The United States will crack down on illegal immigration across its southern border, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/world/coronavirus-update-latest-news.html?action=click&amp;module=Spotlight&amp;pgtype=Homepage#link-28632499">the New York Times reports Wednesday</a>, and has pledged to &#8220;swiftly turn back&#8221; all unauthorized individuals, including those with foreign passports and those seeking asylum.
The news comes as the Trump administration considers a full border lockdown, drastically limiting border crossings not just from Mexico, but also from Canada. The United States has already taken measures to halt the flow of both immigrants and visitors from Europe and Asia.
Mexico has yet to take drastic measures to control the spread of the dreaded coronavirus and Trump administration officials fear that, though few cases have been resported, immigrants, visitors, and asylum seekers who travel from Central America and through Mexico may carry or come into contact with the virus.
&#8220;The administration officials said the ports of entry would remain open to American citizens, green-card holders and foreigners with proper documentation,&#8221; the NYT says. &#8220;Some foreigners would be blocked, including Europeans currently subject to earlier travel restrictions imposed by the administration. The points of entry will also be open to commercial traffic.&#8221;
The administration, according to the NYT, is expected to announced the change within the next 48 hours, and the new rules will include much stricter border interdiction measures &#8212; something the Trump administration has been pushing for since well before the first incidence of coronavirus.
Agents of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency will be told to &#8220;immediately return anyone to Mexico&#8221; who crosses without the proper documentation or who &#8220;attempts to cross the southwestern border between the legal ports of entry,&#8221; per the NYT.
At the moment, captured illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who cross somewhere other than a legal port of entry are being held for a short time in American detention facilities, then processed and sent to &#8220;remain in Mexico&#8221; while they typically await a hearing on their asylum claim. Border Patrol agents, however, say the current setup is fraught with potential danger. If held for any length of time, immigrants carrying coronavirus could spread the disease to others in detention facilities on either side of the border or even to Border Patrol agents.
Most of those captured are already in poor health, the Border Patrol told the NYT and, if no action is taken, many captured immigrants could wait weeks or even months in detention facilities; immigration courts are postponing most hearings until at least April 10 over concerns about coronavirus spreading within the United States.
“The president is 100% focused on protecting the American people from the coronavirus, and all options are on the table,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security told the Wall Street Journal.
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-may-close-u-s-borders-to-unauthorized-foreigners-over-coronavirus-risk-11584495442">President Donald Trump</a> would not comment on the issue except to say that “we are discussing things with Canada, and we’re discussing things with Mexico.”
There are hurdles: rules require that those seeking asylum receive at least some adjudication of their claim, and foreigners who are not Mexican cannot be returned to Mexico without some system in place to assure they will not be subject to harm if they are sent back to their respective home countries. Mexico, the WSJ says, would also need to sign off on any plan to simply turn illegal immigrants back around.
The administration does have the option to close the border entirely, however &#8212; and that&#8217;s something it is reportedly considering.

Border Patrol

United States To ‘Swiftly Turn Back’ Illegal Immigrants From Mexico At Southern Border

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Southern Border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

In its latest annual <a href="http://www.islamophobia.org/reports/228-2018-civil-rights-report-bias-incident-data.html">hate crimes report</a>, the <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/resources/profiles/the-council-on-american-islamic-relations-cair">Council on American-Islamic Relations</a> (CAIR) vilified U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials as the nation’s greatest perpetrators of anti-Muslim discrimination. So, when as many as 60 Iranian and Iranian-American travelers were delayed for hours earlier this month at the U.S.-Canada border, CAIR was quick to accuse the federal agency of living up to its purported reputation. Has the U.S. government decided to make life difficult for Iranians living in America, as CAIR contends? Or are the nonprofit’s actions part of an enduring campaign to subvert U.S. border security?
In response to a January 2 air strike which <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/opinion/soleimani-iran-tom-cotton.amp.html">killed</a> Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/ntas/alerts/20_0104_ntas_bulletin.pdf">published</a> a bulletin warning that Hezbollah and other Iranian loyalists could carry out homeland-based plots by targeting “critical infrastructure.” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo deployed the national guard to protect public transportation, while <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-01-03/us-cities-on-alert-after-killing-of-iran-leader-qassem-suleiman">government officials</a> in California, Washington, and Massachusetts ordered increased police patrols or warned citizens to remain extra vigilant.
Meanwhile, the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Washington became congested on January 4 after as many as 60 Iranian natives were allegedly selected for additional screening and detained, in some cases, for several hours. The travelers, who were returning from a pop concert in Vancouver, put a <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article238985213.html">strain</a> on CBP resources as customs agents struggled to keep up with the sudden increase in cross-border traffic. However, CAIR officials explicitly alleged that delays and mistreatment were premised solely on national heritage.
Soon after, CAIR’s Washington chapter issued a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cair-wa-assisting-iranian-americans-detained-at-us-border-300981286.html">press release</a> accusing CBP officials of treating Iranians and Iranian-Americans to prolonged interrogations at the U.S.–Canada border. “A source at CBP reported that the [DHS] has issued a national order to CBP to ‘report’ and detain anyone with Iranian heritage entering the country who is deemed potentially suspicious or ‘adversarial,’ regardless of citizenship status,” CAIR wrote.
CBP <a href="https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/us-border-protection-denies-reports-that-iranian-americans-were-detained-at-washington-canada-border/281-e276b43b-21a1-46d3-8de7-f1e700b0016a">rejected</a> these allegations. &#8220;Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the U.S. because of their country of origin are false. Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false,” said CBP spokesperson Michael Friel.
So far, CAIR has failed to produce any evidence supporting its discrimination claims. Instead, the nonprofit denigrated CBP personnel based on the testimony of frustrated tourists who experienced delays while crossing an international border during a period of heightened geopolitical tension.
What can’t be known about the recent cross-border controversy, because it falls beyond the public purview, is whether there was specific intelligence from the Terrorist Screening Center that indicated a need to conduct a more robust screening operation at the Peace Arch crossing. It is telling that <a href="https://www.thenorthernlight.com/stories/order-to-detain-iranian-american-travelers-likely-originated-in-blaine-say-lawyers,9173">no other enhanced security measures</a> were enforced at other U.S. entry points around the same time.
Even public knowledge of the threats posed by Shi’ite Islamism suggests that it was credible national security risks, and not uninformed profiling, that guided CBP’s actions. The agency must contend with Hezbollah’s elite external operations unit, known as the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO), whose members have been <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/07/iran-has-terrorists-embedded-inside-the-united-states-and-across-our-border/">trained</a> to &#8220;maintain ostensibly normal lives” until they are activated to serve the Iranian regime&#8217;s interests.
<a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/07/iran-has-terrorists-embedded-inside-the-united-states-and-across-our-border/">FBI reports</a> indicate that Canada serves as a staging area for future homeland attacks. Ali Kourani, a Hezbollah sleeper agent <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/hizballah-operative-sentenced-40-years-prison-covert-terrorist-activities-behalf-hizballah-s">convicted</a> in 2019 of planning attacks in the U.S., <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/14/hezbollah-isnt-just-in-beirut-its-in-new-york-too-canada-united-states-jfk-toronto-pearson-airports-ali-kourani-iran/">told </a>FBI agents that IJO is “even more active in Canada than they were in the United States.” Kourani’s Iranian handlers discussed the strategic advantages of cultivating familial ties to Canada, so that “it wouldn’t appear suspicious or odd if he were to make travel to Canada with some regularity or frequency.”
Iran is a country that is regularly <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-state-department-iran-remains-world-s-worst-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-/30248755.html">cited</a> as a state sponsor of terrorism, with a track <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/14/hezbollah-isnt-just-in-beirut-its-in-new-york-too-canada-united-states-jfk-toronto-pearson-airports-ali-kourani-iran/">record</a> of penetrating U.S. borders. For instance, between 1995 and 2000, Lebanese immigrant Mohammed Youssef Hammoud oversaw a vast “<a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/mohamad-youssef-hammoud-sentenced-30-years-terrorism-financing-case">criminal enterprise</a>” in Charlotte, North Carolina, which accumulated millions of dollars in capital intended for Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon.
In 2011, Soleimani’s Quds Force was implicated in a clandestine <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/">plot</a> to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and bomb the Saudi embassy in Washington D.C. Then there is Alexei Saab, a New Jersey resident charged in September with a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/manhattan-us-attorney-announces-indictment-new-jersey-man-terrorist-activities-behalf">nine-count indictment</a> for surveilling targets on behalf of IJO, probing for “soft spots” throughout New York City.
CAIR’s position on screening for terrorists, however, has been to <a href="https://www.cair.com/cair_to_announce_complete_victory_in_constitutional_challenge_to_federal_terror_watchlist">undermine</a> the process wherever possible. Indeed, the organization exerts a great deal of <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cair-asks-federal-court-in-mich-to-prohibit-fbi-border-agents-from-interrogating-muslim-travelers-about-religious-beliefs-and-practices-300858541.html">effort</a> challenging the government’s immigration and border security policies.
In September, CAIR proclaimed “complete victory” in a <a href="https://www.cair.com/cair_to_announce_complete_victory_in_constitutional_challenge_to_federal_terror_watchlist">lawsuit</a> that challenged the constitutionality of the <a href="https://apnews.com/f8abc66af1a64cc7a5f4fba0420cfc54">terrorist watch list</a>, a security protocol that subjects implicated airline passengers and border transients to additional screening. (Fewer than 0.5% of watch list suspects are U.S. citizens or legal residents.) For more than a year, CAIR filed lawsuits and amicus briefs that <a href="https://www.cair.com/fighting_the_unconstitutional_muslim_ban">stalled</a> Trump administration efforts to implement a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/presidential-proclamation-enhancing-vetting-capabilities-processes-detecting-attempted-entry-united-states-terrorists-public-safety-threats/">travel ban</a> affecting visitors from select high-risk countries
CAIR has even directed Muslim Americans who are detained by customs officials to <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wtsp.com/amp/article/news/politics/muslim-rights-groups-urge-passengers-to-refuse-secondary-questioning/67-395025140">obstruct</a> the screening process whenever possible, perhaps explaining the delays experienced at the Peace Arch Border Crossing. “Whether you wait an hour or four hours, remain silent until they let you out,” advised CAIR-Florida executive director Hassan Shibly.
National-level law enforcement efforts must be led by consulting relevant intelligence <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/law-enforcement-guard-iran-retaliation-u-s-after-commander-killed-n1109826">sources</a>. Given the geopolitical context, the enhanced security posture at the U.S.-Canada border can be attributed to due diligence, and not some nefarious desire to pester Iranian-Americans. Yet, CAIR is far too eager to paint American security personnel as aggressors. CBP was merely taking reasonable precautions in the face of escalating hostility from a rogue nation that has spent decades building powerful Islamist infrastructure across North America.
&nbsp;
David Firester is a writer for Islamism in Politics, a project of the <a href="https://www.meforum.org">Middle East Forum</a>. He is the founder and CEO of TRAC Intelligence, LLC, an Adjunct Lecturer at Hunter College, and a former U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst.

