Police in Chicago were warned not to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on issues of immigration.
The Chicago Police Department (CPD)sent a memo, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-police-dont-cooperate-dhs-immigration">obtained by Fox News</a>, to officers in late September telling them to wait for a supervisor to arrive before assisting DHS. Upon arrival, the supervisor will direct CPD officers to leave the scene, “if the request is to assist with an immigration arrest or detention. Fox News confirmed the authenticity of the memo but could not determine whether Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was behind the directive.
Several sources within the CPD told Fox that the new policy puts both departments at risk.
“See what happens when that happens and a DHS agent is injured because of a lack of response by CPD. Sickening what’s happening here,” one source told the outlet.
“You’ll not find a single real police officer that would refuse to assist another agency,” said another.
Chicago is one of at least 36 sanctuary cities in the United States that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within DHS. In addition to dozens of cities, whole counties and states are also considered to be sanctuaries for illegal immigrants.
A DHS spokesperson told Fox that the memo to Chicago police officers was dangerous.
“The Department of Homeland Security is deeply concerned with the dangerous anti-law enforcement direction given by the leadership of the Chicago Police Department. The men and women of ICE put their lives on the line every day to protect the citizens of this country from dangerous criminals,” the spokesperson told the outlet. “Failing to support fellow law enforcement officers upon request for assistance not only places our heroic police officers in greater danger but keeps criminals on the streets and makes all of our communities less safe, specifically the great City of Chicago.”
The CPD told the outlet that law enforcement would assist a federal agent who is in danger but would not assist in the arrest. Instead, they will “advise and leave the scene.”
The new policy for CPD came around the same time that a Virginia police officer was suspended <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/police-officer-suspended-after-cooperating-with-ice">for cooperating with ICE</a>.
The officer was suspended after responding to a vehicle crash. During routine license checks, the officer discovered that one of the drivers had a warrant out for his arrest for failing to appear for a deportation hearing. The officer notified the ICE contact listed on the notification of the warrant, who was nearby. The officer then arrested the driver and turned them over to the ICE agent.
Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler Jr. said in <a href="https://fcpdnews.wordpress.com/2019/10/01/chief-roesslers-statement-on-officers-custodial-detention-and-ice-notification/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social">a statement</a> that officer violated a department order requiring them to ignore such a notification unless the person in question is “being taken into custody for any other violation of law.” Roessler emphasized in his statement that officers are extensively trained on this distinction and that the suspended officer “deprived a person of their freedom, which is unacceptable.”
The arrested driver spent three hours in custody and was released.

Police

Chicago Police Officers Told Not To Cooperate With DHS On Immigration Issues: Memo

Chicago

Department of Homeland Security

Illegal Immigration

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

A woman was arrested on Friday for allegedly attacking a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) facility in Florida with a Molotov cocktail, which authorities say was intended to harm people.
&#8220;The woman walked into the office Friday afternoon and hurled a bottle filled with gasoline and a lit fuse,&#8221; Local 10 News <a href="https://www.local10.com/news/florida/broward/woman-tosses-molotov-cocktail-into-oakland-park-immigration-office">reported</a>. &#8220;But the fuse disconnected and didn&#8217;t ignite &#8230; Security officers handcuffed her, and she was taken into custody. The report did not list her name.&#8221;
The attack happened at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office about 30 miles north of Miami.
&#8220;Today’s attempted attack on one of our USCIS facilities using a Molotov cocktail is another example of the use of violence in place of debate by those who oppose the proper application of our immigration laws,&#8221; USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli wrote in a statement. &#8220;This is the 2d attack on a DHS facility in 2 months using a Molotov cocktail. Violence has no place in our society. Thankfully, no one was hurt today. We&#8217;re grateful to our security guards &amp; the law enforcement officers of FPS who apprehended and arrested the assailant.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">(2/2) &#8230; This is the 2d attack on a DHS facility in 2 months using a Molotov cocktail. Violence has no place in our society. Thankfully, no one was hurt today. We’re grateful to our security guards &amp; the law enforcement officers of FPS who apprehended and arrested the assailant.
— USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli (@USCISCuccinelli) <a href="https://twitter.com/USCISCuccinelli/status/1167627990282452992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Acts of aggression against immigration authorities have increased in recent months as Democrats and the media have increasingly demonized them as part of their attacks on the Trump administration.
&#8220;About two weeks ago in San Antonio, at least one vehicle pulled up to a building that houses offices for ICE and a gunman fired shots through a window, FBI officials said,&#8221; Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-woman-tosses-lit-molotov-cocktail-citizenship-immigration-services-office-homeland-security">reported</a>. &#8220;Another building used by ICE was also fired on.&#8221;
In July, a self-described member of the far-left extremist group Antifa attacked an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Tacoma, Washington, as he fired a rifle at the facility, lit vehicles on fire, and attempted to detonate a propane tank that he reportedly hoped would burn the facility down.
The suspect echoed rhetoric from socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in his manifesto, falsely claiming that immigrant detention facilities were &#8220;concentration camps.&#8221;

Homeland Security

DHS Facility Attacked With Molotov Cocktail In Florida

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Democratic Party

Securing the nation&#8217;s borders and protecting the nation&#8217;s sovereignty against those who would violate it is, perhaps above anything else, the singular <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48335/hammer-federal-government-has-no-more-important-josh-hammer">most important function of the federal government</a>. After all, in the 2012 Supreme Court case of Arizona v. United States, Justice Antonin Scalia powerfully <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-182">described</a> &#8220;the power to exclude from the sovereign’s territory people who have no right to be there&#8221; as &#8220;the defining characteristic of sovereignty.&#8221; Illegal immigration, furthermore, manifests itself across <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49616/hammer-why-no-one-discussing-drug-trafficking-josh-hammer">countless issues</a> affecting the body politic: National security, crime, drugs, public health, cultural assimilation, and the health of the public fisc.
But what happens when the federal government&#8217;s unwillingness to defend its sovereignty is coupled with the federal government&#8217;s unwillingness to defend the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Supremacy Clause of Article VI</a> of the U.S. Constitution — that the &#8220;Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof &#8230; shall be the supreme law of the land?&#8221;
Every single day across America, sundry sanctuary jurisdictions harbor illegal aliens — often violent <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/ice-guard-dangerous-drunk-driving/">criminal</a> ones — and fail to honor <a href="https://www.ice.gov/detainers">detainer requests</a> from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As ICE explains on its <a href="https://www.ice.gov/detainers">website</a>, detainers &#8220;provide notice of [ICE&#8217;s] intent to assume custody of an individual detained in federal, state, or local custody&#8221; and are typically &#8220;placed on aliens arrested on criminal charges for whom ICE possesses probable cause to believe &#8230; are removable from the United States.&#8221; The results of local law enforcement agencies failing to honor ICE detainers, from a public safety and sovereignty protection perspective, are often <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/despite-horrific-bambi-larson-murder-santa-clara-county-continuing-sanctuary-status/">predictably disastrous</a>. But what seems to be an under-covered aspect of the sanctuary cities phenomenon is how blatantly illegal the practice is under existing federal statute.
As Daniel Horowitz helpfully <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/oregon-sanctuaries-force-ice-apprehend-alleged-child-sex-offender-courthouse/">points out</a> at Conservative Review, it is imperative to consider the text of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1373">8 U.S.C. § 1373(a)</a>:
<blockquote>Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the [Department of Homeland Security] information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.</blockquote>
It is true that the U.S. Supreme Court&#8217;s so-called &#8220;<a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-supreme-court-reinforces-the-10th-amendment">anti-commandeering doctrine</a>,&#8221; most famously articulated in the 1992 case of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1991/91-543">New York v. United States</a> and the 1997 case of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1996/95-1478">Printz v. United States</a>, stands for the proposition that the federal government cannot forcibly &#8220;commandeer&#8221; state governments to help the federal government enforce federal law. As Justice Scalia <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-1478.ZO.html">wrote in Printz</a>, &#8220;The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.&#8221;
But a plain reading of 8 U.S.C. § 1373(a) does not seem to countenance a violation of the anti-commandeering doctrine. Under § 1373(a), state and local officials are not coerced into &#8220;enforc[ing] a federal regulatory program.&#8221; Rather, under the text of the statute, all state and local officials are prohibited from doing is issuing a &#8220;restrict[ion] [upon the] sending to, or receiving from, the [Department of Homeland Security] information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.&#8221; Put simply, the issue at hand in § 1373(a) is not federal commandeering of state actors to enforce a federal program; rather, the issue is the prevention of state and local officials from openly defying and subverting federal law. And the Constitution&#8217;s Supremacy Clause plainly forbids the states from openly defying and subverting federal law. The Constitution&#8217;s Supremacy Clause, as applied to § 1373(a), therefore prohibits state and local governments from shielding a removable illegal alien from ICE when ICE issues a detainer request on the alien.
The Trump administration, despite a <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-has-not-built-a-single-mile-of-new-border-fence-after-30-months-in-office">mixed (at best) record</a> on actually effectuating the president&#8217;s signature campaign item and building the wall, is now doubling down and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/finish-that-wall-trump-seeks-to-turn-his-failure-to-build-the-wall-into-campaign-rallying-cry/2019/02/16/3fbaebd4-3138-11e9-ac6c-14eea99d5e24_story.html">campaigning hard on the immigration issue</a> in advance of the president&#8217;s 2020 re-election campaign. As both a political and a policy matter, wouldn&#8217;t it then make sense for the administration to actually try to enforce federal law that is already on the books against the pervasive problem of sanctuary city malfeasance?

HAMMER: Why Is No One Pointing Out That Sanctuary Cities Blatantly Violate This Federal Law?

Constitution

Department of Justice

Immigration

Sanctuary Cities

Southern Border

Supreme Court

Trump Administration

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) is helping to spearhead an effort to streamline the screening and deportation process for migrant families who have entered into the United States without valid legal claims for asylum.
“This pilot program would apply to families who aren’t claiming ‘credible fear,’ which of course is the first threshold in seeking asylum,” Sinema told <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2019/07/18/sen-kyrsten-sinema-program-removal-migrant-families-border-asylum-seekers/1770073001/">The Arizona Republic</a> on Thursday. “If someone says ‘I left my country because I can’t make a living’ [or] ‘it’s hard to take care of my family,’ that’s what we call an economic migrant.”
Referring to the program as “Operation Safe Return,” Sinema helped craft the pilot program with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who chairs the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate. She initially got involved the program&#8217;s creation after the Trump administration discussed potential changes to American asylum laws and mulled over challenges to court rulings that have more recently dictated immigration policy.
“I just felt those weren’t the right answers,” Sinema said. “We wanted to solve the problem. We wanted to protect the asylum process for valid applicants … and we want to respect the Flores decision.”
Federal courts during the Obama administration ruled that the government is prohibited from detaining alien children for longer than 20 days. Since the 20-day window is often not long enough to process the detained immigrants, children and their accompanying adults are consequently separated so as not to violate what is referred to as the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46601/hammer-why-did-dhs-abort-its-re-writing-infamous-josh-hammer">Flores consent decree</a>.
“With Operation Safe Return we want to send a message to the people of Central America: Don’t indebt yourself to these human traffickers — the most evil people on the planet,” <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRonJohnson/status/1151962345519775744">Johnson said</a>. “It’s not worth it.”
“As sympathetic as I am toward anyone who yearns for the freedom and opportunity that America provides, it is not possible to properly accommodate all who do. Those who enter our country illegally without a valid asylum claim put themselves and our society at risk,” he continued. “The goal of our policies should be to reduce the overwhelming flow of illegal migration and convert it to a controllable number of legal immigrants.”
Sinema and Johnson are joined by seven other senators in their push to enact Operation Safe Return along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democratic Sens. Doug Jones (D-AL) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) crossed the aisle to join Republican Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mike Enzi (R-WY), James Lankford (R-OK), and Rob Portman (R-OH) in the effort.
The bipartisan group of nine <a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-07-17%20RHJ,%20Et%20All%20to%20President%20Trump%20re%20Operation%20Safe%20Return.pdf">penned a letter</a> to acting Homeland Security Sec. Kevin McAleenan that describes the pilot program, reported The Arizona Republic. They will be meeting with McAleenan face-to-face in the coming weeks to discuss the program in greater detail.
“We have worked with your agencies to develop a streamlined process to rapidly, accurately, and fairly determine those family units that do not have a valid legal claim and safely return those individuals to their homes,” the Senators wrote to McAleenan. “The process would use existing authorities, but surge necessary resources to a limited, particular location on the southern border.”
“Within approximately 15 days after being encountered, the Department of Homeland Security should remove family units whose negative credible fear determinations are affirmed by the immigration judge,” the letter continued.
“[The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection] indicated a strong interest in this program for several reasons,” Sinema added.
NOTE: The article has been updated to reflect that Sinema is helping to lead Operation Safe Return with Johnson, rather than being the sole lead of the operation.

