In fiscal year 2018, there were approximately 396,579 apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the southern border of the United States, according to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/28/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/">Pew Research</a>. The organization estimates that there are roughly 10.5 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States today.
Despite efforts by the Trump administration to enhance border security, and by Republicans to draft legislation that would help resolve the crisis, little has been accomplished.
Although Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who represents Texas’ Second Congressional District, has only been in office since January 2019, he’s already made waves in multiple policy debates, including those which impact the illegal immigration and border crisis.
On Friday, I had the opportunity to speak with Rep. Crenshaw about these issues. In part two of this interview, Crenshaw discusses visa overstays, what to do with the millions of illegal immigrants already here, how Republicans can effectively communicate conservative ideas while progressives run the game, how to explain these ideas compassionately, and more.
Before reading on, make sure to check out part one <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-dan-crenshaw-on-how-to-solve-the-border-and-illegal-immigration-crisis">here</a>.
<blockquote>DW: Turning away specifically from the border, what can be done about visa overstays?
CRENSHAW: That&#8217;s an interesting question. I think for a lot of voters, they can&#8217;t even have that conversation until they feel like their border is secure. That&#8217;s always step one, because while you can deal with visa overstays, you still have this influx. It&#8217;s like bailing out a rowboat with a big hole in the bottom of it. You&#8217;ve got to fix the hole first, and then you&#8217;ve got to deal with the water that&#8217;s in there. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re going to face, hopefully after we finally fix our border problems. The frustrating thing about that is I&#8217;ve laid out very clear solutions to fixing the border. We know exactly what to do, and we just need to do it.
Then we have to ask ourselves questions. Okay, what are you going to do with the estimated 10 to 20 million illegal immigrants here? Well, if they&#8217;ve been committing some crimes, been in and out of jail, I think the answer is easy. They should be deported. But what about those who aren&#8217;t? Okay, what about those who have been here for a while? They&#8217;re here illegally. They had a visa. They did it the right way, but they overstayed their visa? You&#8217;re not going to round them up and deport them. That&#8217;s not realistic. So, what do you do? There are a lot of ideas out there, and I&#8217;m not sure which one we eventually fall on, but it involves questions like, do they pay some kind of restitution? They broke the law. Shouldn&#8217;t they be punished for that in the form of some kind of fee or fine? Yeah, maybe that&#8217;s it. What should that fine be?
Those are the questions we have to ask ourselves. Then what do they get out of that? Do they get an extended visa? How long is that visa extended for? Is it a work visa? Should they ever be eligible for citizenship? I would argue probably not because they broke the law, and there&#8217;s no reason to give them a forward place in the line in front of legal immigrants who&#8217;ve done it the right way. There&#8217;s a sense of justice, I think. There&#8217;s the conversation about justice that we have to have here and intertwine that with our sense of reality about what can be done and what the best way forward is.
DW: How can Republicans effectively communicate these ideas to the public while the Democrats are essentially running the narrative game?
CRENSHAW: In all of the same ways that I already discussed. With social media. People like to see the videos on it. People like to have things explained in a conversational tone, and show them. I think that it just gains the trust of people. That&#8217;s why I would go to the border and create videos about that. You have to show them. You have to speak to experts, not just me repeating talking points. I&#8217;m actually talking to the people who deal with this every single day and providing the facts, and the American people are smart enough to sift through that.
DW: The Left often accuses conservatives of dehumanization on the immigration issue. How can conservatives offer solutions without appearing to dehumanize the situation?
CRENSHAW: That&#8217;s a combination of conservatives often using the wrong rhetoric, but also the Left, I think, improperly portraying our rhetoric as well. The consequences have been that it seems as if conservatives vilify illegal immigrants, which is actually why when I point to the problems of an open border, I never say, &#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s because of the drugs and the crime.&#8221; I never say that, because it&#8217;s too easy for the Left to say, &#8220;Oh, see? That&#8217;s how they see immigrants.&#8221; It&#8217;s not a good look, and it doesn&#8217;t help us solve the problem.
What I say is, listen, it&#8217;s unsustainable. We have almost a million people crossing illegally a year. It&#8217;s not sustainable, and it lacks respect for the sovereignty of our country and the management of our own borders. Also, it cuts in front of the line of legal immigrants. Sorry. None of that is good. None of that is moral. It&#8217;s not moral to cut in front of legal immigrants who wanted to do it the right way, so why should we reward that? It&#8217;s a better message so that we&#8217;re not vilifying people. Let&#8217;s assume they&#8217;re all great people. That&#8217;s not the question. The question is, do we have a system and do we enforce basic rule of law?
DW: So what is your hope over the next, say, decade of policy on this area?
CRENSHAW: My hope is just the solutions that I outlined earlier. You&#8217;ve got to fix the border first. We have very clear ideas on how to do that, and it really just comes down to a commitment to law enforcement. That&#8217;s what I want to see. Ten years is unfortunately the short term. If we can solve the border issues within the next ten years, then we can finally set the stage for a better conversation about overall immigration reform.
DW: Lastly, is there anything pertaining to the border discussion or immigration discussion that you would want our readership or the public at large to know that we haven&#8217;t talked about?
CRENSHAW: I would say this, actually. You&#8217;ve seen a drop in illegal immigration crossings over the last couple of months, and people should understand why that is. The first reason, maybe the most insignificant though, is the fact that it was hot out. It&#8217;s the summertime. There are fewer crossings during the summer. But more importantly was actually our relationship with Mexico. The Mexican government was doing more to secure their own border, and also the &#8220;Remain in Mexico&#8221; policy, which is probably the most important part.
The Migrant Protection Protocols, or the &#8220;Remain in Mexico&#8221; policy, basically allows government to send, I think, about 300 illegal immigrants per day back to await their claims in Mexico. When you do that, you&#8217;re creating a huge deterrent. So now there&#8217;s a chance – even if it&#8217;s a small chance – there&#8217;s still a chance that you might do all this work to cross the border illegally and then get sent right back to Mexico. Again, this feeds into the enforcement of our laws, and it creates a big deterrent when we actually do that. It was a small step that the administration was able to take despite no action from Congress, and we should recognize that work on the part of the administration.</blockquote>
I’d like to thank Rep. Crenshaw for taking the time to speak with me about such an incredibly important topic. For more information about and from Crenshaw, follow him on <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dancrenshawtx/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-dan-crenshaw-on-how-to-solve-the-border-and-illegal-immigration-crisis">INTERVIEW (Part I): Dan Crenshaw On How To Solve The Border And Illegal Immigration Crisis</a>

Dan Crenshaw.

INTERVIEW (Part II): Dan Crenshaw On How To Solve The Border Crisis, And How Conservatives Can Get The Message Out

Dan Crenshaw

Illegal Immigration

Immigration

Media Bias

Southern Border

In fiscal year 2018, there were approximately 396,579 apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the southwest border of the United States, according to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/28/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/">Pew Research</a>. The organization estimates that there are roughly 10.5 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States today.
Despite efforts by the Trump administration to enhance border security, and by Republicans to draft legislation that would help resolve the crisis, little has been accomplished.
Although Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who represents Texas’ Second Congressional District, has only been in office since January 2019, he’s already made waves in multiple policy debates, including those which impact the illegal immigration and border crisis.
On Friday, I had the opportunity to speak with Rep. Crenshaw about these issues. In part one of this two-part interview, Crenshaw discusses specific actions that need to be taken to secure the border, prior failures by politicians to reach a deal on immigration, the wildly divergent immigration philosophies of conservatives and progressives, and how social media can help Republicans reach voters.
<blockquote>DW: What is the first thing that the United States needs to do to fix the immigration crisis?
CRENSHAW: The Number one priority is to enforce the laws we have – if I had to say generally what we need to do. Enforcement is the key because enforcement is a deterrent and everything else follows from that.
Some reforms we need to make, the Flores Settlement, I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;re familiar with, says that we can&#8217;t hold any children, whether they&#8217;re with their parents or without their parents past 20 days. What this creates is a situation where we can never adjudicate the case. So whether that case is a 1325 violation, crossing the border illegally, or whether that is an asylum case, we can&#8217;t adjudicate it. We have a system that requires that we let family units go into the population, into the United States, before we can actually adjudicate their case. Then we have to rely on their goodwill to show up for their court case, and then agree to be deported when we say that, &#8220;Well, you don&#8217;t actually have a valid asylum claim,&#8221; or, &#8220;You are in violation of 1325.&#8221; People know this.
Here&#8217;s an important date to know. It was 2017 when Flores was actually redefined from the 1997 agreement to include family units. Before, it was just unaccompanied minors, but it became family units. This was a signal to everybody south of the border that they should bring a kid with them, and then they would basically be let go for sure inside the United States. That&#8217;s a huge deal. You have to hold people long enough to adjudicate those claims, and then you need to have the resources to adjudicate the clients. By that, I mean immigration judges and holding facilities in order to do that. Simply, I&#8217;m just saying that we need to enforce the law.
DW: What are the key problems with the border that, if addressed, would solve the immigration crisis (aside from enforcing law)?
CRENSHAW: The Flores settlement specifically would be, I think, the number one thing. Number two would be additional resources to adjudicate those claims – immigration judges and detention facilities. Number three, the technology and infrastructure for the border patrol to catch all the people who don&#8217;t want to be caught – wall and technology.
DW: Some claim that the Republican Party doesn&#8217;t actually care about the issue, but simply wants to have it as a weapon for future elections. What are your thoughts on that?
CRENSHAW: I just don&#8217;t agree with that premise at all. I&#8217;m not sure who says that. I can see that coming from the trackers on the Left who are trying to undercut our basic arguments, but I just don&#8217;t think [that’s valid]. The next question would be, &#8220;Okay, well you guys had the Senate, the House, and the presidency, and you didn&#8217;t solve this.&#8221; Well, the reason was there, and it&#8217;s a fair criticism – of course, not against me because I wasn&#8217;t there – but it&#8217;s a fair criticism. However, the reason it happened wasn&#8217;t because nobody wanted to solve it. The reason it happened was probably because we didn&#8217;t have 60 votes in the Senate, first of all. It&#8217;s not filibuster proof. Two, I think they tried to get too much out of that deal, and for maybe the more moderate Republicans, that was, I think, untenable. I don&#8217;t know the inside baseball of how those conversations played out, but I think we made &#8220;perfect&#8221; the enemy of &#8220;good,&#8221; and that&#8217;s the unfortunate part. But this theory that in secret Republican politicians don&#8217;t want this problem solved, that&#8217;s just complete nonsense.
DW: What do you believe is preventing Democratic politicians from really sitting down with Republicans to address the issue of immigration in any meaningful way?
CRENSHAW: We have two different philosophies. I think as a conservative, we generally believe in the sovereignty of a nation. That&#8217;s an important tenet of our belief system. The Democratic Party doesn&#8217;t hold that as strongly, at least, and as of recently, they&#8217;ve developed totally different policy goals. If you have the same goal, but different ways of getting to that goal, you can compromise. You can imagine a lot of policy issues where that&#8217;s true – alleviating poverty for instance. But when your goals are actually different, then it becomes impossible to compromise, so we get fought at every turn. When we were negotiating during the government shutdown, it was really unbelievable to see what Democrats would fight against, like more detention facility space for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). You have to question, why are you fighting against this? I mean, these are literal resources for law enforcement.
They&#8217;re not arguing against changing the law, they just want it to be enforced less. &#8220;What&#8217;s your end goal here?&#8221; You really have to ask that question. If your end goal is more illegal immigrants being free within the United States; when you don&#8217;t want to build any kind of barriers on the southern border – what is your end goal? That&#8217;s why there can&#8217;t be compromise, because it&#8217;s not clear what they want at all, and it&#8217;s changed radically over time. That’s something that I try to help Democratic voters understand, because Democrats, as voters, are not in favor of open borders, at least not in my experience, but the actions of their politicians, the Democratic politicians, are very clearly open borders. Even Tulsi Gabbard thinks so.
DW: Speaking of getting people to understand, you&#8217;ve used social media really effectively to break down ideology and issues, most recently with your border video on Instagram. You seem to be one of very few on the Republican side who really engage on social media like that. Is that something that needs to change if conservatism, specifically related to the border issue, is going to remain viable?
CRENSHAW: Yeah, I think so. I would love to see our Republican leadership do these videos a lot more. Not just our leadership, I mean our politicians, I mean our forward thinkers. Lay out the facts in a coherent way. Talk to the people, not at the people.
So, there&#8217;s a tone issue there that I think we could do better with. Simply just lay it out. Lay out the other side&#8217;s argument and then lay out why it&#8217;s wrong. That&#8217;s what people want to hear. What we often do instead is just repeat our own talking points, and it leaves people wondering, &#8220;Okay, but the other side said this. You didn&#8217;t address that.&#8221; Well, why don&#8217;t we just address it from the beginning? I&#8217;m always skeptical of just using talking points. I like to use the other side&#8217;s talking points, frankly, and then explain in layman&#8217;s terms why I disagree with those, and why they&#8217;re just fundamentally untrue. The purpose of using social media is to use it as a conversation with people. I think that&#8217;s what we try to do.</blockquote>
Stay tuned for part two of this interview, which will be released on Sunday. For more information on and from Rep. Crenshaw, you can follow him on <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dancrenshawtx/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.
The Instagram video referenced above can be watched here:
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<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/B3pjdyaAau6/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A post shared by Dan Crenshaw (@dancrenshawtx)</a> on <time style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;" datetime="2019-10-15T19:01:31+00:00">Oct 15, 2019 at 12:01pm PDT</time>
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INTERVIEW (Part I): Dan Crenshaw On How To Solve The Border And Illegal Immigration Crisis

