Nick Givas   A U.S. Border Patrol official said his agency has apprehended more than 30,000 illegal immigrants on the southern border in the past 10 days. “This is a challenge unlike any we’ve ever faced before,” Chief of Law Enforcement Operations Brian Hastings said Monday on “Fox & Friends.” “We’re up to 474,000 arrests so far this fiscal year, and just the last 10 days alone, 33,000 arrests for us,” he added. “So, our facilities were not designed to handle this type of flow or more importantly, this demographic — about 63 percent being family units and UACs, or unaccompanied alien children.” Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost called the number of arrests “unsustainable” and “beyond capacity,” in a tweet Saturday. #BorderPatrol agents are arresting more & more family units every day. These numbers are unsustainable & the system is beyond capacity. Despite measures to increase capacity with additional temp facilities, #USBP has had to release overflow into the communities as a last resort. pic.twitter.com/vnUY21pw2M — Chief Jason Owens (@USBPChief) May 4, 2019 U.S. officials announced in March they had released 84,500 migrant family members since Dec. 21, The Arizona Republic reported. The government released 14,500 migrants into the…

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10-Month-Old Baby Dies After Migrant Raft Capsized in Rio Grande

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by Jason Hopkins   Authorities found the body of a 10-month-old baby after a raft he was on capsized, spilling him and eight other migrants into the cold, dangerous waters of the Rio Grande river. At around 9:45 p.m. Wednesday night, Border Patrol agents working in the Eagle Pass Station encountered a man who unlawfully entered the United States, according to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release. Upon apprehension, the man informed agents he had been traveling on a rubber raft carrying nine migrants that tipped over in the Rio Grande. The man’s wife, 10-month-old and 6-year-old sons, and 7-year-old nephew were among those on the raft. Border Patrol immediately began a search operation for the missing migrants. Cries from afar brought agents to the riverbank, where a woman and a child were seen struggling to float in the water. “Disregarding his own personal safety, an agent jumped into the river and successfully rescued both individuals later identified as the wife and child of the man who made the initial report,” the CBP statement read. Border Patrol Emergency Medical Personnel treated the 6-year-old boy on site and later rushed him to a hospital for more treatment. Shortly afterward,…

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Nearly 40 Percent of Guatemalans Want to Leave the Country, Poll Finds

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by Jason Hopkins   A poll by one of Guatemala’s largest newspapers found a startling number of its citizens expressed a desire to leave the country, with the U.S. being the destination of choice for most of them. A survey by Prensa Libre published on Thursday found that 39 percent of Guatemalans intend to leave the country. Of those who said they wanted to leave, 85 percent picked the U.S. as the country they hoped to land in. Results also showed how emigration to the U.S. has become such an integral part of their lives, with 57 percent of respondents saying they have friends or relatives already living in America. Prensa Libre, which is one of the most circulated newspapers in the country, polled 1,596 people between Jan. 22 and March 20 using electronic devices. The survey was done in conjunction with the Association for Research and Social Studies and Barometro de las Americas. Poll results found other eyebrow-raising answers from everyday Guatemalans. Despite the dire situation in the country, 75 percent of respondents expressed “little interest” in politics. Nearly 90 percent did not align themselves with any political party, and one-in-five Guatemalans said they would not be participating in…

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Would-Be Builder of Border Wall Ready to Do ‘Impossible’

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by Rachel del Guidice   COOLIDGE, Arizona—The vice president of a family-owned construction company says his firm is competing for one of the nation’s most talked-about contracts because its leaders believe they can do what many say can’t be done. “Two years ago, when the president said he wanted to build a wall [from] sea to sea … many people said, ‘It cannot be built, it won’t be built,’” Grant Fisher, vice president of Fisher Industries, told The Daily Signal in an interview. But “build the impossible,” Fisher said, is “what we do.” Fisher said his company’s $3.3 billion proposal to the Department of Homeland Security is to construct 218 miles of border fence, plus roads and related technology, by June 2020. The work would be in 11 sectors, ranging from 2 miles near Tucson, Arizona, to 46 miles near El Paso, Texas, according to the proposal. The fence would use bollards, which are upright steel posts usually placed along roads and parking lots to block or control traffic. Fisher said his family’s company, established in the ’60s, found a solution allowing construction of a mile of steel fence per day along the southern border. “This system includes the physical…