Kyrsten Sinema Leads Bipartisan Push To Streamline Removal Of Migrant Families With Invalid Asylum Claims

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

The sheer scope of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45822/hammer-customs-and-border-protections-insane-march-josh-hammer">systemic</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46992/crisis-cbps-april-border-numbers-further-reveal-josh-hammer">all-encompassing</a> sovereignty <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46457/amidst-unprecedented-border-crisis-united-nations-josh-hammer">crisis</a> at our southern border is staggering.
From both a <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/48335/hammer-federal-government-has-no-more-important-josh-hammer">constitutional and a philosophical perspective</a>, the federal government has no more important responsibility to its citizenry than securing the border. Period.
From a national security perspective, it is stupefying to ponder the reality that we are releasing tens of thousands of barely vetted aliens into the interior each month due to a brutal combination of catch-and-release tomfoolery, limited bed space due to the under-funding of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the erroneously decreed <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46601/hammer-why-did-dhs-abort-its-re-writing-infamous-josh-hammer">Flores settlement</a>. Indeed, we know from the <a href="https://cis.org/Bensman/Assessing-Report-about-Four-ISIS-Terrorist-Suspects-Caught-Nicaragua">intrepid reporting</a> of journalist extraordinaire Todd Bensman that the predominantly Central America-fleeing economic migrants have no shortage of dangerous Middle Easterners <a href="https://www.toddbensman.com/from-panama-and-costa-rica-complete-findings-of-bensmans-terror-travel-threat-investigation/">mixed in among them</a>. Furthermore, we are letting in <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/contagion-invasion-part-1-ever-happened-principle-protecting-borders-dangerous-diseases/">no shortage</a> of migrants afflicted with <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/contagion-invasion-part-2-untold-public-health-endemic-borders-beyond/">deadly diseases</a>.
From an assimilation perspective, the huge number of Central Americans absconding into the nation&#8217;s interior due to the de facto amnesty of catch-and-release only exacerbates our increasingly stark crisis of national unity — including but hardly limited to our ability to (literally) all <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/what-assimilation-half-the-people-in-americas-largest-cities-speak-foreign-languages/">speak a common language</a>.
From a crime perspective, we know that non-citizen aliens commit a <a href="https://cis.org/Camarota/NonCitizens-Committed-Disproportionate-Share-Federal-Crimes-201116">disproportionate share of federal crime</a> — 44.2% of it over the course of 2011 — in 2016, according to <a href="https://cis.org/Camarota/NonCitizens-Committed-Disproportionate-Share-Federal-Crimes-201116">statistics</a> from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. And from a pure common sense perspective, it ought to make sense that vulnerable unaccompanied alien youths showing up at our border would be more susceptible to recruitment by MS-13 and other Central America-originating transnational gangs. In fact, both MS-13 and the cartels operate so fluidly throughout the U.S. due in no small part to the ongoing surfeit of prospective gangsters and drug mules who reach our border and are released into the interior. Consider this <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/19-22-indicted-ultra-violent-ms-13-murders-illegal-aliens-central-america/">harrowing story</a> out of Los Angeles:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">&#8220;Nineteen of the 22 defendants charged in the indictment had entered the country illegally in the last four years,&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/MHQ1kW4aAU">https://t.co/MHQ1kW4aAU</a>
— Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) <a href="https://twitter.com/RMConservative/status/1151463048827346944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
But perhaps the singular least discussed aspect of the ongoing crisis at our southern border is that the illegal alien influx there has dramatically metastasized America&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db329-h.pdf">already-dire drug epidemic</a>. An eye-opening <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/drugs-pour-in-from-mexico-as-border-patrol-forced-to-focus-on-migrants">report</a> in the Washington Examiner this morning shines a spotlight on the extent to which the border crisis has frozen our Department of Homeland Security (DHS) human assets — redirecting those officials who would normally be in the business of interdicting contraband 50-100 miles inland to deal with apprehension and toddler daycare duty at the border itself. Per the Examiner:
<blockquote>Border Patrol highway checkpoints in the southern New Mexico region that normally seize seven figures worth of drugs annually have not seized a dollar in nearly four months after being shuttered in late March, allowing drugs to flood into the country. Meantime, with the added supply, prices for illicit drugs are dropping precipitously.
Those seven checkpoints have sat unattended after Border Patrol closed them to move all personnel to the border to assist with apprehending, processing, and caring for the high number of migrant families arriving. &#8230;
Officials have also noted upticks in methamphetamine and fentanyl seizures since March. Black said the cost of a pound of meth has been slashed in half since then, from $4,700 when the checkpoints first closed to $2,500 by late June. The price dropped because the market is saturated.</blockquote>
To summarize, then, Border Patrol assets who are normally tasked with interdicting contraband have been, due in no small part to the current under-funding of DHS, redeployed to the border to deal with the sundry maladies transpiring there. As a consequence, drugs trafficked in by the cartels and their terrorist allies (like Hezbollah) are not being seized. There is now a huge, unprecedented glut of deadly narcotics pouring into the nation. Recall that a sugar packet-sized dose of fentanyl can kill a whole room full of people. And now, so much meth is being trafficked into the interior that prices in Las Cruces, New Mexico have been cut by nearly half in just four months! That is simply astonishing.
America&#8217;s drug overdose epidemic, while <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/senate-about-to-pass-opioid-laws-that-are-built-on-lies/">misdiagnosed</a> as an &#8220;opioid&#8221; epidemic, is really a more general narcotics epidemic that has fentanyl, cocaine, meth, and heroin as its leading contributors. Our under-funded DHS and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48281/hammer-trump-has-unilateral-power-stop-migrant-josh-hammer">political unwillingness</a> to stanch the illegal alien influx bleeding at our border is not just resulting in <a href="http://www.conservativereview.com/news/19-22-indicted-ultra-violent-ms-13-murders-illegal-aliens-central-america/">machete-style MS-13 murders</a> in Los Angeles. It is also leading to an unprecedented crisis of drugs so potent that — in the case of fentanyl — they might be reasonably compared to cartel-driven chemical warfare against our inner cities and collective progeny.
This is a huge, huge problem. Drugs are literally destroying countless small towns across the nation. And now our political elites, by ignoring the border crisis as they have, are somehow making the drug epidemic crisis even worse than it already is. It is nothing short of a blemish upon our entire political ruling class.

HAMMER: Why Is No One Discussing The Drug Trafficking Aspect Of Our Southern Border Crisis?

Drugs

Los Angeles

MS-13 Gang

New Mexico

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took her extreme left-wing agenda to new levels during an interview with The New Yorker Radio this week, saying that the entire Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should be eliminated.
Ocasio-Cortez made the comment while discussing her past calls to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with David Remnick.
&#8220;ICE is not under DOJ, it&#8217;s under the Department of Homeland Security and so we have now —&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez said.
&#8220;Would you get rid of Homeland Security too?&#8221; Remnick asked.
&#8220;I think so,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez responded. &#8220;I think so.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez called the creation of DHS an &#8220;egregious mistake&#8221; by the Bush administration.
DHS was created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans, and is designed to help prevent attacks and deal with threats against the United States.
LISTEN:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Ocasio-Cortez tells The New Yorker Radio that she wants to eliminate the entire Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Question: “Would you get rid of Homeland Security too?”
Ocasio-Cortez responds: “I think so”
DHS was created to protect America in response to 9/11 <a href="https://t.co/A8i05visFi">pic.twitter.com/A8i05visFi</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1148817308086702080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Ocasio-Cortez is not the only member of the far-left wing of the Democratic Party that wants to destroy DHS.
In February, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) also made a similar call when she tweeted &#8220;#Not1Dollar for DHS.&#8221;
Omar tweeted: &#8220;When Democrats stood our ground last month, we proved that Individual 1 does not have the public support to ram his hateful wall through Congress. Let’s stand firm: #Not1Dollar for DHS.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">When Democrats stood our ground last month, we proved that Individual 1 does not have the public support to ram his hateful wall through Congress.
Let’s stand firm: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Not1Dollar?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Not1Dollar</a> for DHS.
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ilhan/status/1094014995430555648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;DHS has a budget of over <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/02/12/department-homeland-security-statement-president-s-fiscal-year-2019-budget">$45 billion</a> per year, which it uses to fund multiple <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/operational-and-support-components">operational and support components</a> that the department oversees,&#8221; The Daily Wire reported. DHS also employs nearly a quarter of a million people, according to its website.
Eliminating DHS would bring an end to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), United States Coast Guard (USCG), United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), United States Secret Service (USSS), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Management Directorate, Science and Technology Directorate, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and the Office of Operations Coordination.
DHS has five core goals, which include preventing terrorism and enhancing security, securing and managing the borders, enforcing and administering immigration laws, safeguarding and securing cyberspace, and ensuring resilience to disasters.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49327/patriarchy-has-no-gender-aoc-claims-conway-sexist-ryan-saavedra">‘Patriarchy Has No Gender’: AOC Claims Conway Is ‘Sexist’ Toward Her</a>