The 2019-2020 U.S. Supreme Court term officially kicked off today with oral argument in the case of <a href="https://twitter.com/SCOTUSblog/status/1181192452331511810">Kahler v. Kansas</a>. This is the first full term with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and many conservatives — especially those of a perhaps more sanguine judicial disposition than <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-conservatives-how-much-longer-are-you-josh-hammer">yours truly</a> — eagerly anticipate what they hope will be important rulings in disparate hot-button legal areas such as abortion, gun rights, transgenderism and homosexuality, and immigration. Here are some key cases (with predictions!) and key broader themes to watch for, from a conservative perspective.
Cases
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gee-v-june-medical-services-llc/">June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee</a>: This is the most important abortion case since 2016&#8217;s disappointing result in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/15-274_new_e18f.pdf">Whole Women&#8217;s Health v. Hellerstedt</a>, which nullified the underlying Texas pro-life statute at issue. In Gee, the justices will grapple with two important questions: (1) Whether Louisiana&#8217;s hospital admitting privileges law for abortionists complies with the &#8220;undue burden&#8221; constitutional standard first promulgated in 1992&#8217;s infamous Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and (2) whether so-called <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/legal-argument-louisiana-could-have-huge-josh-hammer">&#8220;third-party standing&#8221; doctrine for abortionists</a> should be doctrinally revisited. PREDICTION: Kavanaugh and Chief Justice Roberts write a plurality opinion that upholds Louisiana&#8217;s law while very narrowly paring back Casey&#8216;s &#8220;undue burden&#8221; standard. But the chief justice joins liberals to secure continued <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-pence-promises-challenge-nationwide-josh-hammer">liberal standing</a> requirements for abortionists.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/new-york-state-rifle-pistol-association-inc-v-city-of-new-york-new-york/">New York State Rifle &amp; Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, New York</a>: This is the first Second Amendment case that the justices have taken since 2010&#8217;s landmark City of Chicago v. McDonald, which incorporated the individual right to keep and bear arms — as articulated by the Court two years prior in District of Columbia v. Heller — against state governments. In the comparably minor case of City of New York, the nine robed oracles will assess whether New York City&#8217;s <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/new-york-state-rifle-pistol-association-inc-v-city-of-new-york-new-york/">&#8220;ban on transporting a licensed, locked and unloaded handgun to a home or shooting range outside city limits&#8221;</a> is reconcilable with the Second Amendment&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-conservatives-must-not-go-soft-assault-josh-hammer">individual right</a> established in Heller and McDonald. PREDICTION: New York City&#8217;s ban will be overturned on a standard 5-4 ideological judicial split.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/altitude-express-inc-v-zarda/">Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda </a>(consolidated with <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/bostock-v-clayton-county-georgia/">Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia</a>): In what is perhaps my personally most anticipated consolidated case of the term, the justices will adjudicate whether Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans employment discrimination because of &#8220;sex,&#8221; necessarily also bans employment discrimination because of sexual orientation. The obvious and common sensical answer, using standard tools of statutory interpretation, is a resounding <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/judge-hos-excellent-opinion-on-title-vii-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-part-1/">&#8220;no.&#8221;</a> But the Court oftentimes does not supply the correct answer in these seemingly straightforward legal questions, especially where cultural currents strongly point in the sexual liberationist direction. PREDICTION: Kavanaugh defects to join the liberals in a 5-4 judicial re-writing of Title VII to accommodate sexual orientation. Thomas and Alito write scathing dissents, as Kavanaugh&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-draw-right-lessons-kavanaughs-bad-start-no-josh-hammer">reputation as moderate</a> is solidified early in his tenure.</li>
<li> <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-naacp/">Trump v. NAACP</a> (consolidated with two other cases): At long last, the black-robed oracles of the Court will finally deign to decide for us flyover state plebeians whether then-President Barack Obama&#8217;s unconstitutional DACA executive amnesty may be rescinded by President Trump. The very fact that this is a viable legal issue — let alone a high-profile one — is, of course, dispiriting. But much like the so-called &#8220;travel ban&#8221; case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf">Trump v. Hawaii</a>, the presence of the &#8220;orange man&#8221; as a named party to a lawsuit tends to enflame the passions of the judicial <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/judicial-resistance">#resistance</a>. PREDICTION: Trump&#8217;s executive rescinding of Obama&#8217;s unconstitutional amnesty is upheld, but only after the chief justice and Kavanaugh first both side with the liberals in erroneously finding that Trump&#8217;s rescinding of the policy is judicially reviewable, in the first instance.</li>
</ol>
Themes
<ol>
<li>Will Kavanaugh move to the right or solidify his centrist bona fides as the chief justice&#8217;s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/07/supreme-court-bromance-john-roberts-brett-kavanaugh-tie-up-court/3342377002/">wingman</a>? Kavanaugh had a complicated initial partial term on the Court. He found himself in the majority more than any other justice, and emerged as the closest ally on the Court to new, post-Anthony Kennedy &#8220;swing vote&#8221; Chief Justice Roberts. Kavanaugh generally finished the term in strong fashion, although there were a number of hiccups along the way on issues as wide-ranging as the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-roberts-and-kavanaughs-death-penalty-josh-hammer">death penalty</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-blown-opportunity-justice-kavanaugh-quickly-josh-hammer">antitrust</a>. I tend toward pessimism when it comes to Kavanaugh — he is, at his core, a Beltway Republican establishmentarian and not a man of Thomas/Scalia-esque originalist juridical convictions. I unfortunately predict more disappointment from Kavanaugh this term, with the consolidated Title VII cases being my best guess for a high-profile case where Kavanaugh will disappoint conservatives.</li>
<li>Will Justice Neil Gorsuch&#8217;s libertarianism — especially on criminal law — continue unabated? While of a decidedly stronger originalist hue than Kavanaugh, Gorsuch&#8217;s second full term on the Court solidified jurisprudential traces that we first saw emerge in his <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/gorsuch-dead-wrong-immigration/">disastrous</a> 2018 concurrence in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/15-1498_1b8e.pdf">Sessions v. Dimaya</a> — namely, that of pro-criminal libertarianism. Toward the end of last term, Gorsuch ruled in disappointing fashion in the &#8220;unconstitutionally void for vagueness&#8221; case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-431_7758.pdf">U.S. v. Davis</a> and the mens rea requirement case of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-9560_e2p3.pdf">U.S. v. Rehaif</a>. In Rehaif, Gorsuch was joined in the majority by Roberts and Kavanaugh, but in Davis — likely the more pernicious of the two, from the perspective of opening the litigation floodgates to habeas corpus challenges — he joined the liberal bloc alone. Criminal law comprises a plurality of the Supreme Court docket, and it is deeply dispiriting for law-and-order conservatives to see Gorsuch emerge as an ally of the Left in judicially imposing de facto jailbreak initiatives. It is easy for a conservative to be tough on Kavanaugh, but Gorsuch&#8217;s mishaps also demand scrutinizing eyes.</li>
<li>How, if at all, will the chief justice respond to bipartisan attacks on the Court? The chief justice, ever concerned with non-legal, extraneous concerns such as the Court&#8217;s &#8220;institutional integrity,&#8221; is <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2019/10/07/because-they-work-get-ready-for-more-attacks-on-john-roberts/">uniquely susceptible</a> to well-orchestrated P.R./media campaigns against him. The chief should expect much more of that this term, as it seems that the current Court pleases no one in particular — be they on the Left or the Right. Roberts has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-kavanaugh-and-gorsuch-have-issues-john-josh-hammer">long been a disappointment</a> to conservatives, and there is little reason to expect him to change course at this stage of his career on the Court. But it will nonetheless be interesting to monitor whether Roberts will feel compelled to speak up in similar fashion to how he did last term, when he <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/21/john-roberts-trump-statement/2080266002/">condemned Trump&#8217;s comments</a> about overtly partisan federal judges.</li>
<li>Will conservatives finally resign themselves to ending this <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-conservatives-how-much-longer-are-you-josh-hammer">judicial supremacist charade</a>, once and for all? This is, of course, the most important question of all. In a judicial supremacist world — that is, the anti-constitutional legal hellscape wrought by 1958&#8217;s power grab case of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-it-past-time-trump-openly-defy-court-order-josh-hammer">Cooper v. Aaron</a> — the so-called <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed78.asp">&#8220;least dangerous&#8221;</a> branch has transmogrified into something much more insidious. Under this faux-legal framework, arguably nothing is more important in the world of federal politics than judicial nominations. But playing the judicial supremacist game is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-conservatives-how-much-longer-are-you-josh-hammer">systemically rigged</a> against conservatives and, ultimately, is un-winnable. Will conservatives ever wake up?</li>
</ol>

U.S. Supreme Court

HAMMER: The Supreme Court Term Begins Today. Here Is What Conservatives Should Look For.