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After More Than a Thousand Fake Families Found, Trump Administration to Begin DNA Testing Illegal Border-Crossers

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by Jason Hopkins   The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will soon begin on-the-spot DNA testing of migrants apprehended at the southern border, officials said Wednesday. The pilot program, which is expected to start as soon as the coming week, will take place at two different locations on the U.S.-Mexico border and last for several days. The so-called Rapid DNA test consists of a cheek swab that can yield results within 90 minutes. The DNA results will be used to verify whether apprehended migrants are telling the truth when they claim to be part of a family unit. The program, officials noted, will be voluntary and the results are only used to verify familial relationships — not to prosecute immigrants who aren’t involved in smuggling. “This is an unprecedented step forward in our investigative process and techniques,” a DHS officials said to reporters during a Wednesday conference call. The upcoming pilot project comes as a surging number of “fraudulent families” are arriving at the U.S. southern border. Border Patrol identified more than 3,000 fake family cases in the past six months. DHS officials noted a 315 percent increase in the number of adults and children fraudulently posing as “family units”…

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Border Patrol Arrests 424 Illegal Immigrants at Once in the ‘Largest’ Arrest It’s Ever Made

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by Jason Hopkins   Border Patrol agents nabbed 424 illegal aliens attempting to cross the border in a single group, marking the largest apprehension in the agency’s history. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, agents encountered a large group of “what seemed to be over 400 illegal aliens” near the border town of Sunland Park, New Mexico, according to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release. The group of mostly Central American families and unaccompanied minors reached the border shortly after midnight. Hours after their apprehension, Border Patrol was able to count every individual and determine the group was a record-setting size. “This is an ongoing situation that U.S Border Patrol agents are facing in southern New Mexico: hundreds of parents and children being encountered by agents after having faced a dangerous journey in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers,” CBP wrote in its press release, revealing the massive group traveled with the help of human smugglers. https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1123361746566176769 Border Patrol agents in New Mexico apprehended another large group of illegal migrants shortly afterward. Officials working in the Antelope Wells Port of Entry, about 160 miles west of Sunland Park, encountered 230 illegal aliens around 2 a.m., bringing New Mexico’s…

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Trump Asking Congress for Billions More in Emergency Border Funding

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by Jason Hopkins   The Trump administration Wednesday requested an additional $4.5 billion in emergency border spending from Congress, a request that will likely face pushback from Democratic lawmakers. “The situation becomes more dire each day. The migration flow and the resulting humanitarian crisis is rapidly overwhelming the ability of the Federal Government to respond,” Russ Vought, the acting White House budget director, said in the request, according to The Washington Post. The White House request includes $3.3 billion for humanitarian assistance, $1.1 billion for border operations, and another $377 million for the National Guard and Pentagon to operate on the border. The appeal comes after acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told Congress on Tuesday his department needed more money to deal with the influx of illegal migrants pouring across the U.S.-Mexico border. “Given the scale of what we are facing, we will exhaust our resources before the end of this fiscal year,” McAleenan said Tuesday before a congressional committee. An unprecedented number of Central American families and unaccompanied minors have been reaching the U.S.-Mexico border, stretching law enforcement’s resources past the breaking point. Many of the rules and regulations, DHS has argued, are geared for single males from…

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There’s Been a Three-Fold Jump in Democrats Who Believe There’s a Border Crisis