Ocasio-Cortez Calls For Elimination Of Critical Portion Of U.S. Government

Today, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released its apprehension data for the month of May. And the numbers are wild. Specifically, CBP recorded a 32% increase over the already-record-breaking April apprehension numbers.
CBP tweeted: &#8220;CBP continues to face a worsening crisis at the Southwest border. In May, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 144,278 individuals along the SWB&#8212;a 32% increase over the previous month.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
CBP continues to face a worsening crisis at the Southwest border. In May, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 144,278 individuals along the SWB&#8212;a 32% increase over the previous month. Details here: <a href="https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb">https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb</a> <a href="https://t.co/p8kcr5lZ7Y">pic.twitter.com/p8kcr5lZ7Y</a>
&#8212; CBP (@CBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1136337950353100800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
CBP&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration">full data release</a> today showcases the incredible trajectory of our border <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46457/amidst-unprecedented-border-crisis-united-nations-josh-hammer">crisis</a>. Solely looking at apprehensions recorded between points of entry, CBP recorded 132,887 in the month of May alone. That is double the number of apprehensions from just February, when CBP recorded 66,884 apprehensions. Going back to the beginning of the fiscal year in October 2018, CBP has recorded a staggering 160.52% increase in apprehensions recorded between points of entry in the first eight months of this fiscal year alone.
These are eye-opening numbers that ought to indicate the depth of the national crisis to every sober viewer relatively familiar with basic arithmetic.
Twitter reacted strongly to CBP&#8217;s astonishing revelation.
Nick Miroff &#8212; a Washington Post national security reporter specializing in immigration enforcement and drug trafficking who had previously found himself so flabbergasted by CBP&#8217;s February border numbers so as to describe them as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44291/data-suggest-no-relationship-between-central-josh-hammer">&#8220;bonkers&#8221;</a> &#8212; today tweeted: &#8220;&#8216;We are in a full-blown emergency, and I cannot say this stronger: the system is broken,&#8217; said acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders. CBP has detained more than 680,000 border-crossers in FY19, Sanders said, &#8216;more than the population of Miami.'&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8220;We are in a full-blown emergency, and I cannot say this stronger: the system is broken,&#8221; said acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders.
CBP has detained more than 680,000 border-crossers in FY19, Sanders said, &#8220;more than the population of Miami.&#8221; Our story <a href="https://t.co/UbO7oKOlNW">https://t.co/UbO7oKOlNW</a>
&#8212; Nick Miroff (@NickMiroff) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickMiroff/status/1136331236593586176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Reporter David Nakamura, also from the Post, tweeted: &#8220;Just did the math: During the 2014 border crisis under Obama, CBP apprehended 137,000 families + children for the entire fiscal year. In the past *two months* alone, CBP has apprehended 164,000 of them.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Just did the math: During the 2014 border crisis under Obama, CBP apprehended 137,000 families + children for the entire fiscal year. In the past *two months* alone, CBP has apprehended 164,000 of them. Links: <a href="https://t.co/ojQhtTIdlU">https://t.co/ojQhtTIdlU</a> and <a href="https://t.co/1zzW3PPLv3">https://t.co/1zzW3PPLv3</a> <a href="https://t.co/pXMDnRZDYO">https://t.co/pXMDnRZDYO</a>
&#8212; David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidNakamura/status/1136336911621136389?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Jason Johnson, the Texas-based former chief strategist of the 2016 Ted Cruz presidential campaign, tweeted: &#8220;Arrests at southern border in May ALONE (144,000) roughly equal to population of Savannah, GA/Bridgeport, CT/Syracuse, NY/McAllen, TX/Mesquite, TX/Paterson, NJ/Midland,TX&#8230;. #BorderCrisis.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Arrests at southern border in May ALONE (144,000) roughly equal to population of Savannah, GA/Bridgeport, CT/Syracuse, NY/McAllen, TX/Mesquite, TX/Paterson, NJ/Midland,TX&#8230;. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BorderCrisis?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BorderCrisis</a> <a href="https://t.co/yIoKEjxh11">https://t.co/yIoKEjxh11</a>
&#8212; Jason Johnson (@jasonsjohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonsjohnson/status/1136338086865096709?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Freshman congressman Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), a consistent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42306/conservative-favorite-rep-chip-roys-maiden-floor-josh-hammer">border hawk</a>, bluntly tweeted: &#8220;I cannot imagine why we should conduct one more item of business on the Hill until we address this.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I cannot imagine why we should conduct one more item of business on the Hill until we address this. <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/HouseGOP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HouseGOP</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/SenateGOP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenateGOP</a> <a href="https://t.co/emJ0ljrHgJ">pic.twitter.com/emJ0ljrHgJ</a>
&#8212; Chip Roy (@chiproytx) <a href="https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1136347521700306944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Conservative commentator Daniel Horowitz noted that President Donald Trump could easily shut off large swaths of the migrant influx by unilaterally invoking <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47473/hammer-trumps-legal-immigration-plan-solid-it-josh-hammer">8 U.S.C. § 1182(f)</a>, tweeting: &#8220;The fact that CBP can announce border numbers like this and the president doesnt give an immediate speech announcing an 1182f shutoff sets the precedent that no matter the situation &#8211; the entire world could come &#8211; and he cannot shut it off. Stop talking about tariffs.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
The fact that CBP can announce border numbers like this and the president doesnt give an immediate speech announcing an 1182f shutoff sets the precedent that no matter the situation &#8211; the entire world could come &#8211; and he cannot shut it off. Stop talking about tariffs.
&#8212; Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) <a href="https://twitter.com/RMConservative/status/1136334430275088385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The reality, as Ryan Girdusky has noted, is that President Trump has many options to exercise hitherto statutorily delegated authority, if he chose to invoke it:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
There&#8217;s a long list of existing statute that gives <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> to power to fix this problem on his own: 
8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) 
8 U.S.C. § 1222(a) 
8 U.S.C. § 1225(b)(1)(A)(i) and (b)(1)(B)(iii)(IV) 
18 U.S.C. § 1001 
8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(C) <a href="https://t.co/nTHwmGFBXc">https://t.co/nTHwmGFBXc</a>
&#8212; Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1130891759393943554?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
CBP has used strongly worded language before in an attempt to convey to Americans the dire extent of the border situation. At the time of the release of CBP&#8217;s apprehension data for the month of March, CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert E. Perez referred to the onslaught as a &#8220;system-wide emergency.&#8221; &#8220;We are currently experiencing a system-wide emergency in our processing and holding facilities,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-march-statistics-southwest-border-migration">said</a> at the time.

FULL-ON CRISIS: CBP Records Yet Another New Monthly Record In Apprehensions

Mexico

Last Thursday, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney held a phone briefing with members of the media. The full transcript is <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/05/30/background-press-call-senior-administration-officials-crisis-our-southern-border">publicly available</a>, courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security. On the call, McAleenan referred to the present overwhelming influx of migrant aliens as placing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in a situation that is &#8220;beyond sustainable capacity.&#8221;
The Center for Immigration Studies has a <a href="https://cis.org/Arthur/McAleenan-Details-Scope-Disaster-Border">helpful summary</a> of the staggering &#8212; and truly tragic, from a humanitarian perspective &#8212; key takeaways of the McAleenan/Mulvaney phone call:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Over the past 21 days, an average of over 4,500 people have crossed our border illegally or arrived at ports of entry without documents. In May of 2017, that number was less than 700 a day. The month of May is on pace to be the highest month in crossings in over 12 years and will significantly surpass the record 109,000 in April.</li>
<li>U.S. immigration authorities now have over 80,000 people in custody, a record level that is beyond sustainable capacity with current resources. Over 7,500 single adults are in custody at the border and Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding over 50,000.</li>
<li>Over 2,350 unaccompanied children &#8211; the highest level ever &#8211; are currently in custody waiting for days for placements in border stations that cannot provide appropriate conditions for them because Health and Human Services is out of bed space and Congress has failed to act on the administration&#8217;s emergency supplemental request for more than four weeks.</li>
<li>A five- and a ten-month old drowned in a river transiting Mexico to the United States in the last few days.</li>
<li>More than 75,000 families have already transited through Mexico to the Southwest border this month alone.</li>
<li>More than 4,000 foreign nationals appeared at the border this year with children that they fraudulently claimed were their own, a number that is increasing.</li>
<li>At any given moment, up to 100,000 migrants are transiting Mexico on their way to the U.S. border.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
CBP has often used extraordinarily blunt language, of late, in describing the present <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46643/poll-even-many-more-democrats-now-describe-our-josh-hammer">crisis</a> at our southern border. In a <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/over-2200-apprehensions-el-paso-sector-border-patrol-memorial-day">press release</a> from last week <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47792/cbp-reports-staggering-number-memorial-day-josh-hammer">announcing</a> a staggering number of Memorial Day apprehensions for the CBP-designated El Paso Sector, for example, CBP referred to the &#8220;influx of illegal aliens entering our country [who have] no respect for our immigration laws.&#8221; As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46992/crisis-cbps-april-border-numbers-further-reveal-josh-hammer">reported</a>, furthermore, CBP responded to the publication earlier last month of its monthly apprehension numbers for the month of April by tweeting about the &#8220;unprecedented&#8221; and &#8220;unsustainable&#8221; influx: &#8220;#CBP is experiencing an unprecedented and unsustainable situation at the Southwest border. In April, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 109,144 individuals along the SWB.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CBP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CBP</a> is experiencing an unprecedented and unsustainable situation at the Southwest border. In April, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 109,144 individuals along the SWB. Details here: <a href="https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb">https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb</a> <a href="https://t.co/kzfTpfPNP8">pic.twitter.com/kzfTpfPNP8</a>
&#8212; CBP (@CBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1126214086839214083?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
A month prior, CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert E. Perez <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-march-statistics-southwest-border-migration">referred</a> to the migrant alien onslaught as presenting a &#8220;system-wide emergency.&#8221; &#8220;We are currently experiencing a system-wide emergency in our processing and holding facilities,&#8221; Perez stated at the time of the release of CBP&#8217;s apprehension data for the month of March.
Congressional Democrats have <a href="https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/04/the-democrats-are-humanitarian-frauds-on-the-border/">consistently rejected attempts</a> to help mollify the humanitarian crisis presently afflicting our <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46207/day-our-beleaguered-border-human-smugglers-arizona-josh-hammer">beleaguered</a> border.

DHS: Number Of Aliens In Custody At Border ‘Beyond Sustainable Capacity’