Abortion

Constitution

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

First Amendment

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

LGBT

Second Amendment

Supreme Court

So many immigrants appeared at the southern border seeking asylum in the first half of 2019 that the Federal immigration court&#8217;s backlog is now over a million cases &#8212; and that&#8217;s without more than a quarter million cases still being assessed.
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/18/politics/immigration-court-backlog/index.html">CNN reports</a> that court watchdogs tracking asylum cases at the border now report more than 1 million asylum cases awaiting adjudication. Syracuse University, which released a study on the matter last week, claims that there are an additional 300,000 cases that have yet to make it into the system, leaving those asylum seekers &#8220;pending&#8221; without a court date or legal status.
The courts, it seems, are simply overwhelmed. Each individual or family who presents themselves to border patrol or other border law enforcement and requests asylum must be assessed and most are given a court date for an asylum hearing. There are now so many asylum-seekers, though, the standard timeline for adjudication &#8212; at one time as little as three months &#8212; is now around 700 days, or just a little under two years.
&#8220;If nothing else, the continuing rise of the backlog shows that the immigration court is broken,&#8221; Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, told CNN. &#8220;Until we fix the design defect of having a court in a law enforcement agency, we will not be able to address the backlog in a fair and effective manner.&#8221;
It&#8217;s not clear that anyone is interested in making inroads into the defect, and immigration has long since fallen by the wayside in Congress, which is now focused on an impeachment inquiry, even though border conditions haven&#8217;t necessarily improved. The case backlog is the result of months where more than 100,000 migrants requested asylum at the southern border.
“The latest case-by-case court records through the end of August 2019 show the court’s active case backlog was 1,007,155,” the Syracuse report notes. “If the additional 322,535 cases which the court says are pending but have not been placed on the active caseload rolls are added, then the backlog now tops 1.3 million.”
The Justice Department says it doesn&#8217;t officially acknowledge reports done by independent agencies since they may not have all the information necessary to give a true count, but they did admit there&#8217;s problems.
“This report and DOJ’s own data further confirms there is a crisis at the border,&#8221; a spokesperson told CNN. &#8220;This Administration is taking aggressive steps to increase productivity, close loopholes, and hire a record number of judges to address the backlog with our existing authorities.”
The Trump Administration&#8217;s &#8220;Remain in Mexico&#8221; policy, which recently survived a legal challenge, has been helping to alleviate the problem somewhat. Now, instead of crossing the border to official Customs and Border Patrol facilities, being given a court date, and set free into the United States with a demand to return, migrants who want to declare asylum are staying at camps south of the border and having their claims adjudicated by teleconference judges.
The number of migrants appearing at the border has abated somewhat as well. The numbers are no longer in the six figures, likely because the Trump Administration has put a halt to temporary &#8220;catch-and-release&#8221; policies and empowering law enforcement to make educated decisions about which migrants are in immediate danger.

MEXICO-US-BORDER-WALL

Immigration Court Backlog Now Over A Million Cases

Customs and Border Patrol

<div class="mceTemp"></div>
President Trump on Friday signed a presidential proclamation that will prevent U.S. taxpayers from being forced to subsidize health care costs of legal immigrants, who will need to have their own insurance.
In the new rule, which goes into effect Nov. 3, most foreigners who apply for visas  will have to have their own employer-based health insurance or a non-subsidized private health insurance plan before they arrive. The rule does not apply to refugees or those seeking political asylum or nonimmigrant visas.
The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-suspension-entry-immigrants-will-financially-burden-united-states-healthcare-system/">proclamation</a> reads in part:
<blockquote>Healthcare providers and taxpayers bear substantial costs in paying for medical expenses incurred by people who lack health insurance or the ability to pay for their healthcare.  Hospitals and other providers often administer care to the uninsured without any hope of receiving reimbursement from them.  The costs associated with this care are passed on to the American people in the form of higher taxes, higher premiums, and higher fees for medical services.</blockquote>
&#8220;While our healthcare system grapples with the challenges caused by uncompensated care, the United States Government is making the problem worse by admitting thousands of aliens who have not demonstrated any ability to pay for their healthcare costs,&#8221; the proclamation says. &#8220;Notably, data show that lawful immigrants are about three times more likely than United States citizens to lack health insurance. Immigrants who enter this country should not further saddle our healthcare system, and subsequently American taxpayers, with higher costs.&#8221;
The new rule is expected to save billions of dollars.
&#8220;In total, uncompensated care costs — the overall measure of unreimbursed services that hospitals give their patients — have exceeded $35 billion in each of the last 10 years.  These costs amount to approximately $7 million on average for each hospital in the United States, and can drive hospitals into insolvency.  Beyond uncompensated care costs, the uninsured strain Federal and State government budgets through their reliance on publicly funded programs, which ultimately are financed by taxpayers,&#8221; the proclamation says.
More than 22 million non-citizens now live in the United States, according to data released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau. According to estimates extrapolated from data collected, 22.1 million are &#8220;not a U.S. citizen,&#8221; the data showed. The statistics also showed a record 13.7% of the nation&#8217;s 2018 population &#8212; nearly 44.7 million people &#8212; was born in another country, Census bureau researchers said. That&#8217;s the highest number of foreign-born citizens since 1910. Most are from Latin America.
Between 1960 and 1970, just one in 20 U.S. residents was foreign born.
&#8220;Today&#8217;s foreign-born resident rate has surged to about one in seven in California, Texas, Florida, and New York &#8212; the nation&#8217;s largest states &#8212; where the foreign born population is 15 percent higher than it is elsewhere in America,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7510149/New-U-S-Census-finds-22-1-million-American-residents-non-citizens.html">The Daily Mail</a> reported.
States and cities across the country are also spending billions on aid to illegal aliens. Los Angeles County, for instance, paid nearly $1.3 billion in welfare money during 2015 and 2016 to families of illegal aliens. That number amounts to one-​quarter of the total spent on the county’s entire needy population, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/la-made-1-3b-in-illegal-immigrant-welfare-payouts-in-just-2-years">Fox News</a>.
In 2015, more than 58,000 families received $602 million in benefits. The next year, some 64,000 families received $675 million.
The sanctuary county of Los Angeles draws foreigners who enter the United States illegally and now has the largest concentration of any county ​in the nation, according to a study from the Migration Policy Institute. ​Illegal aliens in the county are allowed to receive welfare and food stamp benefits.
Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow who studies poverty and illegal immigration, told Fox the costs represent “the tip of the iceberg.”
“They get $3 in benefits for every $1 they spend,” Rector said, including the costs of education, police and fire, medical, and subsidized housing — which can total $24,000 per year in government spending per family.

High Angle View Of Stethoscope Over White Background

Trump Signs Order To Prevent Taxpayers From Subsidizing Health Care For Immigrants

Health Care

Singer Selena Gomez is &#8220;afraid&#8221; for the United States due to the ongoing illegal immigration crisis and hopes Americans will feel more empathy and compassion for illegal immigrants.
In an op-ed for <a href="https://time.com/5690070/selena-gomez-americas-immigration-crisis/">TIME</a>, the &#8220;Good for You&#8221; singer recalls her own family&#8217;s history of illegal immigration, starting when her aunt crossed the border in the 1970s — followed by her grandparents, who then bore her father in Texas.
&#8220;In 1992, I was born a U.S. citizen thanks to their bravery and sacrifice,&#8221; writes Gomez. &#8220;Over the past four decades, members of my family have worked hard to gain United States citizenship. Undocumented immigration is an issue I think about every day, and I never forget how blessed I am to have been born in this country thanks to my family and the grace of circumstance. But when I read the news headlines or see debates about immigration rage on social media, I feel afraid for those in similar situations. I feel afraid for my country.&#8221;
While Selena Gomez acknowledges immigration is a &#8220;divisive political issue,&#8221; the remainder of her essay focuses solely on the plight of the illegal immigrant — thereby neglecting the litany of Americans who have been negatively affected by an open southern border, from drugs trafficked to wages slashed.
&#8220;It is a human issue, affecting real people, dismantling real lives. How we deal with it speaks to our humanity, our empathy, our compassion. How we treat our fellow human beings defines who we are,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;I understand it’s flawed and that we need rules and regulations, but we also have to remember that our country was formed by people who came here from other countries. It’s time to listen to the people whose lives are being directly affected by immigration policies. It’s time to get to know the individuals whose complex stories have been reduced to basic headlines.&#8221;
Gomez goes on to write about her experience producing the documentary series &#8220;Living Undocumented,&#8221; which, again, did not fully explore the highly complex issue of illegal immigration and instead merely focuses &#8220;on eight immigrant families in the U.S. from different countries and backgrounds, all facing possible deportation.&#8221;
&#8220;I watched footage outlining their deeply personal journeys and I cried,&#8221; she cried. &#8220;It captured the shame, uncertainty, and fear I saw my own family struggle with. But it also captured the hope, optimism, and patriotism so many undocumented immigrants still hold in their hearts despite the hell they go through.&#8221;
After describing the individuals and their stories, Gomez expresses her concern by the way people are being treated in the United States. She makes this claim several months after she said the anti-abortion laws in Alabama and Georgia were &#8220;<a href="https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/heres-how-selena-gomez-is-taking-a-stand-against-anti-abortion-laws.html/">deeply upsetting</a>.&#8221;
&#8220;To see what is happening right now in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and several other states in our country is not only deeply upsetting but seems that it can’t possibly be real in 2019. It’s no one’s business what a woman chooses to do with her body. End of story,&#8221; she wrote on her Instagram back in May.

&#8220;The Dead Don&#8217;t Die&#8221; New York Premiere

Selena Gomez Pens Emotional Op-Ed On Immigration: ‘I&#8217;m Afraid For My Country’

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

On Thursday, new acts were added to New York City’s list of what constitutes “hate.”
The NYC Commission on Human Rights announced “new legal enforcement guidance and actions against discrimination based on immigration status and national origin.”
The new crimes include, according to a press release from the commission, “Threatening to call [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] when motivated by discrimination, derogatory use of the term ‘illegal alien,’ and discrimination based on limited English proficiency are unlawful discriminatory treatment under the NYC Human Rights Law.”
The commission also said it was “currently investigating 4 cases involving discrimination based on threats to call ICE in order to harass, threaten, or intimidate a victim.”
It is unclear exactly how an alleged instance of discrimination could be investigated, considering the “he said/she said” nature of the allegations. Either a lot of cases will result in no findings or New York City residents will lose some due process rights in order to determine their guilt. And this says nothing of the First Amendment rights for speech — even objectionable speech.
“In the face of increasingly hostile national rhetoric, we will do everything in our power to make sure our treasured immigrant communities are able to live with dignity and respect, free of harassment and bias,&#8221; Human Rights Commission Chair Carmelyn P. Malalis said in a statement <a href="https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/telling-nyers-speak-english-could-draw-250k-fine-city-says">published by Patch</a>. &#8220;Today&#8217;s guidance makes abundantly clear that there is no room for discrimination in NYC.&#8221;
The commission told the outlet that it was actually investigating seven cases where landlords threatened to call immigration services on tenants for not paying their rent.
The new guidance “defines discrimination on the basis of perceived or actual immigration status and national origin under the New York City Human Rights Law in public accommodations, employment, and housing.”
“The guidance states that the use of the term ‘illegal alien,’ among others, when used with intent to demean, humiliate, or harass a person, is illegal under the law,” the commission said in its press release. “Further, the guidance stipulates that harassing or discriminating against someone for their use of another language or their limited English proficiency, and threatening to call ICE on a person based on a discriminatory motive, are considered to be in violation of the law.”
Those found in violation face fines of up to $250,000, which “can be assessed for each act of willful discrimination, and damages are available to complainants.”
That last part — about providing damages to accusers — could set up the new policy for abuse. Need money? Accuse your employer of discrimination.
Patch provided some examples of how New York City residents could be in violation of the new guidance:
<blockquote>A store owner would violate the law if he tells two shoppers speaking Thai to &#8220;speak English&#8221; and &#8220;go back to your country,&#8221; the guidance says. Forcings [sic] prospective tenants who appear not to be U.S. citizens to put down six months of rent as a security deposit while only requiring one month&#8217;s rent from those thought to be citizens would also be illegal, according to the commission.</blockquote>

