Ahead of Expected Illegal Immigrant Surge, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst Urges Bill Allowing States to Finish Border Wall

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) blasted the Biden administration for its ongoing failure in addressing the southwest border crisis, which is about to get a whole lot worse when Title 42 ends later this week.

The Iowa Republican said it’s time to move on her Build It Act, legislation allowing states to finish the border wall by using previously purchased materials.

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

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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Ohio’s Republican Senator Rob Portman Joins Senate Democrats in Voting Against Trump’s National Emergency Declaration

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and 11 of his Republican colleagues joined Senate Democrats Thursday in voting against President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration. In a 59-41 vote, the Senate passed a bill that would terminate Trump’s emergency declaration, though the president has already said he will veto the resolution. Portman announced his intention to vote in line with his Democratic colleagues during a Thursday morning speech on the Senate floor. “From the outset of this process I’ve had two objectives. One, to support the president on the crisis at the border. I believe his plan to address that crisis is a good one—we should support it. But second, to do it in the right way without setting a dangerous new precedent counter to a fundamental constitutional principle, without tying up the needed funds for the border in the courts, and without taking funds away from important military construction projects for our troops” Portman said. Portman later said of Ohio, which has “been devastated by the opioid epidemic,” that “over 90 percent of the heroin is coming across the southern border.” “Yesterday I learned from Customs and Border Protection that fentanyl seizures along the border between the ports of entry has…

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GatewayPundit’s Jim Hoft Teams Up with Missouri’s St. Louis Tea Party to Announce a Rally for Trump’s Border Wall

The St. Louis Tea Party is organizing a rally for Saturday in support of President Donald Trump as he continues to fight for the border wall. According to a press release, the rally was organized by the St. Louis Tea Party and the Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft. “Our president needs our support. Our president needs to know we stand with him,” Hoft said in a statement, encouraging St. Louis residents to attend the Saturday rally in Clayton, Missouri. “Let’s show our support for President Trump as he holds the line, and demand funding for the wall,” the St. Louis Tea Party said on Facebook. The news comes amid a contentious government shutdown over funding for Trump’s border wall, which now Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are unwilling to budge on after multiple conversations with the president. On Thursday, Trump made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room (his first) and was accompanied by members of ICE and Border Patrol. Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told the White House press corps that if they “interview Border Patrol agents, they will tell you that walls work.” “Anywhere that you…

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Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer Commentary: Terror Attack in France Is a Fresh Reminder of Why We Need the Wall

By Lt. Col Tony Shaffer (Ret.)   The terrorist attack on a French Christmas market should serve as a wakeup call to America. The stakes are too high for Congress to keep playing political games with border security. We need to build the wall. Americans awoke Wednesday to yet another awful reminder that we still live in a world beset with radical Islamic terrorism. In the night, the crack of gunfire and the all-too-familiar cry of “Allahu Akbar” rang out in a French Christmas market. At least four people who came out to enjoy Strasbourg’s famous Advent traditions are dead. As President Trump so astutely noted in the aftermath of the attack, it is impossible to separate national security and resistance to Islamic terrorism from immigration policy and border security. If we hope to avoid the kind of terror that has become part of daily life for the people of France, we must avoid Europe’s mistakes and get our border under control as soon as possible. For that, we need Congress to approve funding for President Trump’s border wall. Sadly, incidents like the Strasbourg shooting have become practically routine in France, and this crisis was imported through decades of terrible…

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Commentary: No Wall, No House, No Surprise

by Natalia Castro   Republicans would have loved to win the House last night, but unfortunately, they did not deserve it, as they lost at least 26 seats and more likely 30 or so. After failing to solve our countries immigration problem time and time again, it should not be surprising that voters were not enthused to head to the polls on Tuesday. Now with a Democratic House ready to take power in 2019, the lame duck is now perhaps the last chance to get the wall built and if Republicans want a chance in 2020 this must be their focus. President Donald Trump requested $25 billion to fund a defensive wall along the U.S. Southern border. In his first two years in office, with a Republican majority in Congress, only $1.6 billion has been allocated to fund this wall. While Trump has optimistically called this a “down payment” with full funding coming in the near future, that funding has yet to materialize — and the Republican voters knew it. The truth is, House Republicans had ample opportunity to prove to the American people that building the wall is not just a rallying cry, but an actual policy objective. Republicans…

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Commentary: The ‘Sacred Walls’ of Donald Trump

by Pedro Gonzalez   With each step the “caravan of contradictions” takes toward our border, another progressive illusion slips away. Victor Davis Hanson considers this mob, and by extension the events surrounding it, a “paradox, a contradiction, and an irony.” He’s right. The “reasoning” of progressives that leads them to endorse opening our borders to a group of intransigent lawbreakers so that they may escape lawlessness, is logically unacceptable. Progressives recoil in horror at President Trump’s declaration that we must defend ourselves against an invasion of thousands of foreigners who denounce our laws and hold our sovereignty in contempt. And by progressives, I mean to include those “conservatives” of National Review who cry, “it’s hard to think of a response less measured and more effective at undermining moderate support for immigration restrictions than the reaction of the president and key allies.” Consider, 65 percent of voters favor – compared to 35 percent who oppose – increasing merit over connection to relatives for immigration preference, eliminating the visa lottery, and increased funding for border security. That includes 68 percent of Latino voters, 64 percent of black voters, 64 percent of Democratic voters, 67 percent of Independent voters, 63 percent of “liberal” voters, and…

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Commentary: Build the Wall Remains Republicans Rallying Call

Tennessee Star

by Natalia Castro   Immigration debates dominated the 2016 election and two years later, the issue is equally as pertinent in Americans’ minds. For many individuals who voted for President Trump on the promise of building a wall to secure our southern border, there has been frustration surrounding a lack of action; but some action has been taken and this issue specifically demonstrates Republicans will have to maintain control of the House and Senate in the 2018 midterm elections if they want to finish the job. When President Trump signed a March 2018 spending bill into law, Congress allocated $1.6 billion for border wall construction and $400 million for repairing and replacing existing border fences. At the time, Trump referred to this as a down payment to begin wall construction, with more coming in the months ahead. That money has already been put to good use. Last week, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristjen Nielsen unveiled a newly built 30-foot border wall along the border of California and Mexico. During her visit to the wall she reinforced her support for the president’s policy, Let me be clear: Walls work. That’s not my opinion, it’s not a tagline, it’s not…

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Analysis: Trump’s Proposed 5 Percent Spending Cuts Would Pay for the Wall

by Robert Romano   “I’d like you to come back with a 5 percent cut. Get rid of the fat. Get rid of the waste, and I’m sure you can do it.” That was President Donald Trump on Oct. 17 ordering his Cabinet secretaries to come up with plans to slash the federal budget. After a $779 billion deficit for Fiscal Year 2018 as the national debt has topped $21 trillion, something’s got to give. More than half of the increase in the deficit, $65 billion, came as 10-year treasuries interest rates have jumped from 2.2 percent in Sept. 2017 to about 3.2 percent today. In his prior budgets, Trump has called for $4.5 trillion of spending cuts, including repealing Obamacare. Now that the military and law enforcement were taken care of in the budget, with major spending increases, Trump said it would free up Congress to be more aggressive in cutting spending elsewhere. For this particular proposal, non-defense discretionary spending authority was about $572 billion for Fiscal Year 2018, according to the Office of Management and Budget. So, 5 percent off the top would amount to about $28 billion a year of cuts. Which raises the question, if the…

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