Mick Mulvaney

White House

DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan shot down false claims from Democratic lawmakers and journalists about family separations on the border during a Thursday interview on Fox News.
Responding to hysterical claims and accusations from Democrat Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL) and MSNBC&#8217;s Mika Brzezinski about separating families, McAleenan said: &#8220;First of all, that is not happening. We are separating children in maybe one case a day out of the 3,000 families arriving.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s very rare. It&#8217;s for the safety of the child, first and foremost,&#8221; McAleenan continued. &#8220;It&#8217;s a prosecution for a serious criminal offense, it&#8217;s a threat to the child, it&#8217;s communicable disease, or it&#8217;s someone who&#8217;s presenting a family relationship that doesn&#8217;t exist. That&#8217;s when that happens.&#8221;
Ingraham later asked McAleenan: &#8220;If you could get one thing, just one thing tonight, what would it be to solve this problem?&#8221;
&#8220;I would change the law on the families so we could keep them in custody,&#8221; McAleenan responded. &#8220;That&#8217;s 70 percent now of the crossings, the last several days. We need to address that.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LYSZID3j1V8" width="560"></iframe></div>
Full transcript of the interview provided via Fox News:
<blockquote>
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Here exclusively, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here.
What is going on here? The accusations over the last two days that you have to endure this, that you are intentionally keeping kids in this precarious situation. We have some children who&#8217;ve died in custody.
KEVIN MCALEENAN, ACTING DHS SECRETARY: It&#8217;s a sad state of affairs in our politics when we&#8217;ve got an actual crisis, we&#8217;ve got solutions on the table, we&#8217;ve got clarity on what our men and women on the border need, what the support from Congress, and yet, that&#8217;s the kind of thing we are hearing.
INGRAHAM: You needed X number of beds and facilities to house what you predicted months ago, and we covered this.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: You predicted that if we didn&#8217;t get the money to house these people, we would have kids on the floors and mats and whatever you can provide that border patrol facilities or in tents outside.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: Did you get the beds?
MCALEENAN: No. No, this administration &#8212;
INGRAHAM: This is unbelievable.
MCALEENAN: This administration has put solutions on the table over the last three weeks, both to manage a crisis with beds. These are beds for children who are coming unaccompanied. It&#8217;s our statutory responsibility. It&#8217;s our human responsibility to take care of them. We asked for that funding.
We&#8217;ve also put a solution that would end the crisis to begin with. Allow us to detain families together through legal immigration proceedings.
INGRAHAM: So, keep them at the &#8212; just so people understand, crossing the border &#8212;
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: &#8212; as I saw many family units crossing &#8212;
MCALEENAN: We&#8217;re there.
INGRAHAM: Crossing the border, they would not be processed and released under your plan.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: They would be processed and they would be adjudicated at the border, correct?
MCALEENAN: They would see a judge. They would get a fair hearing. If they had an asylum claim and only about 10 percent do, they would be allowed to stay. But the rest would be repatriated swiftly, and this flow would drop immediately.
INGRAHAM: It would drop overnight, would it not?
MCALEENAN: It happened in 2014. We did the same thing then.
INGRAHAM: Well, right now, we have recrimination and politics.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: So, it is finger-pointing with the most heinous accusations being leveled at you. If you could get one thing, just one thing tonight, what would it be to solve this problem?
MCALEENAN: Just one thing tonight?
INGRAHAM: Yes.
MCALEENAN: I would change the law on the families so we could keep them in custody. That&#8217;s 70 percent now of the crossings, the last several days. We need to address that.
INGRAHAM: How many do have in custody? Let&#8217;s just go to the unaccompanied minors.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: That&#8217;s babies all the way until 18 years of age, correct? How many in your custody?
MCALEENAN: Yes, most are 13 to 17-year-old teenage boys.
INGRAHAM: OK.
MCALEENAN: Right? We&#8217;ve got almost 2,000 in custody right now. About 1,800 in custody.
INGRAHAM: Where are they living?
MCALEENAN: They&#8217;re staying in border patrol stations. These are police stations designed for adults.
INGRAHAM: How much does that cost? I mean, how &#8212; I mean, I was there, they&#8217;re not meant to hold people.
MCALEENAN: No, not at all. We are using a huge portion of our operating budget on a care and feeding. We&#8217;ve got border patrol agents, 40 percent of our agents, who are supposed to be out on the border protecting people, that you see them out in the field, they are doing care, custody, transportation, hospital watch for unaccompanied children.
INGRAHAM: We saw this. I mean, we saw people arriving, jumping in the water, getting pulled at the boat, falling out of the boat. We witnessed this.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: And HHS is supposed to pick them up after how long?
MCALEENAN: It&#8217;s supposed to be within the 72 hours, we transfer to HHS.
INGRAHAM: And do they have anywhere to put these people?
MCALEENAN: They don&#8217;t have any beds &#8212;
INGRAHAM: OK. So, there is nowhere to put the people.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: Congress won&#8217;t allocate the money.
MCALEENAN: Exactly.
INGRAHAM: And then you are the bad guy?
Someone explained the situation to me. This is really ridiculous at this point.
MCALEENAN: It&#8217;s hard to explain.
INGRAHAM: So, right now, the president has decided, like look, he can&#8217;t work &#8212; they are trying to impeach him. They&#8217;re claiming he is doing a cover-up.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: So, things look like they are stalled. What is this going to mean as the hot summer months kick in? It&#8217;s already hot down there. It&#8217;s getting worse.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: What do you expect to see?
MCALEENAN: Well, even though we provided solutions to Congress we will not wait for them to act. I&#8217;m going on Monday to Guatemala. I want to take this fight to the cartels that are smuggling children, starting at the Guatemala-Honduran border. We are bringing a HHSI agents, CBP officers, border patrol agents, to embed with the Guatemalan forces and try to interdict this flow at the beginning.
We are working with the government in Mexico in the same thing. Sharing intel on the people profiting from human misery, we can&#8217;t allow that to go on anymore.
And then these steps we&#8217;re taking at the border, trying to get judges down there to adjudicate hearings more quickly, get people repatriated and change this dynamic.
INGRAHAM: What about the story about the plan to send people around the country? That was blowing up the Internet over the weekend.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: There&#8217;s going to be 300,000 sent to Florida and some to California.
MCALEENAN: Sure.
INGRAHAM: And people in Florida were messaging me going, what are they doing sending them here? Like nobody wants them, not my backyard, you know, scenario.
But what was that?
MCALEENAN: So, I understand Governor DeSantis&#8217; concerned, you know, Senator Rubio. These communities don&#8217;t need an influx of migrants, right? Everybody is overloaded across the country. What the numbers that you outlined at the open.
So, what we are doing is trying to manage that in the border environment first and foremost. We have stations that are full in South Texas, in El Paso, in Huma, Arizona. So, we are transforming and moving migrants from stations that are overloaded and moving them to San Diego, for instance, where we have more capacity, moving them to El Centro sector. That&#8217;s how we are trying to manage the capacity issue. But we&#8217;re not going to &#8212; we have no plans to move migrants to states like Florida or to the northern border at this point.
INGRAHAM: Mr. Secretary, I also want to get your response to this disturbing headline today. Infectious diseases a rising threat among migrants at the southern border.
I saw a lot of people coughing, bad coughs when I was there.
MCALEENAN: Sure.
INGRAHAM: A lot of children. I mean, again, the border patrol agents were donating their own children&#8217;s clothes where I was and bringing in diapers and formula, buying it with their own money. It&#8217;s like teachers buying school supplies here.
How big of a concern, though, is the health risk &#8212;
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: &#8212; both to agents, to, obviously, the migrants themselves and then the communities that are absorbing these people?
MCALEENAN: It&#8217;s significant. I&#8217;ve been talking about it since December. We are seeing younger children arriving sicker every day. We had H1N1 outbreak yesterday, in McAllen station, that&#8217;s what the infectious disease that our teenager who passed away on Monday. It looks like he had the flu, a very virulent strain of the flu, H1N1.
We have seen measles. We&#8217;ve seen mumps. We have folks in ICE custody that are quarantined due to mumps.
It&#8217;s a tremendous challenge. We&#8217;ve got a huge medical effort under way with contract support, with coast guard, with the public health service. But, really, this is overwhelming problem, and when smugglers are keeping people in close quarters in Mexico and stash houses for days on end, it just exacerbates.
INGRAHAM: They just &#8212; 120 people in the back of a &#8212;
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: &#8212; truck last week I think it was.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: Ten days ago, whenever that was. I mean, that in and of itself is horrific.
MCALEENAN: It&#8217;s very dangerous. The temperature in that truck was 98 degrees.
INGRAHAM: We&#8217;ve got a lot of folks on television who are turning this into a hysterical issue as far as blame. This was on MSNBC today.
MCALEENAN: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC HOST: This is our responsibility as a country and as a nation. And we are not being given answers as to what is happening to a small, young children, to teenagers, to girls, to boys who are being taken away from their families, from their parents and left alone in our custody. Ivanka, Jared, anybody, get to him!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Your reaction?
MCALEENAN: Well, first of all, that&#8217;s not happening. We are separating children and may be one case a day out of the 3,000 families arriving. It&#8217;s very rare. It&#8217;s for the safety of the child, first and foremost.
INGRAHAM: When it&#8217;s not the family member with the child, correct?
MCALEENAN: Right. It&#8217;s a prosecution for a serious criminal offense, it&#8217;s a threat to the child, it&#8217;s communicable disease, or it&#8217;s someone who&#8217;s presenting a family relationship that doesn&#8217;t exist. That&#8217;s when that happens.
And the other thing on the health care, we are doing everything we can to take care of these children as they arrive. We&#8217;ve had over 150,000 kids enter our process in the last three and a half months, our border patrol agents are doing an amazing job to take care of them.
INGRAHAM: Do you think the new world that was I guess released today that sponsors of illegal immigrants I guess are going to have to guarantee.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: They&#8217;re going to pay for their health care. They will pay for their, you know, other costs.
MCALEENAN: Sure.
INGRAHAM: Which is a law right now, it&#8217;s a law, but it&#8217;s not being enforced.
MCALEENAN: Right.
INGRAHAM: Is that a good idea? With that perhaps bring down the illegal immigration?
MCALEENAN: I think a whole set of initiatives that we&#8217;re pursuing, along with the Department of Justice, to tighten our enforcement of laws that haven&#8217;t been enforced effectively in the past to make it harder to be here unlawfully. I think those are important steps.
INGRAHAM: E-Verify, yes?
MCALEENAN: Absolutely, we support it. We&#8217;re ready to expand it.
INGRAHAM: Mr. Secretary, it&#8217;s going to be tough months. We&#8217;re going to get back down in the border. Thank you so much for being here.
MCALEENAN: Thank you for coming down and seeing our men and women.
INGRAHAM: Absolutely.
</blockquote>

DHS Secretary McAleenan Reveals Top Immediate Fix Needed To Help Border Crisis

On Wednesday, the Transportation Department suspended all commercial flights to the South American nation of Venezuela as the country remains in turmoil. 
According to <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-suspends-commercial-flights-to-and-from-venezuela-/4919550.html">VOA News</a>, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao made the decision based on recommendations from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that there are conditions in Venezuela &#8220;that threaten the safety or security of passengers, aircraft, or crew.&#8221;
According to a DOT press <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/secretary-transportation-orders-suspension-air-service-between-us-and-venezuela">release</a>:
<blockquote>
With the approval of the Secretary of State and in close coordination with the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao has issued an order today suspending air service between the United States and Venezuela.
Federal law authorizes the Secretary of Transportation, with the approval of the Secretary of State, to take immediate action to suspend the rights of foreign and U.S. air carriers to provide service between the U.S. and foreign airports when conditions exist at those airports that threaten the safety or security of passengers, aircraft, or crew.
The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security has requested this action based on his assessment of current security conditions in Venezuela, and the Secretary of State has given his approval. Secretary Chao has agreed to the request and is exercising her statutory authority to suspend air service to Venezuela.
The Secretary&#8217;s suspension order is in addition to the FAA&#8217;s Notice to Airmen issued on May 1, which prohibits most U.S.-certified aircraft operators and pilots from flying below 26,000 feet over the territory of Venezuela, also for reasons of safety and security.
</blockquote>
DHS released its own statement, <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/05/15/dhs-determines-conditions-venezuela-threaten-safety-and-security-passengers-aircraft">saying</a>, &#8220;This determination is based on the ongoing political instability and increased tensions in Venezuela and associated inadvertent risk to flight operations.&#8221; DHS added that, along with the Transportation and State Departments, they &#8220;will continue to monitor this situation. If and when the conditions in Venezuela change, and if in the public interest, the [underlying] Secretaries will revisit this determination. Until then, the flight suspension will remain in effect indefinitely.&#8221;
Many international airlines, including American Airlines, have indefinitely suspended flights to Venezuela as a result of the order. However, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-usa-airlines/us-orders-suspension-of-flights-between-the-us-and-venezuela-idUSKCN1SL2F2">Reuters</a> reports that local airlines Avior, Laser, and Copa will continue passage to the South American nation through other international hubs including Santo Domingo and into the United States through airports in Miami and Panama City. 
As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra reported in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46586/watch-socialist-venezuela-rams-military-vehicle-ryan-saavedra">April</a>, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has been trying to supplant socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro, whose forces were ramming military vehicles into protestors.
President Trump said at the time on social media: &#8220;I am monitoring the situation in Venezuela very closely. The United States stands with the People of Venezuela and their Freedom!&#8221;
Vice President Mike Pence echoed those sentiments. &#8220;We are with you,&#8221; he said according to the <a href="https://www.apnews.com/1b271ef1f15940f394343dd2027a23e2">AP</a>. He added on social media: &#8220;[A]ll the freedom-loving people of Venezuela who are taking to the streets today in #operacionlibertad_Estamos con ustedes! We are with you!&#8221;
Despite international pressure to step down and the loss of support from locals, dictator Nicolas Maduro has refused to surrender power.

