border security

ICE director says deporting illegals from border surge would take 140 years

The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Wednesday, that at current deportation rates, it would take 140 years to remove all the illegal immigrants who came in during the border surge of the last two years. Matt Albence, ICE’s acting director, said the border surge over the last two years added 900,000 cases to ICE’s non-detained docket, which now totals more than 3.3 million. That far outstrips the agency’s ability to track down and deport people, he told the House Appropriations Committee. “We arrested about 2,500 non-criminal fugitives last year. If we do that, based on just the numbers that came in the last two years, it would take us about 140 years to clear up that backlog,” Mr. Albence said. He was defending ICE’s significant budget increase request for fiscal 2021, which envisions an average of 60,000 detention beds each day. That’s up dramatically from the 34,000 beds the Obama administration had for its final years, and nearly 15,000 more than Congress approved for this current year. “Without additional resources to actually effectuate a judge’s removal orders, we will have an immigration enforcement and court system in which billions of dollars a year are spent to obtain orders, that are not worth the paper they are written on,” Mr. Albence told the House Appropriations Committee.

Absolute insanity…  As we’ve been saying here at The Daily Buzz for over 6 years, we need to be deporting illegals by the hundreds of thousands…and yes, you read that correctly.  Mr Albence’s testimony here gives credibility to our position.  Remember, we have over 22 MILLION illegal aliens in this country.  That’s a staggering number, and it’s crushing our nation’s infrastructure.  The Trump Administration is making progress.  But, they need to take a far more aggressive posture.  Given the new novel coronavirus situation, they can use that to justify a more aggressive posture.  Hopefully they will.  And, of course, it is critical that we BUILD THE WALL NOW!!!…and make that our number one domestic national security priority.  Click on the text above for more of this article.

Hundreds of Chinese migrants detained at US border amid coronavirus-tied travel ban

Since officials first reported the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan in late December and the United States imposed a travel ban for those entering from China, Border Patrol agents have detained 333 Chinese nationals attempting to enter the United States illegally, according to Department of Homeland Security data. While none have tested positive for the virus, the southern border remains a primary focus of the Trump administration, which sees the area as high risk and a gateway for COVID-19 to spread in the U.S. “We have a unique public health threat posed by individuals arriving unlawfully at the border, where migrants, law enforcement officials, frontline personnel, and the American public are put at risk,” said a DHS official who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly by the agency. Under MPP, which stands for the Migrant Protection Protocol, the U.S. has deported some 60,000 migrants to Mexico to await their deportation hearings. Unless the Supreme Court acts, the policy will be ruled illegal in California and Arizona and those individuals and other migrants claiming asylum will be allowed to remain in the U.S. indefinitely. “All it would take is a single infected individual to impact the detained migrant community within DHS facilities without proper precautions, which can only happen through orderly, lawful migration, the virus threatens to spread rapidly,” the official said. “Any halting of MPP would exacerbate this threat.” The U.S. southern border is a microcosm of the world, with foreign nationals from 122 separate countries apprehended or denied entry already this fiscal year — from October through the end of February. Seventy of those countries currently report confirmed COVID-19 cases, led by China but followed by Italy, Iran, India, Romania, Vietnam and Brazil. The virus started popping up on health officials’ radar screens in late December in China and has since spread around the world. Some of the countries on the list have had very low rates of the virus, including Mexico. Meanwhile, the number of cases in the U.S. has risen dramatically in recent days, topping 1,000. China has nearly 81,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, Italy has more than 10,000 and Iran has about 8,000. Last week the Border Patrol asked the CDC to take over testing of those migrants who show symptoms consistent with COVID-19. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also runs 16 detention facilities with airborne infection isolation rooms. So far, it tested 4 migrants, all coming back negative. “It’s absolutely a risk that we’re monitoring and we’re evaluating,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said..

Major kudos to our Border Patrol for all their hard work.  They get beat up daily by the dominantly liberal mainstream media and Democrat politicians who  attack these agents for doing the jobs they were hired to do; protect us.  And with this latest challenge, they’re doing phenomenal work given their limited resources.