Anti-ICE protest

It’s Now Illegal In NYC To Threaten To Call ICE On Someone Or Tell Them ‘Go Back To Your Country’

New York City

Former ICE director Tom Homan slammed Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and her Democratic colleagues on Thursday for holding President Donald Trump and his administration to a different standard than they had for former President Barack Obama.
During the House Judiciary Committee&#8217;s hearing on immigrant detention facilities, Jayapal criticized the Trump administration for skirting Congressional authority and financing agency operations with millions of dollars that were initially slated for other functions.
&#8220;I&#8217;d like to remind you that under the Obama administration we did that most of the years he was president. We moved money around [the Department of Homeland Security] &#8212; it&#8217;s called reprogramming,&#8221; Homan responded. &#8220;We did that under the Obama administration and I don&#8217;t remember any hearings on that.&#8221;
<iframe title="Tom Homan clashes with Dem over detention practices" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/R0wHD4rfUuA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Homan also fired back over Democrats&#8217; seeming outrage regarding family separation. During the Obama administration, the federal courts ruled that the government is prohibited from detaining children for longer than 20 days. Since the 20-day window is generally not long enough to process the detained families, children and their accompanying adults are consequently separated as not to violate what is referred to as the Flores Settlement Agreement. However, Democrats have been lambasting Trump for residing over policies that keep children in cages.
&#8220;You are quick to point out the cages that were built under the Obama administration. I was there. Family detention &#8212; we had 100 family beds under the Obama administration and we built 3,000 more,&#8221; Homan said. &#8220;When there was a surge in [2014 and 2015], Congress was quick to give all the money we needed to build detention facilities, get transportation contracts. We reprogrammed money out of the majority of the years he was president &#8212; that was fine.&#8221;
&#8220;If this is about transparency, let&#8217;s be factual about it,&#8221; he added.
Jayapal, who serves as the subcommittee&#8217;s chairwoman, tried to defend her position by stating that she was never in favor of those policies, even while Obama was in office. She subsequently cut off Homan&#8217;s time.
&#8220;Be honest with the American people. You can&#8217;t point out faults in the Trump administration when it happened under the Obama administration,&#8221; he interjected. &#8220;That&#8217;s dishonesty. It&#8217;s pathetic and it&#8217;s sad.&#8221;
Earlier during the hearing, Homan took a shot at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and members of her Democratic caucus for vilifying law enforcement officers. The self-proclaimed &#8220;radical&#8221; congresswoman ignited a firestorm in June after she compared illegal immigrant detention facilities to Nazi concentration camps.
While members of the media and some of her Democratic colleagues tried to defend the comparison, she was largely met with backlash for her historical inaccuracy and insensitivity to the millions of Jews who were slaughtered in concentration camps during the Holocaust.
&#8220;That comparison is 100% inaccurate and it is disgusting,&#8221; Homan said during the hearing. &#8220;Now forgive me, I didn&#8217;t think Nazi death camps had detention standards, I didn&#8217;t think they had health care, I didn&#8217;t think they had recreation, law libraries, visitation, three squares a day. It&#8217;s an insulting comparison.&#8221;
Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) later reiterated the offensiveness of the comparison.
&#8220;Thank you for saying that,&#8221; Homan responded. &#8220;I wish someone in Democratic leadership would say that out loud.&#8221;
&#8220;Look, you want to know why there is 50,000 people in detention? You want to know why there are a million illegal entries in the United States? You want to know why we have these issues? Because you have failed to secure the border,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;You guys failed to work with this president to close the three loopholes we&#8217;ve asked for two years to close.&#8221; You have failed the American people by not securing the border.&#8221;
Jayapal again cut off Homan&#8217;s time and slammed the gavel for silence.

Tom Homan at roundtable

WATCH: Former ICE Director Slams Progressive Lawmaker For &#8216;Pathetic And Sad&#8217; Dishonesty In Fiery Exchange

Abolish ICE thugs in Colorado want to see the homes and families of immigration enforcement officials set aflame.
Denver communists want alien detention facility employees dead, swinging from nooses with broken necks.
Both groups are brazenly using Facebook to spread their inflammatory and violent messages. So, where is Silicon Valley — whose top companies partner with the Southern Poverty Law Center smear machine to de-platform conservatives, pro-lifers and Donald Trump supporters — to stop the open borders left&#8217;s escalating hate?
On Thursday, Sept. 19, Abolish ICE Denver and the Denver Communists are organizing a protest outside the house of Johnny Choate, the warden of the immigrant detention facility in Aurora, Colorado. Choate works for GEO Group, which operates the center. Instead of laying blame at the feet of global profiteers who induce illegal immigrants to risk their families&#8217; lives to trespass our borders, anti-ICE agitators are targeting homeland security employees and contractors who simply enforce federal immigration and detention laws passed by Congress.
The Denver Communists group shared a poster on Facebook with Choate&#8217;s face superimposed over a generic neighborhood map with private residential homes. &#8220;CONFRONT LA MIGRA WHERE THEY LIVE,&#8221; the radicals urged members. The graphic describes Choate as &#8220;warden of Aurora&#8217;s notorious ICE concentration camp.&#8221; That&#8217;s the same inflammatory and defamatory language popularized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and used by antifa militant Willem Van Spronsen, who attempted to firebomb the Tacoma ICE facility, also run by GEO Group, in July.
The protest announcement also includes the phrase, &#8220;Chinga La Migra!&#8221; It&#8217;s the slogan of Mijente, a Latino activist group leading the Abolish ICE movement. Translation: &#8220;F—- the Border Patrol.&#8221;
A commenter edited a distorted image of Choate&#8217;s face surrounded by flames, suggesting arson. His post was liked by three other fans/followers/members of the Denver Communists&#8217; Facebook Group.
Another commenter leveled his own explicit thread on the Facebook page targeting Choate and his family in his home:
&#8220;Reenact human rights abuses, get hanged by the neck until dead. Simple.&#8221;
As I report in my book &#8220;Open Borders Inc.: Who&#8217;s Funding America&#8217;s Destruction?&#8221; this virulent hatred for ICE and the Border Patrol traces its ideological lineage back to the cop-bashing domestic terrorism of the 1970s that festered in academia and resulted in bloodshed across the country at the hands of the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground. Today&#8217;s Abolish ICE extremists harbor the same seething &#8220;Pigs in a blanket, fry &#8217;em like bacon&#8221; contempt for immigration enforcement as the &#8220;progressive&#8221; cop-haters of the 1970s and their George Soros-subsidized heirs in the Bush-era A.N.S.W.E.R. and amnesty coalitions, Code Pink, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movement.
The underlying mission back then was the same as now: Destabilization, disruption and destruction of civil order.
David Booth, who lives in Choate&#8217;s neighborhood, refuses to sit by while these bullies invade his community.
&#8220;I was shocked and surprised when I found out there was going to be an &#8216;ICE protest&#8217; in my neighborhood,&#8221; he told me Tuesday. Booth discovered that Abolish ICE Denver used Facebook to spread information on how they will be &#8220;going door to door in the neighborhood to let people know that a &#8216;monster&#8217; lives among us.&#8221;
Booth condemned the witch hunt headed his community&#8217;s way: &#8220;This policy of intimidation that we see the left continue to use is not OK. &#8230; I would like to see the neighborhood rise up and support this man and his family.&#8221;
I reached out to Facebook for a response to these public safety concerns, but received no answer by my deadline. For Coloradans, violent threats to law enforcement officials&#8217; neighborhoods are especially disturbing given the chilling 2013 assassination of the head of the Colorado Department of Corrections outside his home in Monument.
Booth will stand publicly in defense of his community Thursday and says he has his neighbors&#8217; support. &#8220;I think most of us, if not all, believe this protest is inappropriate regardless of where we stand on the issue of immigration,&#8221; said Booth. &#8220;Our neighbor is just doing his job, and has done nothing wrong, or illegal, in carrying out his duties.&#8221;
Following Stand With ICE rallies in Aurora, Colorado, and Montgomery County, Maryland, that have drawn nearly 1,000 citizens over the past two weeks, Booth decided he could not sit on the sidelines. He is not alone, and we have only just begun. I will join Coloradans again on Saturday, Sept. 21, when another Abolish ICE group marches to the Aurora ICE facility where the American flag was torn down in July.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Michelle Malkin&#8217;s email address is MichelleMalkinInvestigates@protonmail.com. To find out more about Michelle Malkin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Anti-ICE Protestors