Transportation Department Suspends Air Travel To Venezuela

Donald Trump

Mike Pence

Nicolas Maduro

United Airlines

Venezuela

In early April, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released its border crossing and apprehension numbers for the month of March. And as The Daily Wire has repeatedly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45822/hammer-customs-and-border-protections-insane-march-josh-hammer">noted</a>, the situation was already so dire that CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert E. Perez <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-march-statistics-southwest-border-migration">referred</a> to the onslaught, at the time of the release of the March numbers, as a &#8220;system-wide emergency&#8221;:
<blockquote>
&#8220;We are currently experiencing a system-wide emergency in our processing and holding facilities. The humanitarian crisis created by a massive influx of family groups and unaccompanied children in recent months has forced CBP to reallocate resources away from law enforcement, trade and travel missions to process and provide care for those in our custody,&#8221; said CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert E. Perez. &#8220;The impacts to legitimate trade and travel cannot be overstated. As this crisis continues to worsen, it undermines CBP&#8217;s ability to perform its dual mission of protecting our borders and facilitating legitimate trade and travel.&#8221;
</blockquote>
We are past the point of being in a full-on crisis at our southern border, as even an increasing number of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46643/poll-even-many-more-democrats-now-describe-our-josh-hammer">Democrats</a> and venerable leftist <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46851/nyt-editorial-board-congress-give-trump-his-border-james-barrett">media outlets</a> are willing to concede. And yet, as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46951/astounding-dhs-says-1-population-guatemala-and-josh-hammer">reported</a> yesterday, the brand-new CBP numbers released for the month are even more harrowing.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
BREAKING
CBP enforcement stats for April:
-109,144 apprehensions plus inadmissibles 
-98k apprehensions (highest since 2007) 
-58k family units (another record) 
-31k single adults (highest in five years) 
-8,800 UACs (down slightly)
Story TK
&#8212; Nick Miroff (@NickMiroff) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickMiroff/status/1126208888376893440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
It is worth breaking down the numbers a little more. Per CBP&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration">official data release</a>, total border apprehensions between points of entry in April rose 6.62% over March&#8217;s already-record-shattering pace. Astoundingly, April&#8217;s apprehension total of 98,977 is a full 94.04% higher than the monthly total from the beginning of the federal government&#8217;s fiscal year, in October 2018. In other words, apprehensions between points of entry along the border have nearly doubled in just the first seven months of the current fiscal year. As Daniel Horowitz <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/april-another-record-month-illegal-immigration/">observes</a>, the combined total for points of entry inadmissibles and apprehensions between points of entry is 109,144, which is the highest monthly total since the second term of the George W. Bush administration. Furthermore, as Horowitz states, &#8220;it is very likely the highest number of unique individuals of all time, given that many in the past were the same individuals deported multiple times within the same week, while almost all of these are first-timers.&#8221;
It is also worth re-emphasizing the social transformation without representation that is currently transpiring with respect to our immigration numbers from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46951/astounding-dhs-says-1-population-guatemala-and-josh-hammer">Guatemala and Honduras</a>, in particular. As the Department of Homeland Security has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46951/astounding-dhs-says-1-population-guatemala-and-josh-hammer">stated</a>, over 1% of the populations of each country have entered the United States since September. But according to immigration policy expert Horowitz&#8217;s <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/april-another-record-month-illegal-immigration/">own math</a>, &#8220;the size of these countries&#8217; populations in America equal roughly 6.6% and 9.2% of their respective populations in Guatemala and Honduras.&#8221; Those are eye-gouging statistics.
TheBlaze <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/number-of-border-arrests-now-at-highest-point-since-2007">broke down</a> the single adults and family unit tallies: &#8220;CBP reported that most of those apprehended in April (58,474 or 59 percent) crossed the border in a family unit. Less than one-third (31,606 or 32 percent) were single adults. In contrast, most of those turned away at the border (6,144 or 60 percent) were single adults.&#8221;
CBP sounded the alarm yesterday on its official Twitter feed, tweeting, &#8220;As of Sunday, only 7 months into the fiscal year, #BorderPatrol has surpassed the TOTAL Southwest border apprehensions of every fiscal year since 2009.&#8221; It also tweeted, &#8220;#CBP is experiencing an unprecedented and unsustainable situation at the Southwest border. In April, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 109,144 individuals along the SWB.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
As of Sunday, only 7 months into the fiscal year, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BorderPatrol?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BorderPatrol</a> has surpassed the TOTAL Southwest border apprehensions of every fiscal year since 2009. <a href="https://t.co/h943SSfjar">pic.twitter.com/h943SSfjar</a>
&#8212; CBP (@CBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1126207315261186048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CBP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CBP</a> is experiencing an unprecedented and unsustainable situation at the Southwest border. In April, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible 109,144 individuals along the SWB. Details here: <a href="https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb">https://t.co/ru9AsalgPb</a> <a href="https://t.co/kzfTpfPNP8">pic.twitter.com/kzfTpfPNP8</a>
&#8212; CBP (@CBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1126214086839214083?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Unsustainable,&#8221; indeed. Hopefully our policymakers are paying attention.

Crisis: CBP’s April Border Numbers Further Reveal The Dire Situation At Our Southern Border

The Trump administration views itself as bound by the much-ballyhooed but <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46601/hammer-why-did-dhs-abort-its-re-writing-infamous-josh-hammer">legally erroneous</a> Flores consent decree, which initially covered detention release times merely for unaccompanied alien children at our border, but has been subsequently extended to also cover accompanied alien children. I explained in a Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46601/hammer-why-did-dhs-abort-its-re-writing-infamous-josh-hammer">op-ed</a> this week:
<blockquote>
The Flores consent decree was likely itself illegal, insofar as it undermined the clear statutory text of 8 U.S.C. § &#8239;1225(b)(B)(iii)(IV): &#8220;Any alien subject to the [asylum interview] procedures under this clause shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution and, if found not to have such a fear, until removed.&#8221; &#8230;As the statute sub-heading reads verbatim, this amounts to &#8220;mandatory detention.&#8221; No room for ambiguity there!
Flores was further butchered during the Obama Administration. As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/32087/trump-will-try-use-executive-action-end-border-ben-shapiro">noted</a> during the hullabaloo last spring, the Obama Administration implemented an ostensibly humanitarian-motivated border policy of keeping accompanied alien minor children with their parents during the asylum-seeking process&#8217;s statutorily prescribed &#8220;mandatory detention&#8221; period. But in 2015, leftist Judge Dolly Gee, of the same district court that legitimized Flores, erroneously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31980/media-are-lying-about-trump-separating-illegal-ben-shapiro">extended</a> Flores&#8216;s 20-day rule fabrication even further to apply to accompanied alien children in addition to unaccompanied alien children. As Ben also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31980/media-are-lying-about-trump-separating-illegal-ben-shapiro">noted</a>: &#8220;This meant that the government either had to release whole families, or that the government had to separate parents from children.&#8221; In summation, the (illegal) Flores consent decree, in addition to (illegal) subsequent extensions of that consent decree, have acted in unison to leave the Trump Administration with the two deeply unappetizing options of (1) mass catch-and-release or (2) politically untenable family separation.
</blockquote>
But an accompanied alien child is only actually &#8220;accompanied&#8221; if the child is with a family member. And according to <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/1/dna-tests-identify-fake-illegal-immigrant-families">The Washington Times</a>, the recent revelation of many &#8220;fake&#8221; families at the border has galvanized the Department of Homeland Security to begin conducting DNA tests at the border. Per the Times:
<blockquote>
Border authorities have identified more than 1,000 &#8220;fake families&#8221; over the past seven months featuring adults trying to use children who aren&#8217;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.
&#8220;It&#8217;s definitely an escalating trend that we&#8217;re seeing,&#8221; one department official said of the fraudulent families. &#8230;
[C]ommon now is families showing up, hoping to take advantage of lax U.S. laws that give adults with children a virtual get-out-of-detention card. Under a 2015 court ruling, they can be held for only 20 days &#8212; too short for their cases to be completed.
Instead, they are released, and few bother to show up for their court proceedings and deportations.
It&#8217;s so common that adults have begun to abduct or borrow children to pose as families &#8212; sparking the need for the DNA testing.
&#8220;The whole goal here is to identify these fake family units,&#8221; an official said.
</blockquote>
The trend appears to be catching on among the largely-Central American migrants who are currently inundating our beleaguered southwestern border. As the Times notes, there were just 46 &#8220;fake family&#8221; cases in all of the federal government&#8217;s 2017 fiscal year, but there have been over five cases per day through the first seven months of the government&#8217;s 2019 fiscal year.
Dissemination of misleading information to prospective Central American migrants is a systemic issue that threatens to exacerbate our border <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46643/poll-even-many-more-democrats-now-describe-our-josh-hammer">crisis</a>, as The Daily Wire has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45997/whole-world-knows-quotation-perfect-snapshot-our-josh-hammer">reported</a>.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
&#8220;The whole world knows, it&#8217;s all over the news, everyone knows that if we come to the United States they&#8217;ll help us,&#8221; said Mayra Aguilar, an immigrant from Honduras. <a href="https://t.co/jGuinS2OAK">https://t.co/jGuinS2OAK</a>
&#8212; Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) <a href="https://twitter.com/RMConservative/status/1117795079756730369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>

DHS Announces It Will Now Use DNA Tests To Thwart ‘Fake’ Illegal Alien Families

Amidst our <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45822/hammer-customs-and-border-protections-insane-march-josh-hammer">unprecedented</a> migrant influx crisis inundating our <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45394/hammer-trump-would-be-right-fully-shut-down-us-josh-hammer">beleaguered</a> southern border with largely <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46457/amidst-unprecedented-border-crisis-united-nations-josh-hammer">bogus</a> asylum claims, it is easy to forget the origins of the current turmoil.
Recall that, shortly after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a &#8220;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-announces-zero-tolerance-policy-criminal-illegal-entry">zero-tolerance policy</a>&#8221; for illegal aliens at the border last April, much of the ensuing media firestorm seemed to focus on a rather arcane bit of legalese: The so-called &#8220;<a href="https://cis.org/Report/History-Flores-Settlement">Flores consent decree</a>,&#8221; which dated back to the second term of the Clinton Administration. As the Center for Immigration Studies has <a href="https://cis.org/Report/History-Flores-Settlement">explained</a>, the consent decree &#8212; reached between the Clinton Administration and Salvadoran national Jenny Flores, and legitimized by the overseeing U.S. District Court for the Central District of California &#8212; provided, among other things, that unaccompanied alien children seeking asylum at our border would be released &#8220;without unnecessary delay.&#8221; Courts subsequently interpreted this as mandating release for unaccompanied alien children seeking asylum at the border after 20 days of detention.
The Flores consent decree was likely itself illegal, insofar as it undermined the clear statutory text of 8 U.S.C. § &#8239;1225(b)(B)(iii)(IV): &#8220;Any alien subject to the [asylum interview] procedures under this clause shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution and, if found not to have such a fear, until removed.&#8221; Note that there is no &#8220;without unnecessary delay&#8221; language in the statute &#8212; rather, the statutory text merely stipulates that aliens who seek asylum at the border &#8220;shall be detained&#8221; (emphasis added). As the statute sub-heading reads verbatim, this amounts to &#8220;mandatory detention.&#8221; No room for ambiguity there!
Flores was further butchered during the Obama Administration. As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/32087/trump-will-try-use-executive-action-end-border-ben-shapiro">noted</a> during the hullabaloo last spring, the Obama Administration implemented an ostensibly humanitarian-motivated border policy of keeping accompanied alien minor children with their parents during the asylum-seeking process&#8217;s statutorily prescribed &#8220;mandatory detention&#8221; period. But in 2015, leftist Judge Dolly Gee, of the same district court that legitimized Flores, erroneously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31980/media-are-lying-about-trump-separating-illegal-ben-shapiro">extended</a> Flores&#8216;s 20-day rule fabrication even further to apply to accompanied alien children in addition to unaccompanied alien children. As Ben also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31980/media-are-lying-about-trump-separating-illegal-ben-shapiro">noted</a>: &#8220;This meant that the government either had to release whole families, or that the government had to separate parents from children.&#8221; In summation, the (illegal) Flores consent decree, in addition to (illegal) subsequent extensions of that consent decree, have acted in unison to leave the Trump Administration with the two deeply unappetizing options of (1) mass catch-and-release or (2) politically untenable family separation.
One straightforward <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/45822/hammer-customs-and-border-protections-insane-march-josh-hammer">solution</a> is for Congress to legislatively vitiate Flores &#8212; which it can surely do. But as Daniel Horowitz of Conservative Review has helpfully <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/bombshell-top-border-agent-just-6-illegal-aliens-one-sector-even-claim-asylum/">flagged</a>, the Trump Administration&#8217;s Department of Homeland Security actually began to act unilaterally on overruling Flores before oddly aborting the process and leaving it in limbo. The DHS unilateral overruling of Flores takes the form of a <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/09/07/2018-19052/apprehension-processing-care-and-custody-of-alien-minors-and-unaccompanied-alien-children">proposed rule, submitted last September and still available online</a>, entitled, &#8220;Apprehension, Processing, Care, and Custody of Alien Minors and Unaccompanied Alien Children.&#8221; Here is the full document summary (emphasis added):
<blockquote>
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (&#8220;the Departments&#8221;) propose to amend regulations relating to the apprehension, processing, care, custody, and release of alien juveniles. In 1985, plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit, Flores v. Reno, challenged the policies of the legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) relating to the detention, processing, and release of alien juveniles. The parties reached a settlement agreement, referred to as the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA). The FSA, as modified in 2001, provides that it will terminate forty-five days after publication of final regulations implementing the agreement. The rule would adopt in regulations provisions that parallel the relevant and substantive terms of the FSA, consistent with the HSA and TVPRA, with some modifications discussed further below to reflect intervening statutory and operational changes while still providing similar substantive protections and standards. It therefore would terminate the FSA. The rule would satisfy the basic purpose of the FSA in ensuring that all juveniles in the government&#8217;s custody are treated with dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors, while doing so in a manner that is workable in light of subsequent changes. The rule would also implement closely related provisions of the HSA and TVPRA.
Most prominently, the rule would create an alternative to the existing licensed program requirement for family residential centers, so that ICE may use appropriate facilities to detain family units together during their immigration proceedings, consistent with applicable law.
</blockquote>
This is perfectly legal. As the DHS proposed rule summary notes, the Flores consent decree provides for its own termination 45 days after publication of final regulations implementing it. Indeed, Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/refugee-teens-caught-ms-13-sting/">believes that, under its own terms, Flores expired years ago</a>.
What is going on at DHS? How has this incredibly crucial proposed rule been lost in the bureaucracy? DHS needs to resuscitate this proposed rule, and it needs to do so as expeditiously as is bureaucratically possible. The stakes for our sovereignty, security, and sense of national destiny have never been higher.