Border Wall As House Investigates $400 Million Contract

FIRESTER: CAIR’s Fight To Undermine U.S. Border Security Continues

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It turns out that an Iranian student who was recently denied entry upon his arrival in the U.S. and was subsequently deported has some pretty shady ties, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official who <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/iranian-student-whose-deportation-spurred-dem-outcry-has-family-ties-to-irgc-hezbollah-dhs-official">spoke to Fox News</a>. That the deported student has such problematic links — to Iran&#8217;s murderous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian regime&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-defund-lebanon-and-do-it-yesterday">Lebanon-based Hezbollah proxy</a>, in particular — ought to serve as a wakeup call for the Democratic Party officials, left-wing activists, and open-borders advocates who trotted out the normal hue and cry upon the student&#8217;s denial and deportation.
&#8220;An Iranian student who was denied entry to the United States on arrival and deported this week, amid objections from top Democrats and left-wing activists, has family ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, a Department of Homeland Security official told Fox News,&#8221; the outlet <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/iranian-student-whose-deportation-spurred-dem-outcry-has-family-ties-to-irgc-hezbollah-dhs-official">reported</a>.
&#8220;Mohammad Shahab Dehghani Hossein was denied entry to the U.S. and detained on Sunday when he arrived on a student visa at Boston Logan International Airport,&#8221; Fox News continued. &#8220;His detention sparked outrage from activists, who flooded the airport demanding his release. It also drew objections from Northeastern University, where [Hossein Abadi] was due to be enrolled, and the American Civil Liberties Union.&#8221;
Some very prominent Democrats, such as 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), responded indignantly. Warren, taking up Hossein Abadi&#8217;s cause, casually accused President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration of &#8220;xenophobia[a].&#8221;
&#8220;Shahab Dehghani is an Iranian student with a valid F1 visa, returning to finish his education,&#8221; Warren tweeted. &#8220;[U.S. Customs and Border Protection] already held him overnight. His deportation must be halted, and we must fight the Trump administration&#8217;s xenophobic policies.&#8221;
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Shahab Dehghani is an Iranian student with a valid F1 visa, returning to finish his education. CBP already held him overnight. His deportation must be halted, and we must fight the Trump administration&#39;s xenophobic policies. <a href="https://t.co/ZCKVo5fwvM">https://t.co/ZCKVo5fwvM</a>
&mdash; Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1219457019729588224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 21, 2020</a></blockquote>
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A judge in Massachusetts had initially stayed Hossein Abadi&#8217;s deportation, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) then promptly executed his deportation. CBP issued a statement on the incident, as <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/01/22/iranian-student-bound-northeastern-removed-us-despite-court-order">reported</a> by Insider Higher Ed.
&#8220;Every applicant for admission is subject to inspection upon arrival in the United States,&#8221; CBP said. &#8220;The issuance of a visa or participation in the visa waiver program does not guarantee entry to the United States. Upon arrival at Logan Airport on Sunday, January 19, [Hossein Abadi] was deemed inadmissible and processed for expedited removal and return to his place of departure. During today’s hearing, the court ruled that the matter is now moot as the subject was never admitted into the United States, the subject is no longer in custody, and the court does not have jurisdiction to order his return.&#8221;
Hossein Abadi had first applied for a U.S. visa in 2018 and &#8220;[h]is visa was granted approximately a week ago,&#8221; Insider Higher Ed reported. But the DHS official who spoke to Fox News told the outlet that &#8220;the case was more complicated than some were letting on, and that there were legitimate reasons for rejecting [Hossein Abadi]&#8221; — in other words, his ties to the IRGC and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, the Iran-funded and -trained proxy militia that has <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/lebanon-is-gone">all but overrun Lebanon</a>, is uniquely poised to cause immense trouble for Israel. As I explained last month in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-defund-lebanon-and-do-it-yesterday">Daily Wire op-ed</a> calling for the full defunding of all U.S. taxpayer foreign aid to Lebanon:
<blockquote>Bear in mind that Hezbollah currently maintains scores of Iranian-funded, <a href="https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/hezbollah/hezbollahs-precision-guided-missile-project/">precision-guided missiles</a> currently stationed in southern Lebanon and aimed straight at the hearts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel’s next war — and it is a matter of when, not if — with Hezbollah is going to be a <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/the-new-hezbollah-israels-next-war-will-be-a-godawful-mess/">long, bloody mess</a>. And foreign aid to Israel aside, the U.S. taxpayer presently also funds the horrifically wrong side of that inevitable war.</blockquote>