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by Jason Hopkins   A newly-released survey shows a dramatic increase in the percentage of Democrats who believe the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border constitutes a “crisis.” Thirty-five percent of self-identified Democrats said that they believed the situation to be a crisis, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted between April 22 and 25. The number is a more than three-fold rise from the last time the question was asked in January, when only seven percent of Democrats agreed that it was a crisis. Concern for the border increased across all partisan demographics in the past three months. Forty-nine percent of Republicans polled in January believed there was a border crisis. That number jumped to 56 percent in April. Independents also rose from 21 to 30 percent, and more adults overall agreed that there was a crisis at the U.S. southern border. The survey also asked who was to blame for the immigration situation: President Donald Trump or Congressional Democrats? A slightly higher number of respondents chose Democrats, with a breakdown of 35 percent to 32 percent, but the result was largely split along partisan lines. The Washington Post-ABC News survey contacted 1,001 adults via cellphone and landline telephones,…

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Reports: Mexican Gov. Official Says MS-13 Infiltrated Caravans Headed for US

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MS-13

by Peter Hasson   Mexican authorities have found members of the violent gang MS-13 among migrant caravans headed towards the United States, multiple Mexican media outlets quoted a high-ranking government official as saying. Enrique Cárdenas del Avellano, the Ministry of Interior’s northeastern regional delegate, said that authorities have deported some MS-13 gang members they detected in migrant caravans, Mexican media outlets La Prensa, El Mañana and La Verdad de Tamaulipas reported over the weekend. Cárdenas del Avellano told the Spanish-language outlets that he doesn’t know how many MS-13 members are in the region. MS-13 members are in “the minority” among caravan members but “do exist” and “seek to extend their networks, especially to the United States,” Cárdenas del Avellano told the outlets. The transnational gang was launched in California by Salvadoran immigrants but has a formidable presence in other parts of the U.S. as well, particularly Long Island, New York. The gang’s informal motto is “Mata, roba, viola, controla,” which translates to “kill, steal, rape, control.” – – – Peter Hasson is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Peter on Twitter.               Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is…

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Pentagon Set to Send Hundreds of Troops to the Southern Border

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by Jason Hopkins   The Pentagon announced that it expects to send around 300 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, breaking with the longstanding policy of avoiding troop-migrant contact. A spokesperson for Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Charles Summers, said Friday that his boss is expected to green light the proposal shortly. However, the troops will not be allowed to perform any law enforcement role at the border. Instead, around 100 military cooks, 160 drivers and 20 lawyers will be deployed to assist immigration agencies as they deal with the ballooning migrant crisis. “We will have some of our troops handing out meals, therefore would come in contact with migrants,” Summers stated Friday. The spokesman added that it was an “amendment to the current policy.” The soon-to-be-deployed troops will help provide meals to detained migrants, drive them in buses, and attorneys with the Department of Defense will help process them. The moves will allow more Department of Homeland Security officials to focus on enforcing the rule of law, rather than processing the huge numbers of illegal migrants reaching the border. The Posse Comitatus Act forbids members of the military from performing civilian law enforcement duties on U.S. soil unless Congress gives…

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US Border Patrol to Fingerprint More Migrant Children

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unaccompanied children

  U.S. border authorities say they’ve started to increase the biometric data they take from children 13 years old and younger, including fingerprints, despite privacy concerns and government policy intended to restrict what can be collected from migrant youths. A Border Patrol official said this week that the agency had begun a pilot program to collect the biometrics of children with the permission of the adults accompanying them, though he did not specify where along the border it has been implemented. The Border Patrol also has a “rapid DNA pilot program” in the works, said Anthony Porvaznik, the chief patrol agent in Yuma, Arizona, in a video interview published by the Epoch Times newspaper. Spokesmen for the Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security did not return several messages from The Associated Press seeking comment on both programs. ‘Kids that are being rented’ The Border Patrol says that in the last year, it’s stopped roughly 3,100 adults and children fraudulently posing as families so they can be released into the U.S. quickly rather than face detention or rapid deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has also warned of “child recycling,” cases where they say children allowed into the U.S.…