HAMMER: Why Did DHS Abort Its Re-Writing Of The Infamous Flores Consent Decree?

As I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45876/wow-us-denies-entry-founder-and-leader-bds-josh-hammer">reported</a> last week, the United States recently denied entry to Omar Barghouti &#8212; the co-founder and leader of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38519/airbnb-goes-anti-semitic-targets-jewish-businesses-ben-shapiro">inherently anti-Semitic</a> &#8220;Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions&#8221; movement that incites economic warfare and sundry other forms of &#8220;lawfare&#8221; against the world&#8217;s only Jewish state. Barghouti, born in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45524/report-many-cnns-national-security-experts-have-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood-cozy</a> state of Qatar and hailing from a prominent <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/The-Barghouti-clans-jihad-against-Israel-574330">Hamas-linked</a> Palestinian-Arab clan, was scheduled to make stops at various northeastern U.S. universities, meet with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and also attend his daughter&#8217;s wedding in Texas.
Some on the Left &#8212; buttressed by some of the usual suspects on the virtue-signaling Right &#8212; have seen fit to condemn the United States&#8217; denial of entry for Barghouti. Consider far-left New York Times columnist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/opinion/omar-barghouti-bds-israel.html">Michelle Goldberg</a>:
<blockquote>
In recent years, the American right has presented itself as a champion of free expression. Conservatives are constantly bemoaning a censorious campus climate that stigmatizes their ideas; last month, Donald Trump signed an executive order on campus free speech, decrying those who would keep Americans from &#8220;challenging rigid far-left ideology.&#8221; The president said, &#8220;People who are confident in their beliefs do not censor others.&#8221;
If that last line is true &#8212; and, uncharacteristically for Trump, I think it is &#8212; it says something about the insecurity of Israel&#8217;s defenders.
</blockquote>
Goldberg&#8217;s right-of-center colleague Bret Stephens, who previously served as editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, agreed with her on the allegedly illiberal nature of Barghouti&#8217;s denial.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I&#8217;m a right-of-center Zionist, detest what Omar Barghouti stands for, and agree with my colleague <a href="https://twitter.com/michelleinbklyn?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@michelleinbklyn</a>. <a href="https://t.co/yXRsUDBWAh">https://t.co/yXRsUDBWAh</a>
&#8212; Bret Stephens (@BretStephensNYT) <a href="https://twitter.com/BretStephensNYT/status/1117967685399322624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
There are a few points to make about this kerfuffle.
Let&#8217;s start with a bit of law. Although neither Goldberg nor Stephens questions the president&#8217;s inherent constitutional and statutorily delegated authority to deny entry to any alien whose presence he deems to be against the national interest, it is worth re-emphasizing the unambiguous nature of that authority. Consider this brief excerpt from Chief Justice John Roberts&#8217; majority opinion in last Supreme Court term&#8217;s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf">Trump v. Hawaii</a> decision (i.e., the &#8220;travel ban&#8221; case):
<blockquote>
The [Immigration and Nationality Act] establishes numerous grounds on which an alien abroad may be inadmissible to the United States and ineligible for a visa. See, e.g., 8 U. S. C. §§ 1182(a)(1) (health-related grounds), (a)(2) (criminal history), (a)(3)(B) (terrorist activities), (a)(3)(C) (foreign policy grounds). Congress has also delegated to the President authority to suspend or restrict the entry of aliens in certain circumstances. The principal source of that authority, § 1182(f), enables the President to &#8220;suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens&#8221; whenever he &#8220;finds&#8221; that their entry &#8220;would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Indeed, as Roberts also writes about § 1182(f), the statute &#8220;exudes deference to the President in every clause.&#8221; The denial of entry to an alien seeking to arrive in the United States is a discretionary judgment call for the Executive Branch.
So the United States&#8217; denial of entry for Barghouti is unquestionably legal. After all, the United States is a sovereign nation and, in the 2012 Supreme Court case of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-182">Arizona v. United States</a>, Justice Antonin Scalia properly described &#8220;the power to exclude from the sovereign&#8217;s territory people who have no right to be there&#8221; as &#8220;the defining characteristic of sovereignty.&#8221;
The only question, then, is whether the Executive Branch properly made a discretionary judgment call that Barghouti&#8217;s arrival in the United States would, in the aforementioned language of § 1182(f), &#8220;be detrimental to the interests of the United States.&#8221;
The answer to this question is, very clearly, &#8220;yes.&#8221;
The extended Barghouti clan has engaged in serial jihadist attacks against Israel and against Israeli Jews. In December, Saleh Barghouti was killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) after he waged a vicious jihadist attack. As is standard IDF practice, the terrorist&#8217;s home was destroyed &#8212; as the case may be here, just within the past 24 hours. The IDF noted as much on Twitter today:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
In Dec 2018, Salih Barghouti carried out a shooting attack in Ofra Junction, killing a baby and injuring 7 others. 
This morning, we demolished his residence.
We will continue to fight terror. <a href="https://t.co/6Ev9oaWDPL">pic.twitter.com/6Ev9oaWDPL</a>
&#8212; Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) <a href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1118416600556814336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs <a href="http://jcpa.org/is-the-barghouti-family-joining-forces-with-hamas/">speculated</a> at the time that the Barghouti clan was teaming up in earnest with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44732/hammer-israel-must-destroy-hamas-once-and-all-josh-hammer">Hamas</a>, the Sunni jihadist group that governs the Gaza Strip and is also active throughout Judea and Samaria. And The Jerusalem Post also <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/The-Barghouti-clans-jihad-against-Israel-574330">elaborated</a> upon the true nature of the extended Barghouti family:
<blockquote>
Saleh was the most recent member of the prominent Barghouti clan to be involved in terrorist attacks against Israel. &#8230;
Saleh&#8217;s father, Omar, 65, spent more than 25 years in Israeli prison for his role in terrorism. The father was first arrested by the IDF in 1978 for killing an Israeli citizen and was sentenced to life in prison. However, Omar, who is known as Abu Asef, was released seven years later in a prison exchange. Since then, he has been repeatedly held in administrative detention for several years. Omar entered Israeli prison as a member of Fatah, but later became a prominent leader of Hamas.
A clan member also named Omar Barghouti is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel and co-founder of [BDS]. Omar was born in Qatar.
</blockquote>
But not only is the broader Barghouti clan closely linked to Hamas and jihadist attacks against Israel. Omar Barghouti himself is a co-founder and leader of a facially anti-Semitic global movement, BDS. BDS is, by definition, &#8220;anti-Zionist&#8221;; and, as I <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44424/hammer-stark-choice-facing-jewish-democrats-josh-hammer">wrote</a> last month, &#8220;anti-Zionism&#8221; was a &#8220;legitimate academic debate in the half-century between Herzl&#8217;s initial <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-State-Theodor-Herzl/dp/1420942883">formulation</a> and Ben-Gurion&#8217;s ultimate <a href="https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Declaration+of+Establishment+of+State+of+Israel.htm">declaration</a>, but&#8230;now serves as the thinnest of all thinly veiled ruses for genocidal aspirants who want to throw all the Juden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38855/cnn-commentator-who-called-elimination-israel-joseph-curl">into the Mediterranean</a>.&#8221; Furthermore, insofar as BDS dunderheads apply a double-standard wherein they routinely condemn Israel&#8217;s alleged (but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYZBjoeeehg">falsely characterized</a>) &#8220;occupation&#8221; of Judea and Samaria but ignore (actual) clear-cut occupations such as Turkey&#8217;s continual presence in Northern Cyprus, they are engaging in the very Jew-hating hypocrisy that the <a href="https://www.state.gov/s/rga/resources/267538.htm">U.S. State Department has long deemed</a> to be anti-Semitic in nature.
But don&#8217;t take it just from me. Take it from Barghouti himself &#8212; the man has expressly and unequivocally <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/relative-humanity-fundamental-obstacle-one-state-solution-historic-palestine-12/4939">called</a> for Israel&#8217;s destruction and has routinely apologized for Palestinian-Arab jihad waged against Israeli Jews.
In a 2014 talk at UCLA, Barghouti <a href="https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/126186/">denied</a> that Jews have any right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. In a seminal <a href="https://vimeo.com/75201955">2013 speech</a>, he could not have been more explicit about his desire to see Israel wiped off the map: &#8220;Definitely, most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.&#8221; He has <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140522201724/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/pope-francis-visit-to-the-holy-land-pontiffs-planned-visit-to-grave-of-zionisms-founder-branded-nauseating-by-palestinians-9405875.html">called</a> Zionism &#8220;a patently racist ideology that has served to enable and justify the ethnic cleansing of most of the indigenous people of Palestine.&#8221; And during the Second Intifada, which claimed the lives of roughly 1,000 Israelis and injured thousands more, Barghouti <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Intifada-Resisting-Israels-Apartheid/dp/1859843778">characterized</a> the sustained jihad as merely being &#8220;the heroism and costs of the resistance.&#8221;
Omar Barghouti is a vile anti-Semite whose constant apologia for genocidal jihad and calls for the destruction of a core United States ally make him no friend whatsoever to the republic. It is the responsibility &#8212; indeed, the duty &#8212; of any sovereign nation to deny entry to such noxious alien miscreants. The Trump Administration was absolutely right to deny entry to Barghouti last week.

HAMMER: Yes, The United States Was Right To Deny Entry To BDS Co-Founder Omar Barghouti

Israel

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

On Thursday, Omar Barghouti, a Qatari-born Palestinian-Arab best known as a co-founder and international leader of the inherently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/38519/airbnb-goes-anti-semitic-targets-jewish-businesses-ben-shapiro">anti-Semitic</a> &#8220;Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions&#8221; movement that incites economic warfare and sundry other forms of &#8220;lawfare&#8221; against the world&#8217;s only Jewish state, attempted to board a flight from Israel&#8217;s Ben Gurion International Airport to the United States. Barghouti was scheduled to make stops at various U.S. universities, meet with federal lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and also attend his daughter&#8217;s wedding.
But in a stunning move, U.S. immigration authorities did not allow Barghouti, <a href="http://jcpa.org/is-the-barghouti-family-joining-forces-with-hamas/">who has the same name and comes from the same family</a> as someone described by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs as &#8220;a famous Hamas leader in the West Bank,&#8221; to board the U.S.-bound flight.
NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/11/712189791/u-s-denies-entry-to-leader-of-movement-to-boycott-israel">reports</a>:
<blockquote>
The U.S. government has denied entry to Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, which urges boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel on security and settlement policies in the West Bank.
Barghouti was at Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel on Wednesday when airline staff informed him that he wouldn&#8217;t be flying despite holding valid travel documents, according to the Arab American Institute, a Washington-based advocacy group that arranged the trip. He was told that U.S. immigration officials had ordered the U.S. consul in Tel Aviv to deny him permission to enter the United States. &#8230;
A State Department official told NPR, &#8220;Visa records are confidential under U.S. law; therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases.&#8221;
Israel&#8217;s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which handles Israel&#8217;s fight against the BDS movement, said it had no connection to the matter. And Israel&#8217;s Interior Ministry said it had no knowledge of the U.S. action.
</blockquote>
Barghouti has faced difficulties traveling outside of Israel, in the past. According to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-bds-founder-omar-barghouti-denied-entry-to-us/">The Times of Israel</a>, &#8220;Israel has barred Barghouti from leaving the county a number of times in recent years, by refusing to renew travel documents granted to Palestinian residents of Israel who do not have full citizenship.&#8221;
The BDS movement has long had strong ties to genocidal jihadist groups that seek Israel&#8217;s complete annihilation. In a remarkable government-issued report in February, Israel elaborated upon these ties. The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43033/israeli-government-reveals-stunningly-close-ties-josh-hammer">reported</a> about the report, at the time:
<blockquote>
On Sunday, Israel&#8217;s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy made public a lengthy new <a href="https://4il.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/MSA-Terrorists-In-Suits-English-1.pdf">document</a> entitled, &#8220;Terrorists in Suits: The Ties Between NGOs Promoting BDS and Terrorist Organizations.&#8221; As stated on its first page, Israel released the report in order to demonstrate &#8220;[h]ow terrorists came to hold key positions in NGOs promoting the Boycott Divestment and Sanction (BDS) campaign against the State of Israel; and how, through these NGOs, they exploit Western governmental funding, philanthropic foundations, financial platforms and civil society to advance their goal of dismantling the State of Israel.&#8221;
NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, are hotly contested in the Israeli public discourse. Anti-Israel NGOs are so widespread that an entire Jerusalem-based organization, <a href="https://www.ngo-monitor.org/">NGO Monitor</a>, exists to thwart their pernicious agitprop. Last week, for example, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42868/jewish-groups-slam-leftist-ngo-amnesty-josh-hammer">The Daily Wire</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42813/report-amnesty-international-conducting-open-hank-berrien">reported</a> on anti-Israel NGO Amnesty International&#8217;s economic campaign to cripple Israel&#8217;s thriving tourism industry.
In perhaps the most jarring entry in the 80-page report&#8217;s introductory &#8220;Main Findings&#8221; section, the Israeli government concludes that, &#8220;Hamas and [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)] operatives have infiltrated and adopted seemingly benign NGOs in the Palestinian Authority, Europe, North America and South Africa, for the purpose of advancing their ideological goal: the elimination of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Moreover, it appears that terrorist organizations view NGOs in the West as a convenient means for raising funds which they could not otherwise obtain.&#8221;
</blockquote>
It seems that, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45822/hammer-customs-and-border-protections-insane-march-josh-hammer">at least on this particular issue</a>, the Trump administration indeed has its immigration enforcement priorities in order.