Department of Homeland Security

Deported Iranian Student Linked To IRGC And Hezbollah, DHS Says

Radical Islam

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Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who was infamously the sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against Congress&#8217;s post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, which precipitated the Afghanistan invasion, has now taken to spreading outright fake news.
Yesterday, Lee took to Twitter to spread baseless and unconfirmed innuendo that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is now involved in the detention of Iranian-American U.S. citizens. &#8220;People of Iranian descent — including American citizens &amp; green card holders — are reportedly being detained by CBP officials,&#8221; Lee tweeted. &#8220;We can’t let this stand.&#8221; She continued, urging conscientious citizens all over the land to contact her district office: &#8220;If you or someone you know has been targeted or detained by CBP officials, please contact my district office at 510-763-0370.&#8221;
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People of Iranian descent — including American citizens &amp; green card holders — are reportedly being detained by CBP officials. We can’t let this stand. 
If you or someone you know has been targeted or detained by CBP officials, please contact my district office at 510-763-0370.
&mdash; Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepBarbaraLee/status/1213944364575031296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Less than 30 minutes after Lee&#8217;s misleading spreading of fake news, CBP itself responded. &#8220;Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the U.S. because of their country of origin are false,&#8221; the agency tweeted. &#8220;Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false.&#8221;
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Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the U.S. because of their country of origin are false. Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false.
&mdash; CBP (@CBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1213951246463328256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Congresswoman Lee was not the only prominent leftist to spread this fake news, as the Daily Caller <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/05/customs-border-iran-detain-order">reported</a>. Other offenders included Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who tweeted on Sunday: &#8220;Deeply disturbed by reports that Iranian Americans, including U.S. citizens, are being detained at the Canadian border with WA State.&#8221; She continued, similarly urging conscientious citizens to contact her office: &#8220;My office has been working on this all morning. Please contact us with information on directly affected people at WA07PJ_casework@mail.house.gov.&#8221;
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Deeply disturbed by reports that Iranian Americans, including U.S. citizens, are being detained at the Canadian border with WA State.
My office has been working on this all morning. Please contact us with information on directly affected people at WA07PJ_casework@mail.house.gov.
&mdash; Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJayapal/status/1213896795409059840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
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As <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/border-patrol-denies-reports-by-democrats-that-iranian-americans-were-being-detained">noted</a> by the Washington Examiner, part of the fear-mongering began via the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was infamously an <a href="https://www.investigativeproject.org/1854/doj-cairs-unindicted-co-conspirator-status-legit">unindicted co-conspirator</a> in the largest terror finance trial in the history of the Department of Justice. CAIR had issued an <a href="https://www.cair.com/breaking_cair_wa_assisting_iranian_americans_detained_u_s_border">alarmist post</a> earlier on Sunday entitled, &#8220;BREAKING: CAIR-WA Assisting Iranian-Americans Detained at U.S. Border.&#8221;
Lee, keeping with her longtime status as an ardent foreign policy dove, has been one of the most outspoken opponents of escalating military tension with the Islamic Republic of Iran. As <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/476862-omar-lee-introduce-house-resolution-directing-trump-to-pull-us-troops-back">reported</a> by The Hill, Lee is teaming up with none other than Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to draft a congressional resolution that would prevent U.S. military action against Iran that is not expressly authorized by Congress:
<blockquote>
The resolution released by the two lawmakers would explicitly tie any military action against Iran to a congressional vote, though the U.S. would not be prevented from responding to an Iranian attack.
&#8220;We in Congress must exercise our Constitutional duty—and do everything in our power to stop another disastrous war,&#8221; Omar said in a statement. &#8220;Following the assassination [of Gen. Qassem Soleimani,] thousands of additional troops were sent to the Middle East in one of the largest rapid deployments seen in decades. This follows years of saber-rattling and threats of war against Iran by President Trump and his accomplices.&#8221;
&#8220;It’s past time for Congress to reassert our Constitutional authority and return to diplomacy with Iran and our allies,&#8221; added Lee, the sole member of Congress to vote against war in Afghanistan in 2001.
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Barbara Lee Women&#8217;s March

Democrat Barbara Lee Spreads False Information About DHS Going After Iranian-Americans

Foreign Policy

Middle East

Surveillance

Terrorism

On Sunday, The New York Times reported on &#8220;extremely troubling&#8221; claims by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials detained &#8220;dozens&#8221; of Iranian-Americans attempting to return to the country through a Washington State-Canadian border crossing. But CBP says that the premise of the &#8220;troubling&#8221; claims about their alleged handling of Iranian-Americans is &#8220;false.&#8221;
According to CAIR, over 60 Iranian-American travelers attempting to return to the United States from Canada over the weekend were detained for several hours for additional questioning, and some allegedly were even turned away by officials, at least initially.
The claim comes amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran after President Trump ordered a strategic airstrike last week targeting Iran&#8217;s top military leader, General Qassem Soleimani, who headed up the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
&#8220;More than 60 of the travelers, many returning from work trips or vacations, were trying to come home to the United States on Saturday when agents at the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Wash., held them for additional questioning about their political views and allegiances, according to advocacy groups and accounts from travelers,&#8221; the Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/us/politics/iranian-americans-border.html">reported</a> Sunday. &#8220;Most of the travelers were released after the extra scrutiny, according to administration officials, although advocates said some were denied entry into the United States.&#8221;
CAIR Washington Executive Director <a href="https://cairseattle.org/our-team">Masih Fouladi</a> told the Times that some of those detained were held for questioning for as many as 10 hours, while others were initially denied entry and told to come back at another time.
&#8220;Later on Saturday night, when others who had just attended a concert in Canada by an Iranian pop star were trying to cross back into the United States, they were denied entry and told to come back later, Mr. Fouladi said,&#8221; the Times reports.
According to Fouladi, one CBP officer allegedly told a family member when asked why they were being detained, &#8220;This is a bad time to be an Iranian.&#8221;
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&#8220;These reports are extremely troubling and potentially constitute illegal detentions of United States citizens,&#8221; said Fouladi.
But CBP says the claims are not accurate, and any cause for delay had more to do with a high number of travelers and low staffing over the holidays than heightened security concerns.
&#8220;Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the U.S. because of their country of origin are false,&#8221; CBP said in a tweet posted Sunday afternoon. &#8220;Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false.&#8221;
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Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the U.S. because of their country of origin are false. Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false.
&mdash; CBP (@CBP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1213951246463328256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The real issue at the Blaine port, CBP told the Times, was that processing times were &#8220;increased by four hours because of the high number of people entering and staffing shortages from the holiday season.&#8221;
The Times, however, suggests that a recent Department of Homeland Security advisory change in response to the increased threat from Iran may have prompted more thorough scrutiny of those with Iranian heritage. &#8220;While border officers are not permitted to refer someone for what is known as a &#8216;secondary screening&#8217; of questioning based solely on national origin, it is one of multiple factors they are directed to consider, in addition to travel documents, travel history or suspicious behavior when choosing whom to refer for additional scrutiny,&#8221; the Times reports, noting that this sort of additional scrutiny takes place &#8220;daily.&#8221;
Given the current circumstances, a former CBP official told the Times, it is likely that those with Iranian heritage &#8220;would be sent to secondary as a result of the increased tension with that country.&#8221;
On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security updated its National Terrorism Advisory System in response to the increased threat of retaliation by pro-Iran entities for the killing of Iran&#8217;s top military leader. Below is the full text of the <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/ntas/alerts/20_0104_ntas_bulletin.pdf">advisory</a>:
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<li>The United States designated Iran a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” in 1984 and since then, Iran has actively engaged in or directed an array of violent and deadly acts against the United States and its citizens globally. The United States designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a Foreign Terrorist Organization on April 15, 2019 for its direct involvement in terrorist plotting.</li>
<li>On January 2, 2020, the United States carried out a lethal strike in Iraq killing Iranian IRGC-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani while Soleimani was in Iraq.</li>
<li>Iranian leadership and several affiliated violent extremist organizations publicly stated they intend to retaliate against the United States.</li>
<li>At this time we have no information indicating a specific, credible threat to the Homeland. Iran and its partners, such as Hizballah, have demonstrated the intent and capability to conduct operations in the United States.</li>
<li>Previous homeland-based plots have included, among other things, scouting and planning against infrastructure targets and cyber enabled attacks against a range of U.S.- based targets.</li>
<li>Iran maintains a robust cyber program and can execute cyber attacks against the United States. Iran is capable, at a minimum, of carrying out attacks with temporary disruptive effects against critical infrastructure in the United States.</li>
<li>Iran likely views terrorist activities as an option to deter or retaliate against its perceived adversaries. In many instances, Iran has targeted United States interests through its partners such as Hizballah.</li>
<li>Homegrown Violent Extremists could capitalize on the heightened tensions to launch individual attacks.</li>
<li>An attack in the homeland may come with little or no warning.</li>
<li>The Department of Homeland Security is working closely with our federal, state, local, and private sector partners to detect and defend against threats to the Homeland, and will enhance security measures as necessary.</li>
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Canada Border Crossings