MALKIN: Facebook Incites Violent War On ICE

Thomas Fahr Steyer, a California-based billionaire and leftist activist focusing on environmental issues, is a candidate for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Steyer, a longtime leftist philanthropist and prolific donor to Democratic candidates and causes, is by far the wealthiest candidate in the 2020 Democratic field. Steyer&#8217;s political activism has focused disproportionately on environmentalism and global warming/climate change issues, although he has the political profile of an across-the-board, full-spectrum progressive/leftist. As the most recent entrant into the 2020 Democratic presidential field, he does not yet register in <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/democratic_nomination_polls/">current polling for the nomination</a>.
Steyer, who has a bachelor degree from Yale University and a MBA from Stanford University, is the founder of San Francisco-based hedge fund Farallon Capital and the co-founder of Oakland-based Beneficial State Bank. In 2012, Steyer stepped down from Farallon in order to focus more of his time on environmentalist/alternative energy advocacy. In addition to his involvement with Beneficial State Bank, which focuses on community development, Steyer has been involved with other leftist philanthropic causes — including his <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Tom-Steyer-says-effort-to-end-inequality-isn-t-6438690.php">2015 founding</a> of the Fair Shake Commission on Income Inequality and Middle Class Opportunity, which promotes reducing income inequality. But above all, Steyer has spent more time and resources on environmentalist activism. In 2013, for example, Steyer founded NextGen America, an environmentalist nonprofit and political action committee.
Steyer, who would become the first president with a Jewish parent if successfully elected, is married and has four children. He has an <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/thomas-steyer/">estimated net worth</a> of $1.6 billion, and has committed self-funding his 2020 presidential bid to the tune of <a href="https://time.com/5623149/tom-steyer-presidential-campaign/">$100 million</a>.
Electoral History: Steyer has never sought political office prior to his current campaign for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination. However, he has a lengthy history of involvement in partisan Democratic causes. Steyer has been a prolific fundraiser for many leading Democrats over the past few decades, including for Barack Obama in 2008. Steyer also spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, and reportedly considered a 2018 run for California governor.
On The Issues: Perhaps more so than any of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, Steyer&#8217;s candidacy revolves around one core issue: Environmentalism. He has made global warming prevention, opposition to the oil and natural gas industries, and a concomitant greater government role in investing in alternative energy sources the central tenets of his public activist profile. Steyer has a less prolific track record and history of commentary on other issues, but all available evidences points toward his being an across-the-board, full-spectrum progressive/leftist. For example, his 2020 campaign <a href="https://www.tomsteyer.com/about-tom/">website</a> also touts his work in &#8220;promot[ing] social justice and increas[ing] participation in our democracy through voter registration and grassroots organizing.&#8221;
Constitution: Steyer has a very thin public record of commenting on legal and judicial issues. He has, however, been a prominent advocate for impeaching President Donald Trump. Steyer has stated that he opposes Citizens United v. F.E.C., the U.S. Supreme Court&#8217;s landmark 2010 political speech-affirming case. He also <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/12/megadonor-steyer-abortion-rights-candidates-241563">supports</a> Roe v. Wade, thus indicating a belief in the so-called constitutional &#8220;right to privacy&#8221; and &#8220;right to abortion.&#8221; Steyer has suggested sympathy for gun control measures that would undermine Americans&#8217; Second Amendment rights, and he also supports a robust role for the federal government in economic regulation that is consistent with mainstream legal progressivism.
Economy: Steyer supports raising personal taxes and strongly opposed President Trump&#8217;s 2017 tax cut law. In his 2020 campaign announcement video, Steyer <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-does-tom-steyer-believe-where-the-candidate-stands-on-6-issues">lamented</a> how corporations have an &#8220;unlimited ability to participate in politics, [which] will skew everything because they only care about profits.&#8221; His anti-corporation message is also decidedly populist, as Steyer has also <a href="https://www.axios.com/tom-steyer-on-the-issues-in-under-500-words-2020-presidential-election-2e5a747a-b6bf-459d-a581-e7d1efcd75bd.html">said</a> that &#8220;the only way for us to solve the urgent problems facing our country is to loosen the stranglehold that corporations have over our politicians and return political power to the American people.&#8221; Like many of his 2020 Democratic rivals, Steyer also <a href="https://www.latimes.com/la-pol-sac-essential-poli-tom-steyer-praises-minimum-wage-hike-1459196428-htmlstory.html">supports</a> raising the federal minimum wage. Steyer, though a billionaire, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/this-billionaire-wants-trump-to-raise-his-taxes.html">vocally opposes</a> income inequality.
Health Care: Steyer <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/tom-steyer-2020-democrats/540357/">supports</a> &#8220;Medicare for All,&#8221; which would effectively amount to a single-payer health insurance system and a de facto governmental takeover of health insurance and imposition of socialized medicine in America. He <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-does-tom-steyer-believe-where-the-candidate-stands-on-6-issues">has been critical</a> of the perceived corporate greed of large pharmaceutical companies.
Immigration: Steyer has been harshly critical of the Trump administration&#8217;s attempts to secure our border amidst a hitherto unprecedented influx there of Central American migrants. Steyer <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/392482-billionaire-steyer-to-invest-1-million-to-help-immigrants-fight">donated</a> last year to leftist/open-borders legal groups at the southern border working to assist illegal aliens facing deportation. He <a href="https://twitter.com/TomSteyer/status/1146079566374457344">addresses</a> illegal immigration in starkly pro-illegal alien — and not rule-of-law — terminology. Steyer appears to <a href="https://nextgenamerica.org/issues/immigration/">support</a> a pathway to citizenship for much of America&#8217;s illegal alien populace.
Foreign Policy: Steyer has a thin track record on foreign policy, although he <a href="https://twitter.com/TomSteyer/status/1005947721361121281?s=20">has been critical</a> of President Trump&#8217;s foreign policy approach. He has also taken the standard leftist approach to Special Counsel Bob Mueller&#8217;s now-infamous report: <a href="https://www.needtoimpeach.com/obstruction-of-justice/">Accusing</a> President Trump of obstruction of justice.
Abortion: Steyer is <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Thomas_Steyer">emphatically pro-abortion</a>.
Guns: Steyer has founded organizations have <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Thomas_Steyer">worked closely</a>, at times, with anti-Second Amendment organizations. He is largely seen as sympathetic to gun control initiatives.

Tom Steyer, founder, NextGen America, speaking at The Center

Where Does Tom Steyer Stand On The Issues? Here’s Everything You Need To Know.

2020 Election

Climate Change

Democratic Party

Democratic Socialism

Donald Trump

Economy

Environmentalism

Foreign Policy

Amy Jean Klobuchar has served since 2007 as a U.S. senator from Minnesota. Initially the state&#8217;s junior senator, Klobuchar has served as Minnesota&#8217;s senior senator since Democrat Al Franken&#8217;s <a href="https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/07/20/al-franken-may-have-won-his-senate-seat-through-voter-fraud">controversial</a> defeat of incumbent Republican Norm Coleman in 2008. A member of the Democratic Party — or, more specifically, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party — Klobuchar previously served as county attorney for Hennepin County, Minnesota. Although hardly centrist by recently historical, Bill Clinton-era Democratic Party standards, Klobuchar now seeks the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination by orienting herself as centrist-inclined and possessing a vague aura of Midwestern sensibility. In current 2020 Democratic presidential nomination <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/democratic_nomination_polls/">polling</a>, Klobuchar currently gets national support in the low single digits.
Klobuchar, a Minnesota native, has a bachelor degree from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Chicago. Earlier in her legal career, Klobuchar worked as a corporate attorney before becoming a local prosecutor. Her name was sometimes floated as a possible U.S. Supreme Court nominee during President Barack Obama&#8217;s presidency. Klobuchar serves on the influential U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, where her tone and demeanor during the inflammatory Brett Kavanaugh nomination saga placed her, alongside Committee member Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), firmly on the less hysterical wing of the raucous Senate Democratic caucus. Klobuchar still voted against Kavanaugh&#8217;s nomination.
Klobuchar is married to fellow attorney and legal academic John Bessler. They have one daughter, Abigail.
Electoral History: Klobuchar first entered the public sphere in 1994, where she initially declared a run for county attorney of Hennepin County before dropping out. She successfully sought the same position in 1998, winning narrowly. In 2002, she was easily re-elected to the local prosecutor perch.
In 2006, Klobuchar announced her U.S. Senate run for the seat vacated by incumbent Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN). She won the DFL Party primary in a landslide and easily won the general election. Klobuchar was subsequently re-elected by huge margins in both 2012 and 2018.
Klobuchar now seeks the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
On The Issues: Klobuchar&#8217;s prosecutorial background, gentle public (though <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43852/klobuchar-abusive-toward-staff-stories-eating-hank-berrien">perhaps not private</a>) demeanor, and background from a largely rural state combine to make her somewhat more centrist-oriented than many of her 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination rivals. However, Klobuchar can still be fairly characterized as a full-spectrum leftist/progressive. Her 2020 presidential campaign <a href="https://amyklobuchar.com">emphasizes</a> universal/socialized medicine and climate change, among other issues.
Constitution: Klobuchar consistently supports a leftist/progressive view of the Constitution and rule of law. She supports Roe v. Wade and <a href="https://amyklobuchar.com/issues/a-strong-democracy/">opposes</a> Citizens United v. F.E.C., the Supreme Court&#8217;s landmark political speech-affirming ruling in 2010. Klobuchar is generally defensive of Fourth Amendment-inspired civil liberties, although she had a more centrist record on the National Security Agency&#8217;s surveillance programs earlier in her Senate career. She supports gun control measures that would restrict Americans&#8217; Second Amendment rights. Klobuchar <a href="https://urbanmilwaukee.com/pressrelease/historic-comprehensive-lgbt-non-discrimination-legislation-re-introduced-in-congress/">supports</a> the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47176/hammer-house-democrats-equality-act-both-josh-hammer">Equality Act</a>, which would expand LGBT protections at the behest of private property rights and religious conscience rights alike. Her expansive view of the federal government&#8217;s role in regulating the economy is consistent with legal progressivism.
Economy: Klobuchar supports a robust role for the federal government in matters pertaining to economic regulation and, more generally, her views on economics reflect those of modern progressivism. Klobuchar&#8217;s 2020 campaign website touts her belief in the need for &#8220;<a href="https://amyklobuchar.com/issues/shared-prosperity-and-economic-justice/">shared prosperity</a>,&#8221; and supports a greater governmental role in <a href="https://www.brainerddispatch.com/news/government-and-politics/4427911-klobuchar-leads-roundtable-discussion-child-care-shortage">child care</a>. Like many of her 2020 Democratic presidential rivals, she <a href="https://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/1098652573685477378?lang=en">supports increasing</a> the federal minimum wage to $15. Klobuchar supports greater governmental investment in infrastructure. She supports strong labor unions and opposes &#8220;right to work&#8221; laws that would increase worker freedom.
Health Care: Klobuchar supports &#8220;universal health care,&#8221; which effectively would amount to socialized medicine in America. Earlier in her Senate career, Klobuchar voted for Obamacare. She has recently <a href="https://urbanmilwaukee.com/pressrelease/u-s-senator-tammy-baldwin-helps-reintroduce-legislation-to-create-state-public-health-care-option/">co-sponsored legislation</a> that would expand Medicaid access across the 50 states.
Immigration: Klobuchar has taken a hard line in support of the DREAM Act and other amnesty legislative initiatives that would undermine America&#8217;s sovereignty and empower brutal Mexican cartels and human trafficking rings. She supports a full <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1097709817404235777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1097709817404235777&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.twincities.com%2F2019%2F02%2F18%2Fklobuchars-cnn-town-hall-five-questions-and-how-she-answered-them%2F">pathway to citizenship</a> for the vast majority of America&#8217;s illegal alien population. She has been a consistently harsh critic of the Trump administration&#8217;s attempts to secure our border amidst a hitherto unprecedented influx there of Central American migrants. Klobuchar has been harshly critical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Trump administration. She has been <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/439339-20-dems-demand-no-more-money-for-ice-agents-trump-wall">very skeptical</a> of the utility of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Foreign Policy: Klobuchar&#8217;s 2020 campaign <a href="https://amyklobuchar.com/issues/a-safer-world/">website</a> seems to pinpoint China and Russia as America&#8217;s two top national security threats. More generally, throughout her Senate career, she has taken a harder line on China than have many of her Democratic colleagues. Klobuchar was an Iraq War skeptic earlier in her Senate career, and has supported arms reductions measures with Russia. Klobuchar supported President Obama&#8217;s 2011 intervention in Libya, which resulted in Libya turning into a destabilized jihadist stronghold. She supported President Obama&#8217;s 2015 Iran nuclear deal and opposed President Trump&#8217;s decision to remove the U.S. from the <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&amp;id=120">non-binding</a> accord. In February 2019, she <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/why-these-democratic-presidential-hopefuls-voted-no-on-an-anti-bds-bill-1.6919089">voted for</a> Senate Republicans&#8217; introduced anti-BDS legislation.
Abortion: Klobuchar is emphatically pro-abortion, vigorously supports Roe v. Wade, and <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/05/19/sen_amy_klobuchar_new_abortion_restrictions_are_a_violation_of_civil_rights.html">opposes restrictions</a> on late-term abortion. Like many of her 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination rivals, she <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democratic-candidates-hyde-amendment-abortion_n_5cf964b5e4b06af8b50570bd">supports overturning the Hyde Amendment</a>, which has historically proscribed taxpayer funding of abortion.
Guns: Despite her representation of a largely rural state, Klobuchar has a historically poor record on Second Amendment issues. Klobuchar supports &#8220;universal&#8221; background checks, which often serve as a rhetorical euphemism for the government serving as an intermediary in all private firearms transfers. She <a href="https://amyklobuchar.com/issues/a-safer-world/">supports</a> a ban on the undefinable sub-class of firearms referred to as so-called &#8220;assault weapons&#8221; — a line of thought that, if taken to its logical conclusion, could lead to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42837/hammer-kamala-harriss-flirtation-banning-all-semi-josh-hammer">banning of all semi-automatic firearms in America</a>.

gettyimages-1158530010

Where Does Amy Klobuchar Stand On The Issues? Here’s Everything You Need To Know.