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Jared Kushner Wants a Tougher US Immigration System

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by Jason Hopkins   Jared Kushner developed a comprehensive immigration proposal that consists of fortifying border security and shifting U.S. immigration to a more merit-based system. Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, formulated a tactic to immigration reform, and he hopes to present a legislative form of the plan to Trump within the coming days. The package essentially takes a two-pronged approach to immigration reform. The first part of the plan tackles legal immigration into the U.S., with Kushner looking to limit the number of low-skilled migrants who enter the country based on family ties. In their place, high-skilled foreign nationals would be encouraged to join the U.S. workforce under an immigration program that is more similar to the merit-based systems seen in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, CNN reported. The second part of the proposal pertains to border security. Trump’s son-in-law hopes to build more barrier walls on the U.S. southern border in areas that see high levels of illegal immigration. He also wants to modernize ports of entry so everything coming into the country is scanned, preventing anything illegal from getting past immigration enforcement. Changes to asylum laws and seasonal guest worker programs are also included…

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Mexican Military Now Patrolling North of the Border, US Sovereignty Violated Repeatedly

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by CHQ Staff   Our friend Daniel Horowitz of Conservative Review alerted us to this astonishing incident and prompted our further investigation. On April 13, at around 2 p.m. Central Time, a group of five or six suspected Mexican soldiers approached an unmarked vehicle of two U.S. soldiers stationed at the border in El Paso County, Texas, and ordered them out of the vehicle. According to Newsweek, which obtained the “serious incident report,” the soldiers were in fact active duty members of B Battery, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, not from a National Guard unit. The Mexican soldiers disarmed one of the U.S. soldiers and placed his sidearm in the U.S. vehicle. While the soldiers were parked south of the border fence near Clint, Texas, they were north of the Rio Grande riverbed, which placed them “appropriately in U.S. territory,” according to Maj. Mark Lazane, a spokesman for NORTHCOM. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Defense (DOD), after inquiring of the Mexican government, were informed that the Mexican soldiers thought that the Americans were south of the border. “Throughout the incident, the U.S. soldiers followed all established procedures and protocols,” according to NORTHCOM. Horowitz says NORTHCOM…

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US ‘Aggressively’ Building Trump’s Border Wall, DHS Chief Says

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by Jason Hopkins   The acting secretary of Homeland Security pushed back on the narrative that President Donald Trump’s border wall is not being built, pointing out that construction has actually been going at an aggressive pace. “So normally for a federal project of this scope, from the time you get funded to starting, it’s over two years,” Kevin McAleenan said Tuesday on Fox News. “We’ve already built the [fiscal year] 2017 funding in less than two years. That shows how aggressively we’re moving out on this.” McAleenan — who became acting DHS secretary earlier in April after Kirstjen Nielsen resigned — has been tapped by the Trump administration to lead the agency at a time when the U.S. southern border is experiencing record numbers of illegal migrants, many of them Central American families. Trump has been forced to fight tooth-and-nail with congressional Democrats over border wall funding. The federal government experienced its longest shutdown in U.S. history as the two camps fought over how much money could be appropriated for wall construction. The White House is being sued after it declared a national emergency on the southern border, allowing it to allocate billions more in funding. The new DHS…

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Migrant Smugglers Used a Drone to Sneak Illegals Through the Border at Night