DHS waives contracting laws in bid to speed up border wall construction

In a move to speed up the construction of 177 miles of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Trump administration is waiving a set of laws that applies to how the Department of Homeland Security can work with federal contractors. The 10 laws the waiver applies to stipulate that the department allow open competition for contracts, justify its contractor selections and secure bonds that protect the government from financial loss should the project not be completed correctly, among other things. “Under the president’s leadership, we are building more wall, faster than ever before,” the department said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf has the authority to waive these contracting laws under a 2005 provision that gives him sweeping authority to do so when building border barriers. The option has previously been used to waive environmental impact reviews for sections of the border wall. Trump’s administration has invoked the waiver law 16 times, compared with five times under former President George W. Bush. The wall sections to which Wolf’s waiver applies will be built in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. This is just the latest step the Trump administration has taken to advance its immigration agenda. Last week, DHS deployed 100 Customs and Border Protection agents to work with Immigrations Customs and Enforcement in a handful of U.S. cities that have not cooperated with the federal government in enforcing immigration laws. That move drew criticism from Democrats, including Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, who sent the department a letter over the weekend demanding that it “reverse course” on the decision. Among the 100 agents deployed were members of an elite unit known as BORTAC, essentially the SWAT team of CBP. “Because this initiative is unnecessary, unwelcome, dangerous, menacing, retaliatory and unlikely to achieve its stated goal,” Warren and Markey said, “we write to demand that you reverse course and to pose questions to better understand your rationale for employing paramilitary-style immigration personnel equipped with ‘stun grenades and enhanced Special Forces-type training, including sniper certification’ in Boston and elsewhere in the United States.” Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced its intent to redirect $7.2 billion in funds appropriated for the Pentagon to build the border wall, an action Democrats called a “slap in the face to the members of the Armed Fores and their families.” The Trump administration announced where the funding for $3.8 billion of that $7.2 billion would come from last week. In details first reported by the Washington Post, the Department of Defense plans to divert funding from the construction of 17 aircraft, among other previously planned expenditures.

This is welcome news!  Getting that wall/fence built should be DHS’ #1 priority.  Hopefully the DHS Secretary took that letter from those two self-serving, bloviating Democrat Senators and gave it the Nancy Pelosi treatment…and ripped it up.

1000 Migrants Apprehended at Texas Border in Largest Group Ever

El Paso Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended a historic 1,036 migrants in a single group near El Paso on Wednesday morning. The group included more than 60 unaccompanied minors. Agents patrolling the border near El Paso encountered the largest-ever single group of Central American migrants crossing the border at one time. The previous record migrant group consisted of a group of 430 migrants who crossed the border near El Paso on Monday, according to information obtained from El Paso Sector officials. Prior to that agents apprehended a single group of 424 Central American migrants who crossed the New Mexico border near Antelope Wells one month ago. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials reported that the 1,036 migrants apprehended early Wednesday morning consisted of mostly Central American migrants including 934 family units, 63 unaccompanied minors, and 39 single adults, NBC News reported. The migrants traveled to the U.S. from Guatemala (515), Honduras (135), and El Salvador (76). “Immigration advocates say more immigrants are traveling in large groups because they believe in ‘safety in numbers,’ as conditions along their journey are treacherous,” NBC News reported. “U.S. officials say the large groups overwhelm medical teams and border agents, who are most often patrolling in pairs.” It has been a very busy week for El Paso Sector agents who are responsible for a largely unsecured border that covers far West Texas and the New Mexico boot-heel. On Memorial Day, El Paso Sector agents established a new single-day record by apprehending more than 2,200 migrants, according to information obtained by Breitbart News from El Paso Sector officials. The migrants crossed the border in two large groups and several smaller groups, officials reported. Early Monday morning, agents patrolling near Antelope Wells, New Mexico, apprehended the first large group of the day. The agents captured more than 200 migrants. A few hours later, agents in El Paso apprehended what would be short-lived record group of 430 migrants who crossed near Bowie High School. By the end of the day, El Paso Sector agents would be tasked with processing more than 2,200 migrants. Of those, 1,850 were taken into custody in small groups who crossed in an area of El Paso bounded by Executive Boulevard and Midway Street, officials stated. The migrants will be processed and provided a health screening and criminal background check. Migrants who are suspected of making false family claims will be interviewed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents to determine the validity of their claim. It is likely that most of the migrant family units will be released after processing due to overcrowding. “This fiscal year to date the El Paso Sector has arrested over [130,000] illegal aliens, compared to over 16,000 during the same time last fiscal year,” El Paso Sector officials said in a written statement. “The numbers continue to rise and agents see no end in sight for this current situation.”