Amy Klobuchar

Barack Obama

China

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration a big victory, terminating a nationwide injunction that had blocked the White House&#8217;s ban on giving asylum to immigrants crossing the southern border who had crossed through a third country without seeking protection there.
On July 15, the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice issued the following <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/news/2019/07/15/dhs-and-doj-issue-third-country-asylum-rule">statement</a>:
<blockquote>On July 16th, a joint Interim Final Rule (IFR) issued by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security will publish in the Federal Register … Specifically, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are revising 8 C.F.R. § 208.13(c) and 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(c) to add a new bar to eligibility for asylum for an alien who enters or attempts to enter the United States across the southern border, but who did not apply for protection from persecution or torture where it was available in at least one third country outside the alien’s country of citizenship, nationality, or last lawful habitual residence through which he or she transited en route to the United States.</blockquote>
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan added, &#8220;Until Congress can act, this interim rule will help reduce a major &#8216;pull&#8217; factor driving irregular migration to the United States and enable DHS and DOJ to more quickly and efficiently process cases originating from the southern border, leading to fewer individuals transiting through Mexico on a dangerous journey.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/supreme-court-green-lights-trumps-immigration-asylum-ban">Fox News</a> noted, on Monday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ended the nationwide injunction against the Trump ban but only did so partially, leaving California, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Idaho, Guam, Oregon and Washington, all within the province of the 9th Circuit, immune from the Trump ban.
In July, Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco blocked the White House ban. He wrote, &#8220;While the public has a weighty interest in the efficient administration of the immigration laws at the border, it also has a substantial interest in ensuring that the statutes enacted by its representatives are not imperiled by executive fiat,&#8221; adding that the injunction &#8220;would vindicate the public&#8217;s interest — which our existing immigration laws clearly articulate — in ensuring that we do not deliver aliens into the hands of their persecutors,&#8221; as <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2019/07/24/federal-judge-blocks-trump-rule-restricting-asylum-access/">The Texas Tribune</a> reported.
Tigar&#8217;s decision prompted three judges on the 9th Circuit to tighten Tigar&#8217;s order so only Arizona and California would be under its rubric. New Mexico and Texas remained under the White House order.
The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/president-tigar-strikes-again-11568070595">Wall Street Journal</a> reported that on Monday, Tigar &#8220;reinstated the original scope, saying that only a nationwide injunction offers &#8216;complete relief.'&#8221; The Journal continued:
<blockquote>One plaintiff, Innovation Law Lab, operates in several circuits. Bifurcated asylum rules would force it to &#8220;redesign its workshops and templates.&#8221; Another plaintiff, Al Otro Lado, aids asylum seekers from an office in Tijuana, Mexico. A split system would obligate it &#8220;to provide a much broader range of advice.&#8221; Judge Tigar further cited &#8220;the need to maintain uniform immigration policy.&#8221; But the executive branch, which is responsible for that policy, has already moved to enforce its preferred approach outside the Ninth Circuit.</blockquote>
On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit issued an administrative stay blocking Tigar&#8217;s order in all states but those served by the 9th Circuit.
The case now moves back to the 9th Circuit; Fox News noted, &#8220;The San Francisco-based appellate court has seven Trump-appointed federal judges — more than any other federal appellate bench … Thirteen of the 29 seats are now occupied by GOP-appointed judges. Last year, that number stood at six.&#8221;

BREAKING: SCOTUS Hands Trump Major Victory On Immigration

Eighteen years ago today, in what would be the deadliest assault by a geopolitical foe on U.S. soil since the War of 1812, the global jihad struck the most lethal blow in the history of its wretched movement. The 9/11 airline hijackers were largely trained and funded by Wahhabist/Salafist Sunni zealots based in <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/19/911-report-details-saudi-arabia-funding-of-muslim-/">Saudi Arabia</a>, were substantially aided by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43339/hammer-iranian-revolution-forty-years-old-stand-josh-hammer">terrorist</a> <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-10/iran-told-to-pay-10-5-billion-to-sept-11-kin-insurers">Iranian</a> regime, and were protected and mollycoddled by Taliban Islamists.
It was not amorphous &#8220;terrorism&#8221; — an easily <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51440/hammer-san-francisco-has-beclowned-itself-labeling-josh-hammer">malleable</a> linguistic concept — in the abstract that killed those <a href="https://theresurgent.com/2019/09/11/remember-2/">three thousand people</a> on 9/11. It was a much more clearly identifiable and unmistakable foe: genocidal Islamic jihadism.
It is astonishing to ponder that those born now will be eligible to serve in the U.S. military despite being born after 9/11. For those fresh new military recruits, 9/11 will be ingrained in their consciences as but one of many distant historical events — akin to the Vietnam War, the Pearl Harbor attacks, or perhaps even the Battle of Gettysburg. That is a downright harrowing thought for those of us for whom 9/11 was a seminal — perhaps life-changing or career trajectory-altering — event.
Crucially, these impressionable 18-year-old military recruits have grown up thinking of 9/11 and the corresponding bipartisan military adventurism overseas as inextricably linked. It is, of course, true that the Taliban in Afghanistan harbored the al-Qaeda militants who took down the Twin Towers. But it is also true that Afghanistan has already become this generation&#8217;s Vietnam: A seemingly interminable struggle in a faraway land for which there seems no way out.
While there is a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">prudent and responsible &#8220;third way,&#8221;</a> far too often our foreign policy and national security discourse in the post-9/11 era has been oversimplified to a most regrettable dichotomy: That between George W. Bush-era moralistic interventionist neoconservatism and a fanatical isolationism that has never seen a foreign threat worth seriously engaging. For the young generation that has intellectually matured in the proverbial shadow of this oversimplified discourse, 9/11 and our subsequent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are solidified in the mind as part and parcel of Bush-era military interventionism.
As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/us/politics/us-soldier-killed-afghanistan.html">Americans continue to die</a>, eighteen years later, fighting in third-world sharia hellholes to try to quixotically impose Madisonian democracies upon Islamists who effectively live in the seventh century, the public will to fiscally fund and morally support our campaigns naturally wanes. While that support wanes, the isolationist <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/fox-news-tucker-carlson-reportedly-at-center-of-trump-s-decision-not-to-bomb-iran-1.7403783">Tucker Carlson wing</a> of the foreign policy Right <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51610/hammer-bad-trump-presidents-dismissal-john-bolton-josh-hammer">markedly ascends</a>. But Tucker Carlson-esque thinking on foreign policy is exceedingly dangerous. If 9/11 taught us anything, it taught us that real evil exists in this earthly realm — and that evil must be soberly assessed and unambiguously thwarted, lest we succumb to its tyranny. Evil loves a geopolitical vacuum, and there is no greater vacuum than when the post-World War II United States entirely withdraws itself from the world.
The problem is that, no matter its flaws, Carlson&#8217;s isolationism will continue to gain momentum so long as it is juxtaposed with the overly sanguine Pollyannaism of those who would moralistically intervene and seek to build Enlightenment-style Western nation-states in <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2019-02-18/obamas-libya-debacle">sharia-governed desert backwaters</a>. The onus, therefore, falls on those of us <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43151/hammer-ted-cruzs-non-interventionist-hawk-foreign-josh-hammer">true, non-neoconservative counter-jihadi hawks</a> to articulate and advocate for a compelling foreign policy vision that both soberly reflects upon the excesses of bipartisan moralistic interventionism gone awry and rejects the unyielding demands of the &#8220;bring America home&#8221; isolationists.
There is much to be said about what this vision looks like, and my hope is that future columns will help further contribute to the development of this &#8220;third way.&#8221; But instead of deploying U.S. military assets for dictator-toppling and nation-building purposes, a &#8220;third way&#8221; hawkish foreign policy would focus upon utilizing the tools of soft power, &#8220;draw and strike&#8221;-style lesser hard power maneuvering, hard deterrence (e.g., strategic naval asset deployment), statecraft, and sanctions/finances to achieve its goals: To thwart jihadism and deter the hegemonic ambitions of other non-jihadist geopolitical foes, such as Russia and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47057/hammer-china-americas-greatest-21st-century-threat-josh-hammer">China</a>.
The U.S. should label the leading Mexican cartels as State Department-recognized <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/time-designate-mexican-cartels-terrorist-organizations/">foreign terrorist organizations</a>. The U.S. must label the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46714/hammer-designating-muslim-brotherhood-terrorist-josh-hammer">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, which is the intellectual progenitor of all contemporary Sunni jihad, as a terrorist group. The U.S. must <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/07/01/cutting-us-aid-to-the-lebanese-army-would-increase-pressure-on-the-iran-hezbollah-axis/">defund the Lebanese Armed Forces</a>, given that the entire Lebanese military apparatus has been overrun by Hezbollah. The U.S. must amp up pressure on Qatar and Turkey, which have both long surpassed Saudi Arabia as the leading global bankrollers of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Sunni madrasas alike.
In terms of immigration, the U.S. must focus not just on a border wall but also on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42539/hammer-border-wall-nice-interior-enforcement-nicer-josh-hammer">interior enforcement</a>: After all, two of the 9/11 hijackers — who should, of course, have never received visas in the first instance — were present in the country on that fateful day due to overstaying their visas. Two of the 9/11 hijackers, in other words, were illegal aliens still presently in the country due to a lack of robust interior enforcement.
Why on Earth, for that matter, has the U.S. continued to implement a lax immigration policy that continues to voluntarily <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/aimless-fighting-in-afghanistan-while-we-bring-afghanistan-to-our-shores/">bring the very problem we claim to be fighting overseas</a> to our own shores? Has the development of Rep. Ilhan Omar&#8217;s (D-MN) large Somali immigrant community into the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/how-rep-ilhan-omars-minnesota-district-became-the-terrorist-recruitment-capital-of-the-us-officials-highly-concerned">nation&#8217;s largest terrorist recruitment hub</a> taught us nothing? Why are we not implementing an immigration policy for the Islamic world that, while allowing for dispensations, starts from a default baseline level of effectively zero? None of the 9/11 hijackers should have been in the United States and, distressingly, our inadequate immigration &#8220;vetting&#8221; procedures are oftentimes hopeless in attempting to prevent the next importations of jihadist evil.
But a true &#8220;third way&#8221; foreign policy approach — a common-sense approach that can repel the nostrums of Tucker Carlson&#8217;s isolationism and moralistic interventionism alike — must begin with a sober assessment of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. There is no reason whatsoever for the U.S. to <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/now-pull-the-plug-on-afghanistan/">still deploy large swaths of troops</a> to Afghanistan. Our fanciful efforts to democratize a seventh century-dwelling bastion of Islamism has manifestly failed, and will never succeed. But even more germanely, there is no present security threat from Afghanistan itself. Unlike Iran, the world&#8217;s most dangerous Islamist nation and number one global funder of jihad, Afghanistan has no nuclear weapon program or expressed desire to develop intercontinental ballistic missile technology, does not fund jihadist outfits or targeted assassinations overseas, and poses no genuine threat to American interests other than the radicalization of Afghans themselves.
It turns out that there is a much simpler and more cost-effective method of dealing with the Afghanistan problem than a seemingly endless military presence — with the concomitant constant risk of <a href="https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/03/21/green-on-blue_attacks_in_afghanistan_the_data_111015.html">&#8220;green-on-blue&#8221; violence</a>. Instead, U.S. policymakers ought to simply amp up border security, interior enforcement, and set Afghan visas to zero. A meaningful withdrawal from Afghanistan, furthermore, would allow genuine counter-jihadi hawks to demonstrate to isolationists that they have no interest in occupying or democratizing every sharia hellhole the world over. And it would save much-needed intellectual, moral, financial, and military capital that must be conserved for a potential showdown with genuine jihadi state actor threats, such as Iran.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">My argument has always been that hawks themselves should support getting out of Afghanistan. We waste intellectual, moral, fiscal, physical, and human capital that we’d be better off saving for fighting adversaries that are actually strategically necessary. <a href="https://t.co/Q6fcyK9HmW">https://t.co/Q6fcyK9HmW</a>
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1160333751118913536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">You want to know how to solve the Afghanistan issue?
Set Afghan visas to zero. Maybe leave a few drones for easy aerial operations.
Done.
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1160352043191717888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
By recalibrating our post-9/11 counterterrorism strategy to focus less on nation-building and more on genuine deterrence, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48120/hammer-d-day-was-good-versus-pure-evil-our-josh-hammer">clearly defining military missions for our men and women in uniform</a>, amping up border security at home, cutting immigration from the Islamic world, and conserving financial and military capital for future showdowns with the Iran-Muslim Brotherhood-Qatar-Turkey axis of Islamism, hawks will go a long way toward showing that they have learned the lessons of moralistic interventionism gone awry. In so doing, they will also begin the process of repelling the noxious rise within the conservative movement of those pernicious isolationists whose discredited ideas risk such profound harm.