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by Jason Hopkins   Illegal migrants were spotted using a drone for the first known time to help them cross the U.S. southern border. U.S. Border Patrol agents near El Paso, Texas, monitoring the area with an infrared camera spotted a small airborne object traveling over the U.S.-Mexico border in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The object flew about 100 yards north, entering U.S. soil, then returned back. The object, which was determined to be a drone, repeated this pattern three different times. Ten illegal immigrants were spotted passing the border in the same vicinity the drone had monitored roughly two minutes after the drone retreated back into Mexico territory for the third time. “This is the first known time in recent history that a drone has been utilized as a ‘look-out’ in order to aid in illegal entries in the El Paso Sector,” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a press release. The Border Patrol agents were able to “quickly” apprehend the migrants and take them into custody. Beyond encountering a drone, agents in the El Paso Sector dealt with an “unprecedented number” of illegal migrants at the border that same day. El Paso Sector officials made…

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Commentary: The Aiding and Abetting of Migrant Caravans

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by Hector Garza   The crisis at the southern border is no accident. It’s the intentional result of deliberate efforts by liberal activists to encourage illegal immigration on a massive scale. Right now, the “mother of all caravans” is reportedly forming in Central America, with the Mexican government predicting that more than 20,000 people will eventually join the human convoy as it traverses thousands of miles in the rising springtime temperatures of Mexico on its way to the U.S. border. The anticipated mass of illegal immigrants in that caravan will only exacerbate an already-dire situation for our Border Patrol agents, whose resources have already been stretched to the “breaking point” by a surge of border-crossers. More than 100,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in March alone, and at the current pace, at least 1.2 million people will have crossed the border illegally by the end of 2019. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that DHS is treating the situation as a “Cat 5 hurricane disaster.” Even Barack Obama’s right-hand man on immigration recently labeled the situation as a crisis. “By anyone’s definition, by any measure, right now we have a crisis at our southern border,” former Department of Homeland Security Secretary…

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Democrat Senator Sinema Bucks Party, Calls on Lawmakers to Better Secure the Border

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Krysten Sinema

by Jason Hopkins   Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Wednesday echoed the White House in calling for immigration enforcement to be aided with additional resources and staff. Arizonans bear the brunt of Washington’s failure to address our broken immigration system. We must secure the border with a comprehensive, smart, bipartisan approach – we’re calling on @DHSgov to send additional resources and staff to AZ ports. pic.twitter.com/qZGq3LgLmF — Kyrsten Sinema (@SenatorSinema) April 17, 2019 “Arizonans bear the brunt of Washington’s failure to address our broken immigration system. We must secure the border with a comprehensive, smart, bipartisan approach – we’re calling on [the Department of Homeland Security] to send additional resources and staff to AZ ports,” the first-term senator tweeted Wednesday. Sinema’s call for better border security was a far cry from what many of her colleagues in the Senate are demanding. Nineteen Senate Democrats, including every Democratic presidential candidate in the upper chamber of Congress, sent a letter to appropriation leaders demanding a reduction in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. The group of Democrats made four specific requests of the appropriations committee: Less funding for beds in immigration detention centers,…

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Border Apprehensions in 2019 Have Already Surpassed Last Year’s Total

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by Jason Hopkins   Border Patrol agents, halfway through fiscal year 2019, have already apprehended more migrants nationwide than all of fiscal year 2018. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) announced that 418,000 nationwide apprehensions have occurred this fiscal year to date. A total of 404,142 nationwide apprehensions took place in the entirety of fiscal year 2018, a CBP spokeswoman told The Daily Caller News Foundation. The numbers indicate that 2019 is on pace for a stellar year in border apprehensions. The vast majority of the captures are taking place on the U.S. southwest border, where 414,000 foreign nationals were nabbed between ports of entry since October — the beginning of the 2019 fiscal year. Compared to the 2018 fiscal year, only 396,579 apprehensions were made on the southwest border. The escalating situation is prompting more calls from immigration enforcement leaders to do something. “We don’t have room to hold [detainees], we don’t have the authority to remove them, and they are not likely to be able to be allowed to remain in the country at the end of their immigration proceedings,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said Wednesday during a press conference in Hidalgo, Texas. McAleenan — making his…

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Three Keys to Understanding the Attorney General’s Move to Limit ‘Catch and Release’