Report: Iranians Were Blocked By U.S. Border Officials; Officials: That’s Not What Happened

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps

Qassem Soleimani

On Friday, iconic legacy news institution Newsweek <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/rising-death-rates-among-white-americans-caused-misperceived-threat-their-dominant-social-status-1474038">unintentionally encapsulated</a> leftist myopia and willful ignorance when it comes to one of the great social maladies of our time: Soaring death rates among white Americans. &#8220;Rising death rates among white Americans caused by misperceived treat [sic] to their dominant social status, study shows,&#8221; Newsweek <a href="https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1200210310747041794">tweeted</a>.
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Rising death rates among white Americans caused by misperceived treat to their dominant social status, study shows <a href="https://t.co/3zGDznL3cG">https://t.co/3zGDznL3cG</a>
&mdash; Newsweek (@Newsweek) <a href="https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1200210310747041794?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The Newsweek piece cited a new <a href="https://m.phys.org/news/2019-11-loss-social-status-linked-mortality.html">University of Toronto public health study</a> for the proposition that &#8220;rising mortality in white Americans is partly due to perceptions that they are losing social status.&#8221; Newsweek quoted Arjumand Siddiqi, lead author of the study and an associate professor of epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health: &#8220;The anxiety of whites is coming from a misperception that their dominant status in society is being threatened, which is manifesting in multiple forms of psychological and physiological stress. &#8230; Status is a major predictor of health so our team hypothesized that it was a perception among whites that Blacks are economically catching up to them, when, in fact, income inequality and other socioeconomic factors continue to affect Black Americans more unfavorably.&#8221; In other words, &#8220;white anxiety&#8221; is to blame for rising drug/alcohol-induced deaths suicides among white Americans.
Well. It couldn&#8217;t have anything to do with our unprecedented national pandemic of transnational <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/">terrorist organization</a>-linked Mexican cartels syncing up with the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50327998">Chinese</a> to commit de facto <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/trump-right-drug-traffickers-heroin-fentanyl-killing-us/">chemical warfare</a> against vulnerable Americans, could it?
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It&#39;s actually the fentanyl. <a href="https://t.co/91AXUc9c5I">https://t.co/91AXUc9c5I</a>
&mdash; Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) <a href="https://twitter.com/CharlesFLehman/status/1200423168416059393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
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It’s totally not due to our porous border and interior enforcement policies and the way the Mexican cartels, mid-level traffickers, and illegal alien foot soldiers all coordinate a national distribution ring of lethal narcotics like fentanyl, right? <a href="https://t.co/AvrqBwged6">https://t.co/AvrqBwged6</a>
&mdash; Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1200423907083390983?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The reality, as Daniel Horowitz <a href="https://www.conservativereview.com/news/media-willfully-ignores-connection-killer-drugs-illegal-immigration/">wrote</a> back in February for Conservative Review, is that our purported mainstream media vanguards are willfully and deliberately ignorant about the lethal nexus of a weak border security policy, feckless <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-border-wall-nice-interior-enforcement-nicer-josh-hammer">interior enforcement</a>, criminal illegal alien networks operating with impunity throughout the nation&#8217;s interior, and our debilitating drug and overdose epidemics. &#8220;[C]artels not only have control of our border,&#8221; Horowitz observed, &#8220;but operate with latitude on our shores and have endless illegal alien and transnational criminal networks working for them in all our major cities and even mid-sized cities on the East Coast. This is the key to understanding how illegal immigration is driving the drug crisis.&#8221;
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics">statistics</a> lay bare the statistical reality that is our nation&#8217;s crippling narcotics crisis. According to CBP Office of Field Operations (OFO) nationwide drug seizure statistics, seizures of cocaine more than doubled over the course of fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2019: From 38,346 pounds to 89,207 pounds. Over the same time span, OFO seizures of methamphetamine increased from 25,495 pounds to 68,585 pound and OFO seizures of fentanyl increased from a negligible 70 pounds to an astounding 2,545 pounds.
There is a well-orchestrated, well-funded, systemic operation to commit chemical warfare upon this nation&#8217;s interior. Indeed, drug trafficking is likely the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-why-no-one-discussing-drug-trafficking-josh-hammer">single least discussed aspect</a> of the crisis afflicting our beleaguered southern border over the course of the past year. We have an unprecedented glut of deadly narcotics pouring into the nation. And recall that a sugar packet-sized dose of fentanyl can kill a whole room full of people.
To be sure, depressingly large swaths of this country&#8217;s citizenry also suffer from an existential crisis of meaning. Loneliness and despondency are on the rise. All varieties of the nation&#8217;s once-proud institutions seem to be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-who-will-stand-for-the-forgotten-american">failing middle America</a>, en masse. The need for a politics centered around <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-on-chick-fil-a-political-tribalism-and-the-need-for-national-solidarity">national solidarity</a> has never been greater.
But for goodness&#8217; sake, Newsweek, have the human decency to look just  a little harder at what might be greatly exacerbating soaring rates of white depression and suicide in America. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-federal-government-has-no-more-important-josh-hammer">Securing our border</a> once and for all and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-the-u-s-is-morally-obligated-to-take-on-the-mexican-drug-cartels">cracking down on the cartels</a> is hardly anywhere near a panacea for all the ills afflicting our nation, but stanching the supply of lethal narcotics will surely help. A lot.