WOW: U.S. Denies Entry To Founder And Leader of BDS Movement

Palestinians

UPDATE: President Donald Trump confirmed Nielsen&#8217;s departure &#8212;and Kevin McAleenan&#8217;s appointment &#8212; on Twitter late Sunday.
&#8220;Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1115011884154064896">Trump tweeted</a>. &#8220;am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for @DHSgov. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job!&#8221;
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has been charged with managing the ongoing illegal immigration crisis, may tender her resignation to the White House during a meeting Sunday with President Donald Trump, according to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kirstjen-nielsen-resigning-dhs-secretary-expected-to-offer-resignation-today-live-updates-2019-04-07/">a report from CBS News</a>.
The meeting was set to take place at 5 p.m EST. CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper reports that Nielsen&#8217;s status is still unclear as of Sunday evening.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
At this hour, the status of DHS Secy Nielsen is unclear. A senior admin. official tells me that she had a 5 PM meeting at the WH with POTUS where she was planning to discuss with him the immigration and border issues and a path forward &#8212; she had no intention of resigning&#8230;
&#8212; Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1115002848897634306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
CBS News reports that Nielsen&#8217;s possible resignation is just one of several expected in a &#8220;a massive DHS overhaul&#8221; designed to take the Department of Homeland Security in a &#8220;tougher direction,&#8221; more in line with Trump&#8217;s campaign rhetoric. CBS says the move is &#8220;orchestrated&#8221; and &#8220;engineered&#8221; by White House adviser Stephen Miller, who has encouraged Trump to take a very tough line on illegal immigration.
Tapper reports that Nielsen is at the White House to discuss how the Department of Homeland Security handles asylum requests. Rumors of Nielsen&#8217;s imminent resignation have swirled before, and Nielsen has remained in her post.
&#8220;It is believed within the administration that President Trump will be pushing for personnel changes and there are others afoot beyond the ICE director nominee who was pulled Friday,&#8221; Tapper tweeted late Sunday. CNN&#8217;s source, a &#8220;senior administration official,&#8221; &#8220;notes President Trump&#8216;s frustration with the current asylum laws, and his desire for individuals who work for the administration to block Central American asylum seekers from entering the United States &#8212; contrary to the laws on the books that allow their entry.&#8221;
Nielsen has served as DHS Secretary since 2017, making her one of the longest serving current cabinet members. She ushered DHS through several crises, including a public outcry over a departmental policy of separating minor children from parents declaring asylum at the United States-Mexican border.
The policy, which was designed to help the United States Customs and Border Protection agency skirt an Obama-era court order mandating that full families not be kept in CBP custody more than 21 days, drew ire from both Republicans and Democrats and was quickly scrapped.
But in the ensuing months, Nielsen has been forced to contend with an endless parade of migrant caravans from Guatemala and Honduras. The thousands of migrants are apparently instructed to request asylum upon arriving at the border rather than try to cross illegaly. As a result, CPB and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement have been utterly overwhelmed, trying to process thousands upon thousands of asylum requests, and caring for thousands upon thousands of asylum seekers who are being detained while their claims are adjudicated.
The only other currently available option for CBP and ICE is to &#8220;catch-and-release,&#8221; the way the Obama Administration did, allowing asylum seekers to enter the United States temporarily, either under the care of family and friends, or wearing small tracking devices, like ankle monitors, pending a pre-scheduled asylum hearing. The majority of these asylum seekers, of course, rarely return for court dates.
At one time, President Trump threatened to close the border completely, but relented late last week after he says Mexico agreed to enforce its own immigration laws.
If Nielsen does tender her resignation, it is expected that Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan will replace her, at least temporarily.

REPORT: Department Of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen To Step Down Amid &#8216;Massive DHS Overhaul&#8217;

Kirstjen Nielsen

At a press briefing conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Tuesday, numbers were offered that showed how urgently U.S. Border Patrol needs help, including the fact that in February alone, the Border Patrol executed over 66,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants.
Brian Hastings, chief of operations at Border Control headquarters, stated that in February, U.S. Border Patrol executed over 66,000 apprehensions; since October there have been over 268,000 apprehensions, a 97% increase over the previous fiscal year to that point. Hastings noted that some people said there were comparable numbers in the past, but Hastings pointed out that the demographics are different now, as in the past the immigrants were primarily from Mexico, and thus returning them was not as difficult, while presently the bulk of immigrants are coming from what he called the &#8220;northern triangle&#8221; of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
He stated, &#8220;Historically the U.S. Border Patrol has arrested 70 to 90% Mexican nationals; we could apply a consequence to that demographic; we could return them quickly to Mexico. Today 70% of all those we are arresting are from the northern triangle: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.&#8221; He continued, &#8220;October 2018 marked the first time in our history that family units exceeded single adult apprehensions, and in February of 2019 family units and unaccompanied children accounted for 65% of all Border Patrol apprehensions.&#8221;
Hastings warned, &#8220;So without a consequence, without being able to deliver a consequence to these individuals for illegally crossing our borders, the Border Patrol has no reason to expect that this trend will decrease; in fact, we believe it will increase. It&#8217;s well known at this time that adults with children will not be detained during the immigration proceedings for illegal entry; the word of mouth in social media quickly gets back to those in the northern triangle countries that if you bring a child, you will be successful. From April 2018 through February 2019, we&#8217;ve had almost 2,400 fraudulent claims of families. Of those fraudulent claims, some are folks who have claimed they are under 18 and they&#8217;re not; others have actually been fraudulent familial claims.&#8221;
Hastings noted that in the current fiscal year there have already been 70 groups of over 100 people, yielding over 12,000 apprehensions. He noted that the previous year there were 13 such groups; the year before that only two. He also pointed out that the large groups are entering through rugged terrain in Arizona and New Mexico that is quite far from the central processing areas, medical services, and transportation services the U.S. has. Hastings added that drug cartels are using the large groups to distract Border Patrol agents so that the cartels can conduct their transport and machinations unimpeded.
Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Kevin McAleenan added, &#8220;It should be very clear from these numbers that we are facing alarming trends in the rising volume of people illegally crossing our southwest border or arriving at our ports of entry without documents. This increased flow presents, currently at our highest level in over a decade, both a border security and humanitarian crisis.&#8221;
He warned, &#8220;The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point.&#8221;
McAleenan concluded, &#8220;Every single day, smugglers and traffickers profit from human misery, exploiting people who are seeking a better life. Through human smuggling, transnational criminal organizations have established a new multi-billion dollar line of business. The situation is not safe for migrants; it challenges our ability to provide humanitarian care; it contributes to dangerous conditions on our border, and enables smuggling while enriching criminals. Regardless of anyone&#8217;s preferred policy outcome, the status quo is unacceptable. It presents an urgent and increasing crisis that needs to be addressed.
Video below:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BfwqzD9tWQg" width="560"></iframe></div>