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by Fred Lucas   Attorney General William Barr has announced a new asylum policy to curb the government’s practice of catching illegal immigrants and then releasing them into the nation’s interior. The American Civil Liberties Union already has vowed to challenge the change in court even as President Donald Trump seeks to use all legal tools at his disposal to control the flow of illegal immigrants. BREAKING: Attorney General William Barr tonight directed immigration judges to deny bond hearings to asylum seekers. Our Constitution does not allow the government to lock up asylum seekers without basic due process. We'll see the administration in court. Again. — ACLU (@ACLU) April 17, 2019 The Justice Department contends that the attorney general is enforcing the text of the Immigration and Nationality Act, in line with a Supreme Court ruling last year. Barr is on firm legal ground, the department says, in determining that illegal immigrants who seek asylum are not eligible for release on bond until their case is adjudicated. Barr’s decision is already effective, so the Department of Homeland Security can conduct planning for additional detentions and parole decisions. Here’s three things to know about the attorney general’s decision. 1. How Barr…

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Trump: More Troops Needed at Border with Mexico

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WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Donald Trump says more troops will need to be sent to the country’s southern border because too many dangerous people are illegally entering the United States. “I’m going to have to call up more military. Our military, don’t forget it, can’t act like a military would act. Because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy,” Trump, in Texas, told reporters during a meeting ranchers who complained to him about the constant threat from trespassers on their properties. Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, asked by reporters earlier in the day about a possible multiyear deployment of troops to the border, responded, saying he had been speaking at length about that with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I would expect shortly here to have another request for assistance,” Shanahan said. Trump, in San Antonio, specifically blamed the problem on the governments of four countries: Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia. “Those countries are sending the tough ones, they’re sending the gang members,” he said. “They’ll kill you, take your truck, sometimes rob your house. Who the hell can live like this?” asked Trump, sitting in a room surrounded by area Republican…

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CRISIS: More Than 103,000 Migrants Reached Southern Border in March

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by Jason Hopkins   Law enforcement agents apprehended or turned back 103,492 migrants attempting to reach the U.S. southern border in March, marking the highest month in 12 years. The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 92,607 individuals between ports of entry at the southern border. Another 10,885 migrants appeared at a port of entry, but were deemed inadmissible and were turned away, according to data released by Customs and Border Protection. “The Border Patrol is facing an unprecedented humanitarian and border security crisis,” Brian Hastings, Border Patrol’s chief of law enforcement operations, told reporters Tuesday. “We’ve arrived at the breaking point.” Of all the foreign nationals turned away and apprehended in March, more than 53,000 belonged to family units and nearly 9,000 were unaccompanied alien children (UAC). Only 30,555 were single adults. The demographics indicate the crisis immigration enforcement agents are facing. U.S. trafficking laws, which were designed to handle illegal migrants made up of mostly single men from Mexico, have made it difficult for law enforcement officials to process the unprecedented volume of Central American families and children breaching the U.S.-Mexico border. The situation has stretched government resources beyond the breaking point, and leaving officials with no choice but to…

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Pentagon to Seek Housing for Up to 5,000 Migrant Children

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Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has approved a request to identify places to potentially house up to 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children, the Pentagon said Wednesday. In March, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requested Pentagon support to identify locations to house unaccompanied migrant children through Sept. 30. Migrant arrivals on the U.S. border with Mexico have been building steadily for months, driven by growing numbers of children and families, especially from Central America. Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Davis told Reuters that Shanahan approved that request Tuesday. Davis said HHS had made no request to actually house the children. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was not reviving a policy of separating children from parents who had illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, one day after media reports that his administration was considering putting it back in place. In February, Trump declared a national emergency to help build a border wall, which would allow him to spend money on it that Congress had appropriated for other purposes. Congress declined to fulfill his request for $5.7 billion to help build the wall this year. The Republican president’s latest pronouncements, including a threat to impose auto tariffs on Mexico,…

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