9/11 Twin Towers

HAMMER: Never Forget 9/11. But We Need To Rethink How We Fight Radical Islamic Jihad.

Afghanistan

Al Qaeda

Conservatism

George W. Bush

Immigrants

Iran

Islam

Ranking member of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is demanding answers over Democrats&#8217; mysterious trips to Mexico, including details into the alleged &#8220;coaching&#8221; of migrants to exploit United States immigration law, a letter from the Republican exclusively obtained by <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-republicans-trips-to-mexico-democrats">Fox News</a> says.
The letter, addressed to committee chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), inquires about &#8220;at least two committee staff trips into Mexico in August — one of which required Border Patrol agents to provide a special escort back into the U.S.,&#8221; Fox reports. Republicans were not informed of the trips, according to Rep. Jordan.
&#8220;Although you have the authority to direct Committee staff to travel internationally on official committee business, you have not explained why you authorized this travel into Mexico or what you sought to learn through these trips,&#8221; the Ohio Republican wrote.
Democrats are seeking &#8220;to delegitimize the administration’s border security efforts and vilify the men and women who protect our border,&#8221; Jordan accused, noting that the trips &#8220;could continue to result in misleading information about the administration&#8217;s border security efforts.&#8221;
The letter specifically asks about Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) and alleged &#8220;coaching&#8221; of migrants. According to a report from <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/democratic-congresswoman-secretly-sending-staff-into-mexico-to-coach-asylum-seekers">The Washington Examiner</a> in July, Escobar was &#8220;sending staff to Mexico&#8217;s northern border town of Ciudad Juárez to find migrants returned from El Paso, Texas, under the &#8216;remain in Mexico&#8217; policy, then coaching them to pretend they cannot speak Spanish to exploit a loophole letting them to return to the U.S.&#8221;
&#8220;What we believe is happening is Veronica Escobar&#8217;s office is going … to basically second-guess and obstruct work already done by the Border Patrol,&#8221; one senior union official source told the Examiner.
As noted by Fox, Escobar was in attendance during one of the secretive trips on August 21.
Three days after the report was published, Escobar called the piece a &#8220;fabricated&#8221; &#8220;hit piece&#8221; that is &#8220;fueled by xenophobia and misinformation.&#8221;
&#8220;The [Washington Examiner] has published a fabricated story resulting in death threats against me and my staff,&#8221; she claimed via Twitter on July 8. &#8220;This hit piece is fueled by xenophobia and misinformation. But guess what, guys? These attacks won’t deter me doing my job, upholding my oath, and pushing for accountability.”
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">The <a href="https://twitter.com/dcexaminer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dcexaminer</a> has published a fabricated story resulting in death threats against me and my staff.
This hit piece is fueled by xenophobia and misinformation. But guess what, guys? These attacks won’t deter me doing my job, upholding my oath, and pushing for accountability.
— Rep. Veronica Escobar (@RepEscobar) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepEscobar/status/1148360642023317506?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Jordan asked Democrats about the purpose of the visit, &#8220;which individuals and groups they interacted with, why Escobar’s office was invited, and what &#8216;coaching&#8217; on immigration laws, if any, was given to migrants,&#8221; Fox said of the letter.
At the end of last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) barred Democratic staff from visiting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities, reported <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dhs-bars-house-oversight-dems-from-visiting-cbp-facilities-at-border-after-rude-and-disruptive-behavior">Fox</a>. According to the DHS, Democrats were &#8220;rude&#8221; to officers, missed scheduled facility meetings, and stayed longer in areas than permitted.
&#8220;Due to the operational burden placed on the field by their refusal to comply with instruction during last week’s STAFFDEL [staff delegation visit], CBP pulled the trip in which more site visits were to take place at CBP and ICE facilities this week,&#8221; a senior DHS official told the outlet via email. &#8220;DHS communicated to the committee that due to their conduct, CBP could not support visits from the committee this week.&#8221;
Cummings claimed the action from Homeland Security was retaliatory against Democrats for allegedly “reveal[ing] potentially serious ongoing problems with the treatment of children and adults in DHS custody,&#8221; a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dems-fire-back-after-dhs-bars-staff-border-facilities">letter</a> from the committee chairman said.

Rep. Elijah Cummings

Democrats ‘Coaching’ Migrants During Secret Mexico Trips, Leaked Letter Alleges

Elijah Cummings

Jim Jordan

Migrants

What would your “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” essay look like? More to the point, what would Congress’ look like? While the House and the Senate adjourned for all of August (and had little to show for June and July), the White House was hard at work addressing the crisis at the border.
With three initiatives — the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP), the asylum cooperation agreement with Guatemala, and the interim final rule for migrants requesting asylum at the southern border — the Trump administration has sought to enforce existing law consistently and fairly and to regain control of our borders.
Additionally, the administration has successfully pressed Mexico to step up enforcement of its own laws, a move which <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-border-crossings-continue-to-fall-as-mexico-disrupts-migrant-flow-11567646550">cut illegal border crossings into the U.S. by 30%</a> from July to August.
The MPP, sometimes referred to as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, directly addresses the immigration magnet at the root of our border crisis — the promise of asylum, a way to get to the front of the line for legal immigration.
Our asylum system is designed to help those who are truly fleeing danger — those with a “credible fear” of persecution by their government. It’s not designed for those simply seeking a better job or even a better life. Under the old rules, asylum seekers would be released into the U.S. as they await their court dates (and many would simply not appear for court). By sending asylum claimants back to Mexico — still thousands of miles from the danger they say they’re fleeing — the administration is removing that temptation.
The Trump administration is also working to address asylum claims through its new asylum cooperation agreement with Guatemala — requiring migrants to seek asylum in Guatemala rather than in the U.S. Again, the point of the U.S. asylum system is to protect those who are truly in danger. Once migrants enter into a safe third country, they’re out of danger (though now, many of them undertake the long and dangerous trek to the U.S. southern border, often at the mercy of human traffickers). The agreement with Guatemala will help our migration crisis by discouraging false claims made by those who, when pressed, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2019/08/09/migrants-seeking-asylum-america-pushed-farther-south-mexico/">admit</a> they’re only coming to the U.S. for a better job.
It will also help curb human trafficking. It will, as President Trump <a href="https://www.apnews.com/23f6b9a087e841188c5484cd5cf04f3d">said</a>, help “put the coyotes and smugglers out of business.”
The administration’s interim final rule — which would declare migrants ineligible for asylum if they passed through Mexico without applying for asylum there — would also help discourage fake claims.
But a federal judge has blocked that rule from going into effect with a temporary injunction, and he’s now indicating <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-05/judge-leans-toward-blocking-trump-asylum-restriction-nationwide">he could make that permanent</a>. That would be a disservice — both to the U.S. immigration system and to genuine asylum seekers themselves.
The judge’s reasoning is that the new rule “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-24/trump-s-asylum-seeker-restriction-blocked-by-judge">is inconsistent with the existing asylum laws</a>.” It’s not. It’s entirely consistent with the goal of ensuring safety — and fairness — to the persecuted. The current influx of asylum seekers, on the other hand, has completely overwhelmed a system that should be deliberate, thoughtful, and comprehensive.
The Trump administration will fight that ruling — as it should — all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Finally, the administration has convinced Mexico to enforce its own laws and its own borders, and the result has been a decrease in the flow of migrants from Central America. Immigration officials put the decrease at about <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-border-crossings-continue-to-fall-as-mexico-disrupts-migrant-flow-11567646550">30%</a> — at a time of the year when border crossings normally increase, not decrease.
Mexico is simply guarding its border — as all sovereign nations have a right to do — instead of allowing Central Americans to pass through and place a greater strain on the U.S. border. And it’s deporting those who enter Mexico illegally.
Critics of the administration say these measures are heartless — that we are a nation of immigrants, and migrants are only coming for the freedom and opportunities we enjoy.
But these criticisms conflate two things — legal immigration and illegal immigration. If we just stop enforcing our immigration laws because they’re difficult, or unpopular, then we’re setting aside the rule of law — the very thing that makes the United States different from the Central American countries many are fleeing.
Critics also conflate asylum seekers with economic refugees. They’re different, as are the ways that U.S. immigration laws deal with them. The bar for asylum seekers is high; the line for migrants looking for a better life is long. Confusing the two only muddles the debate.
Ultimately, Congress must do its job by implementing immigration reform that’s in the best interest of the United States and its citizens. Until then, the Trump administration is doing what it can, and making a difference.
Summer is over for both the House and the Senate. They’ll return to find that the White House hasn’t been idle.
The Honorable John N. Hostettler is the Vice President for Federal Affairs for States Trust at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He served in the U.S. House from 1995 to 2007 representing Indiana’s Eighth District.