Holy crap!!  The need to BUILD THE WALL NOW!!…and put U.S. Army National Guard troops physically ON the border with Mexico, to prevent them stepping one foot on U.S. soil (and secure all sorts of freebies that we-the actual citizens of America pay for), is more urgently needed then ever before!  Call, or email, your member of Congress and BOTH U.S. Senators today, and tell them to fund the wall NOW!  No more playing politics with this one.  If you hear some Democrat or member of the dominantly liberal mainstream media (i.e. CNN, MSNBC, NBC, PBS/NPR, etc) spout off some ridiculous talking point that its a “manufactured crisis” or some other such nonsense, refer them to this article.  We have over 22 MILLION illegal aliens here in America, and this is what is coming across every day, adding to that number.  By definition, this is an invasion on our southern border.  And, if it were N. Koreans, Chinese, or Russians, we’d consider it an act of war.  Well, its WAY past time we treated this problem as such.  We need to BUILD the WALL, and at the same time  start deporting illegals by the hundreds of thousands (and yes, you read that correctly).  That’s just for starters, folks.  To do anything less is NOT in our national security or economic interests.

Homeland Security to use DNA tests to thwart ‘fake’ illegal immigrant families

Border authorities have identified more than 1,000 “fake families” over the past seven months featuring adults trying to use children who aren’t their own to sneak into the U.S. Homeland Security officials revealed the number Wednesday as they announced a pilot program to begin using DNA testing to match children and the adults trying to sneak across the U.S.-Mexico boundary with them. “It’s definitely an escalating trend that we’re seeing,” one department official said of the fraudulent families. As the border spirals further out of control, President Trump sent Congress a request Wednesday for an emergency $4.5 billion infusion this year, warning that without the money the federal Health and Human Services Department will run out of cash to care for unaccompanied migrant children. HHS officials also acknowledged that a 16-year-old unaccompanied boy died in the custody of one of its contract shelters. The boy, who wasn’t identified beyond being Guatemalan, was arrested last month and sent to HHS on April 20 with no health complaints. The next morning, he became ill and had stints in and out of the hospital before being admitted finally on April 22. He remained in intensive care until he died Tuesday.

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Mexican troops disarmed American soldiers on US side of the border

Armed Mexican troops disarmed two United States soldiers while they were on the American side of the border, U.S. defense officials have said. U.S. Northern Command said in a statement that “five to six Mexican military personnel questioned two U.S. Army soldiers who were conducting border support operations” this month. The U.S. soldiers were in an unmarked Customs and Border Protection [CBP] vehicle near the southwest border near Clint, Texas. Officials confirmed that the Mexican troops were armed with what seemed to be rifles. They raised their weapons when they saw the two U.S. soldiers, and then took a pistol from one and put it in the CBP vehicle. According to officials talking to CNN, the two Americans obliged “in an attempt to de-escalate a potential volatile situation.” “Throughout the incident, the U.S. soldiers followed all established procedures and protocols,” the statement said. The two U.S. troops were on the south side of the security perimeter but north of the Rio Grande and thus were in the U.S., according side American territory, it added. Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security officials demanded an explanation from the Mexican government. “An inquiry by CBP and DOD [Department of Defense] revealed that the Mexican military members believed that the US Army soldiers were south of the border,” the statement said. “Though they were south of the border fence, U.S. soldiers remained in U.S. territory, north of the actual border.”

Soo..  Is an official apology forthcoming from the Mexican government for this outrageous invasion onto our side, and the confrontation with our American soldiers?  Our politicians need to demand that official apology now!  Call, or email, your member of Congress and both of your U.S. Senators and demand that they secure that apology.  Major kudos to our troops who handled that with such class and professionalism.  They are a credit to their uniforms.  They could easily have turned the tables, and ended that nonsense real quick in a way that would have ended very differently.  Mexican troops make, on average, a couple hundred incursions onto U.S. soil each ear.  And, sometimes, they fire on U.S. Border Patrol agents, etc.  Yeah…  You read that correctly.  So, this is hardly an isolated incident.  That’s why our politicians need to really push back on the Mexican government.  If anything, it’s just another reason why we need to BUILD THE WALL NOW!!!..and put armed U.S. Army National Guard troops physically ON the border with Mexico to prevent would-be crossers from setting on foot on U.S. soil…as well as to deter these sorts of incursions onto our side by Mexican troops.