Newsweek magazine

HAMMER: Newsweek Highlights The Left’s Willful Ignorance About Our Border And Drug Crises

Drugs

Leftism

Media

Media Bias

Newsweek

Race

The Trump administration may finally be able to celebrate a win on immigration: border crossings fell by nearly half in August after the White House inked a deal with Mexican officials that improved that country&#8217;s interdiction of so-called &#8220;migrant caravans&#8221; before they reach the United States&#8217; southern border.
<a href="https://hotair.com/archives/jazz-shaw/2019/09/09/illegal-border-crossings-drop-hugely-august/">Politico reports</a> that only 51,000 arrests were made at the southern border in August, &#8220;down more than 60 percent since a peak in May,&#8221; when border arrests jumped over 100,000. Of course, 50,000-plus arrests is by no means a small number, and it&#8217;s still clear that there&#8217;s much work to be done to curb a sharp jump in illegal immigration that&#8217;s taken place over the last year, but the decline is significant.
Politico notes that experts attribute the drop in arrests to efforts on the part of the White House to come to a deal with Mexican officials — specifically Mexico&#8217;s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office back in December of 2018 and pledged to improve his country&#8217;s relations with the Trump administration.
Earlier in 2019, the White House announced that it would seek tariffs on Mexican goods — and, perhaps, shut down commerce with Mexico altogether — if Mexican officials didn&#8217;t begin taking the threat of illegal immigration seriously.
Since mid-2018, caravans of thousands of migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, and other central American countries have been snaking their way through Mexico towards the United States, often without any significant resistance from Mexican authorities. Although Mexico offered migrants the opportunity to remain in Mexico on work visas and provided free transportation back to Guatemala for the occasional migrant who ran afoul of Mexican law enforcement, thousands upon thousands of migrants were still making their way to the U.S.-Mexico border per month, clogging border patrol facilities and forcing immigration enforcement to a near standstill.
Mexican authorities responded to the White House&#8217;s threats, however, and began intercepting caravans in southern Mexico and improving immigration control at their own southern border, adding thousands of border patrol officers and empowering individual immigration offices in Mexico&#8217;s southern provinces to turn migrants back.
&#8220;Amid pressure from Trump, officials from the U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement in June that required Mexico to deploy 6,000 members of its newly formed National Guard to intercept migrants, including many from Central America,&#8221; Politico reports.
There&#8217;s also another key change in how the U.S. treats migrants that&#8217;s making a difference: &#8220;The U.S. also moved unilaterally to expand its &#8216;remain in Mexico&#8217; program, which forces certain non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in that country pending the resolution of their cases.&#8221;
Now, migrants seeking asylum are no longer being immediately welcomed into border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities along the southern border on the American side, making it less likely that unserious asylum seekers — those who do not meet the standard for claiming or being granted asylum — will be released into the United States pending an adjudication hearing.
President Donald Trump acknowledged the drop in a press conference, telling reporters that “The numbers are really good. I want to thank again the country of Mexico. They have 25,000 soldiers now right protecting our border. And they&#8217;ve done a fantastic job, so we appreciate that very much.&#8221;
The administration plans to assess the impact of the new measures with delegates from Mexico this week, but the plan seems to be chipping away at what was once a major problem — and it&#8217;s clear that the president&#8217;s opponents have noticed. Although immigration issues were front and center among Democrats before the summer recess — even spurring emergency congressional appearances at the border and a heavily attended protest against the administration&#8217;s immigration policies outside a Democratic debate back in June — even progressive Dems like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have remained mostly mum on the issue.

Trump Win: Border Crossings Fall In August After Admin Strikes Mexico Deal

Donald Trump

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

The probability that President Trump builds his &#8220;big, beautiful wall&#8221; just got ten times more likely. On Wednesday the White House announced plans to divert $3.6 billion from military construction projects to erect new wall structures along the southern border with Mexico. The move follows a devastating report in July from U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealing that President Trump had not built a single mile of new wall that didn’t merely replace old fencing since taking office, contradicting administration claims.
Just days after the CPB report, however, the president received welcome news from the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the Court approved the use of $2.5 billion in military funding for border wall construction, which the White House claimed would create 100 miles of new fencing. If a similar cost-per-mile holds for the new funding, the administration could reasonably hope to construct an additional 144 miles of wall, bringing the total newly built fencing to 244 miles.
Between 1990, when President George H.W. Bush first constructed a 14-mile wall along the San Diego-Tijuana border, and 2011, when President Barack Obama falsely declared the wall &#8220;basically complete,&#8221; the United States constructed 649 miles of border fencing, much of which failed to meet the demands of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. If President Trump succeeds at building the 244 miles of new fencing, he can claim a 38% expansion of all the border wall ever constructed under four previous presidents over nearly three decades.
That projection does not take into account additional funding for 86 miles of new primary wall, 24 miles of new levee wall, and 131 miles of Pentagon-funded wall that the White House had already secured before the Supreme Court’s decision in July. If all that fencing is built, President Trump will be able to boast of an additional 241 miles of wall, bringing the total to 1,134 miles, covering 58% of the southern border.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump promised to build &#8220;a big, beautiful wall&#8221; and to make Mexico pay for it. He has thus far argued that the renegotiation of trade deals with Mexico fulfills the latter promise. But even the slipperiest political rhetoric cannot suffice to create the illusion of a border wall where none exists. Over the past month, against all odds and expectations, President Trump has at last shown progress on fulfilling that central campaign promise. Most impressive of all, his critics continue to underestimate his political skill.

Trump May Get His Wall After All

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) criticized Democratic lawmakers on Thursday after staffers from the Democrat-led House Oversight Committee were banned from visiting the border due to their previous disruptive behavior.
“Whether you’re a member of Congress or not, if you go to the border you have to follow the rules,” Kennedy told Fox News host Sandra Smith. “It’s not the big rock candy mountain down there, it’s a law enforcement crisis.”
“If somebody follows the rules and they’re a member of Congress, they should be allowed to go,” he continued, “But if they don’t they shouldn’t.”
<div class="embed video fluid-video">Watch the latest video at <a href="https://www.foxnews.com">foxnews.com</a></div>
Kennedy’s remarks were in reference to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) decision to block Democratic staffers from touring both Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities along the southern border, 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 News</a>.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had sent aides to complete another set of “oversight inspections” of the detainment centers, however, DHS denied access to the committee staffers after they were “disruptive” and refused to follow instructions from immigration officials during their prior visit.
“But let’s face what this is all about — not all of them, but many of my Democratic friends now believe in open borders,” Kennedy said. “They think anybody that wants to come into America should be able to come in, they should be eligible for welfare, and food stamps, and free health care, and they should be able to stay on those programs as long as they want, and if you disagree with my Democratic friends, you’re a racist.”
“Now, they’re entitled to their opinion, but I’m entitled to mine and I think their argument is pernicious, I think it’s malign, I think it’s on-the-pipe crazy,” he continued. “I think vetting people who want to come into your country is not racist, it’s prudent, if for no other reason but public safety.”
The Louisiana senator urged his Democratic colleagues to be open and honest about their support of open borders rather than “playing games” and continuing to “throw up roadblocks” and interfere with law enforcement’s ability to secure the border.
“Now all of my colleagues on the Democratic side — I don’t want to, many of them are in good faith, but there’s some who go down there and they do everything they can to disrupt law enforcement,” Kennedy said. “They hate border security, they hate Border Patrol, they hate ICE, they believe in open borders, and if you disagree with them you’re a racist and I just think that’s on-the-pipe crazy.”
While Kennedy refrained from naming names, the comment was seemingly a nod to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49059/ocasio-cortez-makes-wild-claims-about-cbp-facility-ryan-saavedra">ignited a firestorm</a> in July after she made wild, and unfounded, claims about CBP agents and detention facilities following her visit, which were heavily disputed by immigration officials.
Critics accused the self-proclaimed “radical” of making bad faith accusations to promote her anti-ICE narrative. Only weeks earlier, she received massive blowback for comparing the detention facilities to Nazi concentration camps. She has continued to stand by that claim.