HOSTETTLER: Congress Has Been On Recess, But The Trump Administration Has Been Busy

Congress

Trump Administration

White House

Ten days after being detained at Boston Logan International Airport and deported back to the Middle East, a 17-year-old Palestinian student from Tyre, Lebanon, was readmitted into the U.S. and allowed to begin his undergraduate education at Harvard University this week.
As reported by <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/8/27/incoming-freshman-deported/#.XWTG5epzJI0.twitter">The Harvard Crimson</a>, Ismail Ajjawi, a member of Harvard&#8217;s 2023 class, was determined to be &#8220;inadmissible&#8221; by immigration authorities a few days before the start of the semester after he was detained for several hours at Logan International, had his cell phone and computer temporarily confiscated for review, and was questioned about his friends&#8217; social media activity and his political and religious beliefs, according to the student.
Upon arriving to the airport, Ajjawi and several other international students were questioned by immigration officials, the Crimson reported. &#8220;While the other students were allowed to leave, Ajjawi alleges an immigration officer continued to question him about his religion and religious practices in Lebanon,&#8221; according to the campus paper. &#8220;The same officer then asked him to unlock his phone and laptop, and left to search them for roughly five hours, Ajjawi alleges.&#8221;
&#8220;When I asked every time to have my phone back so I could tell them about the situation, the officer refused and told me to sit back in [my] position and not move at all,&#8221; Ajjawi told the Crimson. &#8220;After the 5 hours ended, she called me into a room, and she started screaming at me. She said that she found people posting political points of view that oppose the US on my friend[s] list. I responded that I have no business with such posts and that I didn&#8217;t like, [s]hare or comment on them and told her that I shouldn&#8217;t be held responsible for what others post. I have no single post on my timeline discussing politics.&#8221;
What exactly the posts in question said is unclear.
While the State Department would not offer comment on the case, citing the confidentiality of visa records, a Customs and Border Patrol spokesperson told the paper that Ajjawi was deported because he was found to be &#8220;inadmissible.&#8221;
&#8220;Applicants must demonstrate they are admissible into the U.S. by overcoming ALL grounds of inadmissibility including health-related grounds, criminality, security reasons, public charge, labor certification, illegal entrants and immigration violations, documentation requirements, and miscellaneous grounds,&#8221; the spokesperson said in a statement to the Crimson. &#8220;This individual was deemed inadmissible to the United States based on information discovered during the CBP inspection.”
The deportation of Ajjawi was met with pushback from the university and the Harvard community, as well as the student and faculty rights group, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). &#8220;Ajjawi&#8217;s allegations, if accurate, represent a threat to academic freedom, one that should be taken seriously by those who care about protecting expressive freedoms in the United States,&#8221; FIRE&#8217;s Director of Targeted Advocacy Sarah McLaughlin said in a statement to The Daily Wire.
Ajjawi&#8217;s family expressed relief that the situation has been resolved and thanked the group that helped him get into Harvard, <a href="https://www.amideast.org/about-amideast">AMIDEAST</a>. &#8220;The last ten days have been difficult and anxiety filled, but we are most grateful for the thousands of messages of support and particularly the work of AMIDEAST,&#8221; the family&#8217;s statement reads, as reported by the <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/9/3/harvard-student-turned-away-arrives/">Crimson</a>. &#8220;We hope now that everyone can respect our and Ismail’s privacy and he can now simply focus on settling into College and his important class work.&#8221;
FIRE also expressed relief that Ajjawi had been admitted. &#8220;Given the serious chilling effect viewpoint-based decision-making creates, we hope that other cases like Ajjawi&#8217;s will receive similar attention and scrutiny,&#8221; the organization said.

Lawrence S. Bacow Sworn In As New Harvard President

UPDATE: Palestinian Student Deported After Being Questioned About Friends’ Social Media Posts Arrives At Harvard

Harvard

Lebanon

Palestinians

Former Vice President Joe Biden argued on Thursday that Congress needs to grant legal status to millions of people who illegally entered the nation as minors because they are “more American” than many children who are United States citizens.
“We have to find a pathway for DREAMers. You know DREAMers?” Biden said. “I love people that say ‘Let’s send them back.’ Can you imagine you’re four years old, your mom says you’re crossing the Rio Grande, and you say ‘no mom, I don’t want to go, we’re going to stay here?’ Come on. Come on.”
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“And these kids who come, and they end up doing well, they become Americans before a lot of Americans become Americans,” he continued. “No, I’m serious, they get in school, they do well, they contribute to the community, they contribute to the country.”
While Biden served as vice president, the Obama administration signed an executive order instituting the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program providing children who were illegally brought into the United States temporary protection from deportation, as well as the ability to receive work permits.
Granting legal status or permanent residency to DACA recipients, or the so-called DREAMers, has been a top priority for the Democratic Party since lawmakers failed to pass the DREAM Act under former President Barack Obama.
“Number one: We legalize the DREAMers,” Biden said. “Number two: I would send, immediately, an amendment to the desk of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives — a bill to the desk — that said the following: We have to find a pathway to citizenship, earned citizenship, for the 11 million undocumented.”
“Thirdly, the idea that we are changing our nature as a people by not allowing the notion of people seeking asylum here — what’s that Statue of Liberty all about? It’s about asylum,” he continued. “And the idea that I would be surging asylum judges to the border to make sure these people had hearings.”
Biden also revealed that if he is elected president, he would close down all illegal immigrant detention facilities because, he contended, they are not necessary.
“We don’t need them,” he said. “We found that when we were in office, in fact, if you decided we finally got things under control, we finally said if you have to report back for a hearing on such-and-such a date, people show up.”
However, Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kevin McAleenan <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dhs-secretary-90-percent-of-recent-asylum-seekers-skipped-their-hearings/">recently rebuked</a> that claim while testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in June. During the committee hearing, McAleenan revealed that 90% of recent asylum seekers have skipped their court hearings.
Biden also criticized the immigration policy that separates children from the adults that illegally brought them across the border. During the Obama administration, the federal courts ruled that the government is prohibited from detaining children for longer than 20 days. Since the 20-day window is generally not long enough to process asylum seekers, children have been removed from the detention centers so not to violate the 1997 court order known as the Flores consent decree.
“You don’t have to keep kids in a cage,” Biden said. “There should be no justification separating a parent from a child.”
However, DHS introduced a new policy last week that would undermine Flores and consequently keep family units together while awaiting joint court proceedings.

Joe Biden

WATCH: Biden Claims Illegal Immigrants ‘Become American’ Before Many ‘Americans Become American’

Firebrand freshman Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) slammed House Democrats on Thursday for prioritizing a &#8220;fishing expedition&#8221; into senior White House aides&#8217; communications instead of focusing upon the needs of the American people.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not doing anything to stop and deal with the problems we got, with cartels managing the border,&#8221; Roy said during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing. &#8220;We&#8217;re sitting here in a fishing expedition for emails, alleging that we&#8217;re trying to do that in compliance with the law that&#8217;s being complied with.&#8221;
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&#8220;In what universe is this what we&#8217;re supposed to be doing for the United States of America, for the people in this country who are watching their country racking up mountains of debt &#8212; $320 billion over existing spending levels, which would still give us a trillion dollar deficit,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Well done, Congress. Well done.&#8221;
Roy&#8217;s remarks came after the Oversight Committee voted to subpoena officials in the Trump administration to gain access to their private emails and social media messages &#8212; including senior advisor Jared Kushner&#8217;s communication with foreign officials over WhatsApp and information obtained from Ivanka Trump&#8217;s personal email account.
House Democrats argue that senior White House aides may have violated the Presidential Records Act by using the aforementioned platforms to conduct official business, reported <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/25/white-house-private-communications-subpoena-1435114">Politico</a>.
&#8220;Why are we doing this because they&#8217;re working with us to comply with the law to turn over information to follow what the chairman was just saying,&#8221; Roy said. &#8220;In the meantime, while we are doing this, while we are sitting here, as I&#8217;ve pointed out before for the hour we&#8217;re going to be debating this, another $100 million of debt has been racked up. Another how many thousands of people have poured across our border. How much more control have we yielded to cartels who truly control and run our border? That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re dealing about.&#8221;
Roy read to the Committee a text message that he received from a United States Border Patrol agent explaining that some of the agents who were originally tasked with patrolling the border have been reassigned to security detail at detention facilities.
&#8220;All the agencies that are helping us are doing detention security, hospital watch, sandwich making, handing out hygienic items and milk, and transportation,&#8221; the Texas congressman read from his phone.
&#8220;And you&#8217;re going to have that kind of level of spending while we&#8217;ve got wide open borders &#8212; what are we doing for the people of the United States?&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be told &#8216;oh, we&#8217;re protecting the law,&#8217; [but] the law&#8217;s being complied with &#8212; when instead it&#8217;s a fishing expedition for political purposes.&#8221;
Roy noted that the Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s testimony to two separate House committees on Wednesday was another example of a politically driven fishing expedition wherein Americans &#8220;got nothing other than dawdling responses about an incompetent effort.&#8221;
&#8220;Here we sit, mounting up debt for our children and grandchildren &#8230; it&#8217;s extraordinary,&#8221; Roy said. &#8220;Wide open borders destroying communities, endangering the lives of Americans in south Texas while I get smirks from my Democratic colleagues, while there are people right now facing attacks from cartels.&#8221;
&#8220;Dealing with it on a daily basis and we get smirks, and we get requests for emails from people in the White House,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;This is the face of the Democratic Party. This is the face of your Congress today, America.&#8221;
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) took offense to Roy&#8217;s fiery condemnation of House Democrats.
&#8220;Shame on my colleague from Texas,&#8221; Connelly said.
&#8220;Shame on this body,&#8221; Roy replied. &#8220;You&#8217;ll continue to hear from me in defense of this country.&#8221;

House Holds Hearing On The Trump Administration&#8217;s Child Separation Policy And Allegations Of Mistreatment

WATCH: Chip Roy Unloads On House Democrats In Hearing And Storms Out

Republican Party

Robert Mueller

U.S. House of Representatives

The Trump administration is reportedly considering imposing a travel ban on Guatemala unless the nation takes significant action to stop the seemingly endless flow of illegal migrants who head north from the troubled state and reach America&#8217;s southern border.
&#8220;In a move reminiscent of the pressure campaign President Trump launched against Mexico over immigration, the travel ban is the most explosive option of three that the administration says its considering against the Central American nation, according to White House and other U.S. sources familiar with the plans,&#8221; <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/25/745132775/trump-administration-considering-travel-ban-on-guatemalans-after-asylum-snub">NPR</a> reported. &#8220;Trump charged Guatemala with backing out on an immigration deal with the United States.&#8221;
&#8220;If Guatemala doesn&#8217;t take significant action to help protect our borders, than we will, of course, look at all manner of solutions to the serious crisis we face, whether it&#8217;s a travel ban, significant actions on remittances and/or tariffs,&#8221; a White House official told NPR.
The move comes after Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar blocked the Trump administration on Wednesday from imposing its new asylum policy. The policy would have likely drastically reduced the number of migrants flooding the U.S. southern border.
&#8220;The rule, published in the Federal Register last week, required people seeking asylum to apply first in one of the countries they cross on their way to the U.S. &#8212; with certain exceptions,&#8221; <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-admin-scores-win-over-move-to-limit-asylum-claims">Fox News</a> reported. &#8220;It targeted tens of thousands of Central Americans who have crossed Mexico each month trying to enter the U.S.&#8221;
Before departing the White House yesterday, Trump mentioned taking action against Guatemala after the Central American country&#8217;s high court blocked its government from signing the asylum deal with the U.S.
&#8220;So, Guatemala gave us their word. We were going to sign a safe third agreement and then, all of a sudden, they backed up,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-54/">said</a>. &#8220;They said it was their supreme court. I don&#8217;t believe that. But they use their supreme court as the reason they didn&#8217;t want to do it.&#8221;
&#8220;So we&#8217;ll either do tariffs or we&#8217;ll do something. We&#8217;re looking at something very severe with respect to Guatemala,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;I&#8217;ve already cut all payments; I did that a year ago. I cut all payments going to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. We used to send them $500 million for nothing. For nothing. They didn&#8217;t do anything except set up caravans.&#8221;
&#8220;So, Guatemala we&#8217;re going to take care of and it won&#8217;t even be tough,&#8221; Trump concluded. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to do &#8212; we&#8217;re looking at a couple of different things. One of the things very heavy is, as you know, Mexico has put 6,000 people on that border.&#8221;

TOPSHOT-GUATEMALA-MEXICO-HONDURAS-US-MIGRATION

BREAKING: Trump Admin Considering Travel Ban For Nation South Of U.S. Border

Guatemala

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&#8217;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 &#8212; 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 &#8212; often violent <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/ice-guard-dangerous-drunk-driving/">criminal</a> ones &#8212; 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&#8217; 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?

Border Wall in Texas

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

Department of Homeland Security

Department of Justice

Sanctuary Cities

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