WATCH: U.S. Border Patrol Offers Staggering Numbers Regarding Illegal Immigrants

&#8220;Drain the swamp,&#8221; we were told. Well.
The <a href="https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20190211/CRPT-116hrpt9_u2-.pdf">full text</a> of the so-called &#8220;compromise deal&#8221; &#8212; which takes the form of an 1,169-page, massive omnibus spending bill &#8212; has been released by the ad hoc congressional committee tasked with avoiding a second government shutdown in as many months.
And&#8230;it&#8217;s a doozy.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Lots of bad but swallowable stuff in $ bill. But Sec.224 is a poison pill: Gives deportation immunity to any sponsor&#8212;or POTENTIAL sponsor&#8212;of an &#8220;unaccompanied&#8221; alien child. Creates incentive for illegals already here to order up kids from Central America (or anywhere). Outrageous
&#8212; Mark Krikorian (@MarkSKrikorian) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkSKrikorian/status/1096092985236865024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 201</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
In short, this bill gives amnesty to the very people fleecing our country, paying cartels, and trafficking kids, it limits border wall and gives liberal counties veto power in a way that could override even executive action, doubles low skilled labor, expands catch and release.
&#8212; Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) <a href="https://twitter.com/RMConservative/status/1096082318786289668?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I said this budget deal was fair, given what was presented the other day to the press. But holy cow the text of the bill is pretty pathetic. The Democrats are authorizing the border wall, but basically ensuring local Democrat strongholds can veto its construction.
&#8212; Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) <a href="https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1096105218939461632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Here&#8217;s a gem from the spending bill. Section 224 (a) says that ICE may not remove any sponsor or *potential sponsor* or *member of a household* of a UAC. That&#8217;s de facto sanctuary for anyone near a UAC. Ridiculous. 30-40% of MS-13 arrests have been UACs.
&#8212; Jessica Vaughan (@JessicaV_CIS) <a href="https://twitter.com/JessicaV_CIS/status/1096042992668946432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
This &#8220;deal&#8221; provides de facto amnesty for anyone claiming to be even in the household of a potential sponsor of an unaccompanied alien minor AND is thus the &#8220;Child Trafficking Promotion Act&#8221; cc: <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a>
&#8212; Chip Roy (@chiproytx) <a href="https://twitter.com/chiproytx/status/1096129300015861766?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Congressional leaders are already pushing for an immediate vote, less than 24 hours after the release of the bill&#8217;s precise contents. Indeed, <a href="https://twitter.com/ericawerner/status/1096157885162242048">minutes ago</a>, the Senate passed the bill by a 83-16 margin; it now heads to the House. Without either a long-term funding bill or short-term continuing resolution signed by tomorrow night at midnight, the federal government will enter into a shutdown for the second time in as many months.
President Trump is poised to sign this bill. He has consistently tested the waters this week by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/trump-border-security-deal/index.html">indicating</a> his inclination toward signing it, and the basic truth is that there is approximately zero interest right now by the leaders of either party for another shutdown standoff. And Trump knows, notwithstanding the fact this amnesty capitulation reveals the shallowness of this White House&#8217;s alleged commitment to enacting its immigration priorities, that he will be able to fire off a few tweets blaming Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and thereby keep his base mostly in line.
Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) now says that Trump will sign the deal at the same time he declares a national emergency.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
McConnell says Trump will sign the bill and &#8220;will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time.&#8221;
&#8212; Philip Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) <a href="https://twitter.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1096142254975188993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
McConnell has also indicated that he will <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/mcconnell-trump-will-sign-spending-bill-and-declare-national-emergency-to-fund-wall/">support</a> the national emergency declaration.
To be fair to the White House, declaring a national emergency &#8212; which, like <a href="https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/09/trump-can-build-the-wall-and-should/">John Eastman</a> of the Claremont Institute and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-yoo-national-emergency-border-wall-20190111-story.html">John</a> <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/trump-border-wall-emergency-declaration-legal-likely-upheld/">Yoo</a> of Berkeley Law and the American Enterprise Institute, I do believe Trump has the legal authority to do &#8212; opens up numerous other statutory vehicles for wall funding. Even outside an emergency declaration, the President can also simultaneously invoke authority, pursuant to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/284">10 U.S.C. § 284</a>, to build <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006">already-authorized fencing</a> in order to combat the transnational cartels&#8217; drug trafficking.
But under no circumstances should Trump sign this bill. He should immediately state that he will veto the bill and push for a two-week continuing resolution during which he can pound the airwaves from the Oval Office and then visit hundreds of local towns across the country to make the comprehensive case that the current border crisis is best described as a full-on <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/in-just-17-months-illegal-alien-family-units-increased-by-960-percent-at-the-border/">invasion</a> for which every town in America suffers as a <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/our-open-border-has-turned-every-american-city-into-a-border-town/">de facto border town</a>.
This bill is, frankly, a disaster. And, holding aside the noxious optics &#8212; which Trump himself, merely a year ago, had <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-signing-h-r-1625/">pleged to never engage in again</a> &#8212; of signing yet another last-minute, massive omnibus boondoggle, the substance of the bill is so bad that it is not even remotely obvious how a concomitant declaration of a national emergency might sufficiently negate it. In fact, it almost assuredly <a href="https://twitter.com/RMConservative/status/1096141475442814977">could never counter</a> this bill&#8217;s <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/commentary-trump-should-veto-omnibus-bill">bad provisions</a>.
Two provisions, in particular, stand out.
If we had a Republican Party truly committed to securing our sovereignty and ending the ceaseless amnesty magnets fomented by the open-borders zealots and ruthlessly taken advantage of by the murderous cartels, then Section 224(a) of the bill would single-handedly be a dealbreaker. Here is the text of Section 224(a) (emphasis added):
<blockquote>
None of the funds provided by this Act or any other Act, or provided from any accounts in the Treasury of the United States derived by the collection of fees available to the components funded by this Act, may be used by the Secretary of Homeland Security to place in detention, remove, refer for a decision whether to initiate removal proceedings, or initiate removal proceedings against a sponsor, potential sponsor, or member of a household of a sponsor or potential sponsor of an unaccompanied alien child ( as defined in section 462 (g) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 279(g))) based on information shared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
</blockquote>
As Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies stated in her above tweet, this amounts to a &#8220;de facto sanctuary&#8221; for anyone remotely near an &#8220;unaccompanied alien child.&#8221; The ramifications of this provision are simply extraordinary. Unaccompanied alien children are already trafficked and exploited by the cartels to take advantage of our insane &#8220;<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-credible-fear-asylum-20180716-story.html">credible fear</a>&#8221; aslyum loophole regime. Furthermore, according to <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/commentary-trump-should-veto-omnibus-bill">Vaughan</a>, &#8220;ICE has estimated that 30-40 percent of the MS-13 members it has arrested in the last two years arrived as [unaccompanied alien children].&#8221; Remarkably, every &#8220;sponsor&#8221; or &#8220;potential sponsor&#8221; (emphasis added) of an unaccompanied alien child is shielded from being &#8220;place[d] in detention&#8221; or &#8220;remove[d].&#8221; This is insanity. Why are Republicans and this White House shilling for mass amnesty for MS-13 thugs? Why are we incentivizing the mass importation of MS-13 <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42089052">barbarians</a> by the cartels?
But it gets worse. Unbelievably, the bill also provides largely Left-leaning local public officials in Texas&#8217;s Rio Grande Valley with unilateral vetoes over the meager amounts of wall funding that the bill even authorizes. Section 232(a) of this bill states that &#8220;prior to use of any funds made available by this Act for the construction of physical barriers,&#8221; the Department of Homeland Security &#8220;shall confer and seek to reach mutual agreement regarding the design and alignment of physical barriers within that city.&#8221; The bill then specifies that it is &#8220;local elected officials&#8221; with whom the Department of Homeland Security must consult. Crucially, the bill actually only authorizes fencing for the Customs and Border Protection-designated Rio Grande Valley sector. But the Texas border counties in the Rio Grande Valley sector are generally heavily Democrat-leaning; as Daniel Horowitz <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/commentary-trump-should-veto-omnibus-bill">laments</a>, &#8220;These are the most liberal counties on the border (thanks to demographics of open borders itself!), and there is practically no local official who supports the wall in these counties.&#8221;
This is truly an awful bill. Trump really should veto it, get Congress to pass a two-week continuing resolution, and go back to the drawing board.
Alas, it seems like the President will sign onto the bill. Immigration hawks can only hope that the President&#8217;s use of the national emergency declaration sufficiently countermands the effects of this bilious congressional &#8220;compromise.&#8221; But it sure seems like Republicans are cutting off their collective nose to spite their face.

HAMMER: The Amnesty Omnibus ‘Deal’ Is The Exact Boondoggle Trump Ran Against

Conservatism

Republican Party

Mothers who&#8217;ve lost children at the hands of illegal immigrants, known as &#8220;Angel Moms,&#8221; are being shielded from President Donald Trump by his own staffers who are hopeful the president will sign the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill without being dissuaded by seeing &#8220;dead kids.&#8221;
&#8220;The fix is in,&#8221; One American News Network correspondent Ryan Girdusky told The Daily Wire. Two White House insiders told the reporter that at least two high-level staffers, whom he would not name on record, are doing their best to shield President Trump from Angel Moms protesting outside the White House and asking for a meeting with Trump. The president, according to Girdusky, is unaware of the Angel Moms&#8217; protest and their request to see him.
&#8220;Angel moms are in Washington D.C. right now and we&#8217;re [sic] rejected by the White House when they requested a meeting with [Donald Trump] by his staff. Two sources told me the staff doesn&#8217;t want him to see them [because] &#8220;he won&#8217;t want to sign the DHS funding bill if he sees dead kids,&#8221; Girdusky wrote on Twitter Thursday afternoon.
&#8220;From everything I heard,&#8221; he added, &#8220;Trump is not even aware they are in town. Schumer&#8217;s office took a meeting [with] them but this [White House] staff denied one.&#8221;
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From everything I heard, Trump is not even aware they are in town. Schumer&#8217;s office took a meeting w/ them but this WH staff denied one.
&#8212; Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1096076366808838144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Daniel Horowitz, Senior Editor of Conservative Review, confirmed the same: &#8220;I heard the same thing,&#8221; he said, replying to Girdusky&#8217;s tweets on the matter.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
i heard the same thing.
&#8212; Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) <a href="https://twitter.com/RMConservative/status/1096120847318876165?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Angel Mom Sabine Durben, whose son Dominic, 30, was tragically killed by an illegal immigrant who had two prior DUI charges, told The Daily Wire that she was unsure who was shielding her and other parents from the president, and noted with certainty that Trump &#8220;would not sign that bill&#8221; if he saw images &#8220;of our dead children.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t know exactly what is going on and why we can&#8217;t see our president,&#8221; Durben told The Daily Wire. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been scheduled to come here for over a week. Everything is just so strange. I don&#8217;t know who would shield him from us. I just know that if he sees pictures of our dead children, he wouldn&#8217;t sign that bill.&#8221;
It&#8217;s unclear to the Angel Mom about the scheduling of the apparent meeting, but she said she &#8220;filled out Secrete Service paperwork.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ll still be outside the White House at 5 p.m., united to beg Trump not to sign this bill,&#8221; she said.
Durben said she is &#8220;not going to stop&#8221; in the quest for a wall, for her son&#8217;s sake.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to stop. I owe this to my son. He would do the same for me and more,&#8221; she told The Daily Wire.
As <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/conservative-media-stars-seek-to-repeat-success-steering-trump-from-wall-deal">reported</a> by The Washington Examiner, conservative heavyweights in the media have been urging President Trump not to sign the border security deal; according to commentators like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, the deal is weak.
&#8220;Trump talks a good game on the border wall but it&#8217;s increasingly clear he&#8217;s afraid to fight for it. Call this his &#8216;Yellow New Deal,'&#8221; snarked Coulter on Twitter.
&#8220;Outrage on the Right over the agreement started after it was announced Monday a bipartisan group of congressional negotiators had reached a deal on a government spending measure that would provide $1.375 billion for 55 miles of new barriers on the southern border. The figure, however, is far less than the $5.7 billion Trump had demanded for the border wall this year or the $25 billion he said is needed in total,&#8221; noted the Examiner.

Trump Being Shielded From &#8216;Angel Moms&#8217; By OWN STAFFERS So He&#8217;ll Sign DHS Bill: Report

Crime

Left-wing media outlets are already spinning news of a tentative border deal as a major loss for President Donald Trump, but one aspect of the coverage has been particularly inaccurate.
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43355/tentative-border-deal-reached-includes-partial-james-barrett">Associated Press</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-us-canada-47207411">BBC</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1095179310913138688">NBC News</a>, among others, all included the absence of a &#8220;concrete&#8221; or &#8220;solid&#8221; wall in the deal.
But Trump hasn&#8217;t been solely committed to a concrete wall for some time, and has accepted border patrol officials telling him that a steel slat wall that they can see through is preferable.
In late December, outgoing White House Chief of Staff John Kelly <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-john-kelly-exit-interview-20181230-story.html">said in an interview</a> that Trump had abandoned &#8220;a solid concrete wall early on in the administration.&#8221;
&#8220;The president still says &#8216;wall&#8217; &#8212; oftentimes frankly he&#8217;ll say &#8216;barrier&#8217; or &#8216;fencing,&#8217; now he&#8217;s tended toward steel slats,&#8221; Kelly said in the interview with the Los Angeles Times. &#8220;But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.&#8221;
Kelly went on to say there was more to Trump&#8217;s border security plan than the wall.
&#8220;To be honest, it&#8217;s not a wall,&#8221; he said. Trump had conversations with law enforcement and border patrol officials, and wanted more technology and &#8220;steel slat&#8221; barriers along the wall.
Trump responded to his outgoing chief of staff the next day, tweeting he never dropped the idea of a concrete wall.
&#8220;An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media,&#8221; Trump tweeted. &#8220;Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through. (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me!&#8221;
So, at this point, Trump was suggesting that parts of the wall would be steel slats, like border patrol desired.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told &#8220;Fox News Sunday&#8221; that the contradiction amounted to &#8220;<a href="https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/politics/Aides-Give-Conflicting-Signals-on-Trumps-Promise-of-a-Wall-503700341.html">a silly semantic argument</a>.&#8221;
&#8220;There may be a wall in some places, there may be steel slats, there may be technological enhancements,&#8221; she said. &#8221;But only saying &#8216;wall or no wall&#8217; is being very disingenuous and turning a complete blind eye to what is a crisis at the border.&#8221;
USA Today <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2019/01/08/trump-wall-concept-timeline/2503855002/">detailed Trump&#8217;s shifting demands</a> for the wall, from his original desire for a concrete wall to the more nuanced position he holds now.
Late Monday, Democrats and Republicans reached a tentative deal that would give Trump some of what he wanted for border security. That deal includes $1.375 billion for a see-through wall covering 55 miles (Trump has publicly said he wanted a wall to cover 200 miles, but his last budget request only asked for money to cover 64 miles) and $1.7 billion in additional funding to the Department of Homeland Security for new border security, including new technological enhancements and more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Trump&#8217;s original $5.7 billion ask wasn&#8217;t just for a physical barrier, DHS officials <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/heres-what-5-billion-in-border-wall-funding-would-buy">told Fox News</a> in December. The amount was for a &#8220;wall system&#8221; that included replacing &#8220;dilapidated&#8221; fencing, building new walls, adding roads and lights for Border Patrol agents and sensor technology.
In fairness to the media, Trump does refer to the entire system of border security as a &#8220;wall,&#8221; when its more nuanced than that.

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