John Kennedy

WATCH: Kennedy Slams Democrats For ‘On-The-Pipe Crazy’ Immigration Stance

What at first glance appeared to be a cooler filled with bags of frozen ice pops was actually a cooler filled with 9.21 pounds of methamphetamine in colorful bags designed to throw off authorities.
Fox 17 Nashville <a href="https://fox17.com/news/nation-world/92-pounds-of-methamphetamine-disguised-as-ice-pops-seized">reported</a> that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confiscated the methamphetamine this past weekend after a canine unit found the drugs during a highway checkpoint in Blythe, California. The agents were from CBP’s Yuma Sector in Yuma, Arizona, but were stationed in California. The agents were conducting an immigration check on Highway 78 when they discovered the drugs.
“Police say inside the car were a lawfully admitted permanent resident of the U.S. and a U.S. citizen,” Fox 17 reported. “The 28-year-old female driver and her 38-year-old male passenger were arrested.”
The two people were arrested for transporting the methamphetamine, CBP said in <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/yuma-sector-agents-find-meth-disguised-ice-pops">a press release</a> regarding the bust.
“Sunday afternoon, a Border Patrol canine assigned to the primary inspection lane alerted to an odor it was trained to detect emitting from a Toyota Corolla. Agents referred the vehicle to the secondary inspection area, where they searched a cooler containing brightly colored bags disguised as frozen ice pops. They were determined to be methamphetamine with an approximate weight of 9.21 pounds,” CBP wrote.
CBP included in its release that the individuals were charged “by complaint, a method that allows the filing of criminal activity charges without inferring guilt.” As such, the two arrested are presumed innocent until more evidence determines their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
KTLA5 <a href="https://ktla.com/2019/08/26/arizona-border-agents-arrest-couple-allegedly-transporting-meth-disguised-as-ice-pops/">estimated</a> the street value of the drugs to be around $20,000.
CBP agents and police have discovered drugs hidden in many odd ways. In early August, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50368/woman-arrested-theft-police-find-meth-her-vagina-hank-berrien">reported</a> that a young woman in Louisiana was questioned about stealing $5,000 from a man with whom she was staying. The police reported stated that during “a consensual search of Rolland’s person, a female corrections officer located $6,233 and a clear plastic bag containing approximately 1 gram of methamphetamine inside Rolland’s vagina.”
Last week, CBP officers in Arizona found nearly two pounds of fentanyl in her undergarments. The Daily Caller <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/23/border-patrol-arizona-fentanyl-underwear/">reported</a> that a canine detected an odor on the woman as she attempted to cross the border. Agents found five packages of fentanyl pills in her underwear, estimated to be worth nearly $21,000.
Also in August, CBP agents discovered nearly four tons of marijuana hidden in a tractor-trailer delivering jalapeno peppers. Yet again, a canine alerted officers to an odor that led to the discovery.
In May, police also found meth in the vagina of a South Carolina woman after she was pulled over for a broken taillight. The officer who pulled her over happened to be a K-9 unit and the dog smelled drugs. The woman confessed that she had five grams of methamphetamine hidden in her vagina. Another gram was found elsewhere in her car.
Still, the California man who hid meth <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/man-arrested-theft-prosthetic-leg-hide-meth-article-1.3679146">in his prosthetic leg</a> back in 2017 seems to win the most unusual place to hide drugs.

US Border Patrol Receives Asylum Seekers In Texas&#8217; Rio Grande Valley

Border Patrol Seizes Nearly 10 Pounds Of Methamphetamine Disguised As Ice Pops

Speaking on Fox &amp; Friends on Thursday, Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Robert Perez said <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/politics/executive/homeland-security">border</a> apprehensions have plunged for the second straight month, and that the Trump administration’s deal with Mexico to help slow the flood of immigrants to the southern border is working.
Perez stated, “It’s absolute proof. Unquestionably, an agreement with the government of Mexico that was literally unprecedented by way of the degree of cooperation, the commitment they’ve made, to enforce and go down in numbers with their National Guard and law enforcement along their border &#8230; [with] Guatemala.” He continued, “Interior enforcement up, as well as enforcement along our southern border — that coupled with the collaboration with the migrant protection protocol and some of the work that we’ve been doing with the northern triangle countries — all combined, you’ve seen those numbers drop now in two months in a row.”
<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/cbp-deputy-commissioner-drop-border-apprehensions-second-month">Fox News</a> reported, “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported a significant drop in apprehensions at the southwest border in June, after an agreement with the Mexican government. For the month of July, DHS reported more than 72,000 apprehensions, down from more than 132,000 in May.”
Perez responded to Democrats in Congress who have slammed law enforcement dealing with the problems at the border, claiming there is a “dehumanizing culture,” as well as 600 <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/tech/companies/google">Google</a> employees who signed a <a href="https://medium.com/@no.gcp.for.cbp/google-must-stand-against-human-rights-abuses-nogcpforcbp-88c60e1fc35e">public petition</a> accusing CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of caging and harming asylum seekers. The Google employees refused to work on any cloud computing work Google might help U.S. Customs and Border Protection with and also compared the idea of working with ICE to IBM working with the Nazi regime. The petition stated:
<blockquote>It’s time to stand together again and state clearly that we will not work on any such contract. We demand that Google publicly commit not to support CBP, ICE or ORR [Office of Refugee Resettlement] with any infrastructure, funding or engineering resources, directly or indirectly, until they stop engaging in human rights abuses … In working with CBP, ICE or ORR, Google would be trading its integrity for a bit of profit and joining a shameful lineage. We have only to look to IBM’s working with the Nazis during the Holocaust to understand the role that technology can play in automating mass atrocity.</blockquote>
Perez fired back:
<blockquote>From my perspective, 26 years-plus of being in this business, policy debates are perfectly acceptable. The vilification of law enforcement professionals, not appreciating and understanding, frankly, what these dedicated public servants are doing every day, taking a sworn oath to protect their communities to put the lives of others before their own. Our border patrol agents alone have rescued over 4,000 people in the middle of the deserts, in running dangerous rivers just this year. That is what’s really concerning to me.</blockquote>
The deal with Mexico, which was signed on June 7, included <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/6/15/18680129/us-mexico-immigration-deal-release-trump-tariff">this paragraph</a>:
<blockquote>If the United States determines, at its discretion and after consultation with Mexico, after 45 calendar days from the date of the Issuance of the Joint Declaration, that the measures adopted by the Government of Mexico pursuant to the Joint Declaration have not sufficiently achieved results in addressing the flow of migrants to the southern border of the United States , the Government of Mexico will take all necessary steps under domestic law to bring the agreement into force with a view to ensuring that the agreement will enter into force within 45 days.</blockquote>