John Lott: Media exaggerate impact of US-Mexico border closure

Let’s hope that President Trump’s “one-year warning” issued to Mexico Thursday to halt the flood of illegal drugs and migrants entering the U.S. – or face a border closure and new tariffs – will influence Mexico to make some real changes. Unfortunately, the media’s continual exaggerations of the dangers of closing the border may give Mexico the idea that the U.S. lacks the willpower to carry through on the president’s threat. If Mexican leaders conclude Trump is bluffing, there will be little reason for them to change their behavior. Take the headline this week in the Washington Post, sternly warning: “U.S. would run out of avocados in 3 weeks if border is closed.” USA Today, NBC News, CBS News, CNN, and many other media outlets have run virtually identical headlines. The stories all paint a simple picture: we would soon have no avocados to eat unless we keep getting them from Mexico. After all, avocados can’t be stored for more than three weeks, and nearly 90 percent of our current imports come from Mexico. No more guacamole. No more avocado toast. The news media are hyping avocados the most because they think that will strike close to home with people. But despite the certainty of these news stories, avocados wouldn’t disappear even if the border was closed for months. The economics are straightforward. Mexico grows about 34 percent of the world’s avocados, and they account for almost half the exports. But other major producers include the Dominican Republic, Peru, Colombia and Chile. The United States imports fewer avocados than the European Union, Canada and Japan combined. If the U.S.-Mexico border is closed, avocados that would have shipped to these other countries would be shipped to the U.S., while the avocados that Mexico normally sends to the U.S. would now go to other countries. The price of avocados could go up a little, since it’s more costly to ship from South America. But we wouldn’t run out of avocados or any other foods. The U.S. imports about $26 billion in food from Mexico each year. That’s just a small fraction of the $1.62 trillion that Americans spent on food and beverages in 2017. The No. 1 food and beverage import from Mexico is beer, with a value of $3.3 billion annually. But plenty of substitutes are brewed in the U.S., which annually spends $35 billion on beer. There are places along the border with Mexico that would bear a disproportionate burden from a shutdown. But the news media are exaggerating the costs to the U.S. What about the costs of continuing to have a porous border through which illegal immigrants can cross? Take just the costs of education. The average per-pupil cost of public schooling (including the costs of facilities) is over $13,200 per year. Conservatively, approximately 540,000 school-age illegal immigrants (ages 5 to 17) live in the U.S., along with another 2.54 million U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. Their schooling costs taxpayers at least $41 billion a year. That figure increases if these students go on to public colleges. President Trump is rightly concerned that a porous border is hazardous to national safety. The Crime Prevention Research Center, of which I am president, recently found that illegal immigrants in Arizona are at least 142 percent more likely to be convicted of a crime than other Arizonans. These crimes tend to be more serious, and illegal immigrants are 45 percent more likely to be gang members than prison inmates who are American citizens. If illegal immigrants in the rest of the U.S. commit crimes at the same rate as illegal immigrants in Arizona, a nationwide population of 11.3 million illegal immigrants would mean an additional 1,647 murders each year. That means the murder count would be 11 percent higher than it otherwise would be. There would also be 8,900 more rapes, 20,000 more robberies, and 53,000 more aggravated assaults. Should President Trump eventually decide to close the border, his economic advisers want to keep the freight lanes open so commerce would continue unabated. If the president does so and closes the border to people, the economic costs of a shutdown would be much smaller. Still, it might not ever be necessary to close the border at all. The threat alone has already started moving Mexico in the right direction to stop the throngs of Central Americans who travel through the country up to the U.S. It is not obvious what Mexico stands to gain from Central Americans traveling to our country. After all, these aren’t Mexican citizens. The problem of illegal drugs is much more difficult to solve. Trade benefits both the United States and Mexico. There would be real costs from closing the border, but the news media’s dire predictions wouldn’t come true.

Of course they wouldn’t..  Thanks to John R. Lott, Jr. for that outstanding analysis, and calling the “fake news” media out for their ridiculous lies and exaggerations.  John is an economist and was formerly chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission. Lott is also a leading expert on guns and op-eds on that issue are done in conjunction with the Crime Prevention Research Center. He is the author of nine books including “More Guns, Less Crime.” His latest book is “The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies (August 1, 2016). Follow him on Twitter @johnrlottjr.