CBP Official: Border Apprehensions Down Again, Deal With Mexico Is Working

Google

In a story that&#8217;s sparked outrage — including from one of the leaders of the #AbolishICE contingent of the Democratic Party, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) — a young man who appears to be a U.S. citizen was detained for three weeks by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) after crossing the border with his younger brother, who is a Mexican citizen. But as more details have emerged, the reason CBP has delayed in releasing the young man has begun to make a lot more sense.
In a story promoted by Ocasio-Cortez, among others, a young man who appears to have been born in Dallas, Texas was picked up by Border Patrol and detained for over three weeks. The incident, said Ocasio-Cortez, proves that &#8220;CBP is detaining *American citizens.*&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">CBP is detaining *American citizens.*
How would you feel trapped in a border camp, where guards wear face masks because the human odor is so strong?
When we allow the rights of some to be violated, the rights of all are not far behind. <a href="https://t.co/U4NFQtv8F3">https://t.co/U4NFQtv8F3</a>
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1153503365378301952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2019/07/22/dallas-born-citizen-picked-border-patrol-detained-three-weeks">Dallas Morning News</a> article tweeted out by Ocasio-Cortez reports that Francisco Erwin Galicia, an 18-year-old whose birth certificate says he was born in Dallas, has been in CBP custody for more than three weeks after being detained at a border patrol checkpoint on June 27 along with his younger brother, who is a Mexican citizen, and a group of friends. The group was stopped because Marlon is a Mexican citizen.
&#8220;Galicia was traveling with his 17-year-old brother Marlon Galicia and a group of friends from Edinburg where they live to Ranger College in North Texas for a soccer scouting event when they came upon a CBP checkpoint, said Sanjuana Galicia, his mother,&#8221; the Dallas Morning News reports. When the young men were asked for IDs, Francisco only had his Texas ID. Though a Texas ID requires a social security number to obtain, CBP detained Francisco along with his Mexican citizen brother.
The Dallas Morning News reviewed a copy of Francisco&#8217;s birth certificate, which says he was born at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas on December. 24, 2000. Galicia&#8217;s attorney, Claudia Galan, says she presented CBP with the document along with others affirming his citizenship, but &#8220;they ignored them.&#8221;
While the story of a U.S. citizen being detained for over three weeks has rightly prompted outrage, it turns out that the there&#8217;s more to the story.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/23/francisco-erwin-galicia-ice-cpb-us-citizen-detained-texas/?utm_term=.1ad9b1754d61">The Washington Post</a> has since done some more digging and uncovered details about the case which help explain why CBP has delayed in releasing the young man: Francisco&#8217;s mother, a Mexican citizen living in Edinburg illegally, listed her son on a U.S. tourist visa as being born in Mexico. She also falsified information on his birth certificate.
&#8220;The reason it appears to have taken CBP and ICE so long to determine Galicia’s citizenship is because his mother, who is not a citizen, took out a U.S. tourist visa in his name while he was still a minor, falsely saying he was born in Mexico, Galan said,&#8221; the Post reports. &#8220;His mother, Sanjuana, told The Post that CBP discovered the visa after fingerprinting her son. The conflicting documents only fueled the agency’s suspicion that Galicia’s U.S. documents were fake, Galan said.&#8221;
Sanjuana told the Post that she took out the falsified tourist visa for her son so he could travel back and forth across the border to visit family. The reason she couldn&#8217;t get him a passport, she explained, is that she entered a fictitious name for herself on his birth certificate. &#8220;The undocumented mother was unable to get him a U.S. passport because when Galicia was born, Galan said, she gave a different name for herself on his birth certificate,&#8221; the Post reports.
The family&#8217;s attorney says she is working with authorities to get the young man released, but he has been afraid to sign the necessary paperwork, fearing &#8220;they’re going to trick him into signing a removal order and that he’ll end up getting deported.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49769/ocasio-cortez-blames-dhs-president-bush-ryan-saavedra">Ocasio-Cortez Blames DHS, President Bush For Immigration Crisis; Suggests There Should Be No Restrictions On Immigration</a>

Outrage Over U.S. Citizen Being Detained For 3 Weeks By Border Patrol, Then More Details Emerge

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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

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

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

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

Los Angeles

MS-13 Gang

New Mexico

Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) celebrated America&#8217;s birthday by attacking federal law enforcement officials that are charged with protecting the nation&#8217;s borders, spreading misleading information and engaging in partisan attacks.
In one tweet, Ocasio-Cortez wrote: &#8220;Republicans &amp; CBP (as if they would tell on themselves?) are working overtime to discredit my account from the camps. However, you could remove my entire account &amp; the claims still stand. Details are now being corroborated by independent 3rd parties, from courts to inspectors.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Republicans &amp; CBP (as if they would tell on themselves?) are working overtime to discredit my account from the camps.
However, you could remove my entire account &amp; the claims still stand.
Details are now being corroborated by independent 3rd parties, from courts to inspectors. <a href="https://t.co/MhujNAYohJ">https://t.co/MhujNAYohJ</a>
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1146847926116933632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The congresswoman&#8217;s claim is false: no one has corroborated her claim that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers told detained women to drink water from toilets if they were thirsty, a claim that Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49059/ocasio-cortez-makes-wild-claims-about-cbp-facility-ryan-saavedra">made</a> earlier this week and initially <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49065/watch-ocasio-cortez-confronted-her-claim-migrants-ryan-saavedra">refused</a> to give details on when she was confronted.
Ocasio-Cortez made her comment in a quote retweet of a journalist who showed pictures that were released by the Office of the Inspector General.
CBP officials and the Trump administration have warned for months that conditions on the border were dire and that more resources were desperately needed to address the current problem and to get to the crux of the problem.
Ocasio-Cortez ignored the problem for months, insisting that the crisis didn&#8217;t exist. &#8220;Gotta love how the same folks who tolerate+ acquiesce to building a medieval wall along the entire US southern border as a (non-evidence based) solution for a &#8216;crisis&#8217; that doesn’t exist are now suddenly concerned that pursuing a nat’l response to climate change is &#8216;unrealistic,'&#8221; she tweeted in March.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Gotta love how the same folks who tolerate+ acquiesce to building a medieval wall along the entire US southern border as a (non-evidence based) solution for a “crisis” that doesn’t exist are now suddenly concerned that pursuing a nat’l response to climate change is “unrealistic.”
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1109469491547779072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Ocasio-Cortez, who claims that she cares about the conditions inside the facilities, voted against Democrat and Republican bills to send billions of dollars in aid to the border to help address the crisis. In an interview with CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper last week, the freshman representative <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48986/tapper-shreds-aoc-border-bill-aoc-doubles-down-ryan-saavedra">said</a> that she voted against both bills because she wanted to &#8220;send a message.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez continued her attacks on CBP officials on Independence Day, tweeting: &#8220;CBP is trying to refute the toilet drinking story by saying their toilets have sinks. The sink in the cell we visited wasn’t functional. Guards told these women, Cuban refugees, they could drink out of the bowl. This account has been corroborated by other members of Congress.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">CBP is trying to refute the toilet drinking story by saying their toilets have sinks.
The sink in the cell we visited wasn’t functional. Guards told these women,Cuban refugees , they could drink out of the bowl.
This account has been corroborated by other members of Congress. <a href="https://t.co/VT99UGZ6Ex">https://t.co/VT99UGZ6Ex</a>
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1146858457854808064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Once again, Ocasio-Cortez is making a false claim about the situation. No members of Congress heard CBP officials tell women to drink water from the toilets.
The Washington Examiner reported that, according to CBP officials, a detained migrant &#8220;wanted water, didn’t know how to use the faucet in the cell, and drank from the toilet. She never told AOC that we made her drink from the toilet. AOC, of course, changed it.&#8221;
The event did not happen when members of Congress were at the facility and the detained migrant was not told to drink out of the toilet. The sink that is in the cells is connected to the toilet, context Ocasio-Cortez left out of her initial claims.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">I haven&#8217;t seen photo of the Clint, TX facilities that <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> described today, but it would be interesting if &#8220;drinking from the toilet&#8221; meant drinking from an attached sink marked &#8220;potable water&#8221; &#8212; like this image from a CBP holding facility in Tuscon (filed in federal court). <a href="https://t.co/uDbhy1GPOa">pic.twitter.com/uDbhy1GPOa</a>
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) <a href="https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/1145794081660055553?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Ocasio-Cortez Spends July 4th Attacking Those Who Protect America

While Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to be embroiled in a public feud with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro has taken to Twitter to post videos he took while inside a CBP facility after &#8220;smuggling&#8221; in his phone.
&#8220;Our border patrol system is broken,&#8221; tweeted Castro, twin brother of Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro. &#8220;And part of the reason it stays broken is because it’s kept secret. The American people must see what is being carried out in their name. The [Hispanic Caucus] led a delegation of members of Congress to visit 2 border patrol facilities.&#8221;
&#8220;This moment captures what it’s like for women in CBP custody to share a cramped cell—some held for 50 days—for them to be denied showers for up to 15 days and life-saving medication. For some, it also means being separated from their children. This is El Paso Border Station #1,&#8221; he wrote along with a video of a group of women in one of the cells. He also posted video of showers at the Clint Border Patrol Station.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">This moment captures what it’s like for women in CBP custody to share a cramped cell—some held for 50 days—for them to be denied showers for up to 15 days and life-saving medication. For some, it also means being separated from their children. This is El Paso Border Station #1. <a href="https://t.co/OmCAlGxDt8">pic.twitter.com/OmCAlGxDt8</a>
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx/status/1145843749592936448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
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<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">The showers at Clint Border Patrol Station. <a href="https://t.co/z0ATi67q1i">pic.twitter.com/z0ATi67q1i</a>
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx/status/1145845879926079489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
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On Monday, Castro and Ocasio-Cortez were among a delegation that included Congressional Hispanic Caucus members that visited two border facilities. Upon leaving the first, Ocasio-Cortez posted a series of extreme accusations against CBP officers.
&#8220;Just left the 1st CBP facility,&#8221; she wrote in a series of tweets. &#8220;I see why CBP officers were being so physically &amp;sexually threatening towards me. Officers were keeping women in cells w/ no water &amp; had told them to drink out of the toilets. This was them on their GOOD behavior in front of members of Congress.&#8221; She added in another tweet: &#8220;Now I’ve seen the inside of these facilities. It’s not just the kids. It’s everyone. People drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of members Congress. I brought it up to their superiors. They said &#8216;officers are under stress &amp; act out sometimes.&#8217; No accountability.&#8221;
CBP officials have pushed back strongly against her accusations. As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49082/border-patrol-council-president-blasts-aoc-over-amanda-prestigiacomo">The Daily Wire</a> reported, one of the officials who has refuted her claims is National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd, who spoke with Breitbart News Tonight. Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s inflammatory claims, including that she was &#8220;threatened&#8221; by CBP officers, he said, are &#8220;false.&#8221;
“I&#8217;m calling on CBP to release that footage so they clearly show that she was treated with the utmost dignity and respect,&#8221; said Judd. &#8220;Let the cameras speak,&#8221; he stressed. &#8220;The cameras will prove her wrong and they will prove that she is being false.”
&#8220;Nobody is forced to drink out of a toilet and nobody is told to drink out of a toilet,&#8221; Judd said of the Democrat&#8217;s repeated claim. “It&#8217;s completely and totally a baseless and ridiculous allegation and frankly it needs to be investigated and she needs to be exposed.&#8221;
“She gives absolutely no contexts to these allegations that she is making and by not giving context she is trying to paint a false narrative and a false picture and she needs to be held accountable for that,&#8221; he said.
Amid heightened skepticism about her claims, Ocasio-Cortez has since admitted that she did not in fact hear an officer tell a woman to &#8220;drink out of the toilets&#8221; and that the cells contain toilets that are linked to the sinks, which contain potable water, context she curiously left out in her initial accounts.
Another controversy related to the CBP and Ocasio-Cortez that occurred Monday was the discovery of two posts allegedly shared on a Border Patrol Facebook group page that contained lewd references to the congresswoman, as reported by ProPublica:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">NEW: We got access to a secret, 9,500-member FB group where current and former Border Patrol agents make explicit and derogatory remarks and “jokes” about migrants, female lawmakers and more. <a href="https://twitter.com/cpb?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CPB</a> hasn&#8217;t responded to our requests for comment. <a href="https://t.co/DCSACL6wBY">https://t.co/DCSACL6wBY</a>
— ProPublica (@propublica) <a href="https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1145720044879581184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
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CBP has since responded. “Today, U.S. Customs and Border Protection was made aware of disturbing social media activity hosted on a private Facebook group that may include a number of CBP employees,&#8221; said Matthew Klein, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Professional Responsibility. &#8220;CBP immediately informed DHS Office of the Inspector General and initiated an investigation.&#8221;
CBP Chief Carla Provost also issued a statement condemning the &#8220;inappropriate&#8221; posts and vowing to take action: “These posts are completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see—and expect—from our agents day in and day out. Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable.”
<div class="embed tweet"></div>

WATCH: Democratic Rep. Smuggles Phone Inside Border Facility, Posts Videos

National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd pushed back against accusations made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) regarding border detention centers during a Tuesday evening radio interview on Breitbart News Tonight.
Judd, who heads the union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents, suggested Ocasio-Cortez lied about her Monday trips to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sites and called for the tapes of the socialist’s visits to be released to disprove such inflammatory claims.
“I&#8217;m calling on CBP to release that footage so they clearly show that she was treated with the utmost dignity and respect,” Judd told Breitbart News Tonight.
As previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49059/ocasio-cortez-makes-wild-claims-about-cbp-facility-ryan-saavedra">reported</a> by The Daily Wire, AOC “claimed without evidence that CBP officers told detained women to drink from the toilets if they were thirsty while Ocasio-Cortez stood there and witnessed it.”
“It’s not just the kids. It’s everyone. People drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of members Congress,” said Ocasio-Cortez via Twitter on Tuesday. “I brought it up to their superiors. They said ‘officers are under stress &amp; act out sometimes.’ No accountability.”
In another tweet, AOC accused: “After I forced myself into a cell w/ women [and] began speaking to them, one of them described their treatment at the hands of officers as ‘psychological warfare’ &#8211; waking them at odd hours for no reason, calling them wh*res, etc. Tell me what about that is due to a ‘lack of funding?’”
“This has been horrifying so far. It is hard to understate the enormity of the problem. We’re talking systemic cruelty w/ a dehumanizing culture that treats them like animals,” the freshman congresswoman said in another post.
“Nobody is forced to drink out of a toilet and nobody is told to drink out of a toilet,” Judd responded to such claims. “It&#8217;s completely and totally a baseless and ridiculous allegation and frankly it needs to be investigated and she needs to be exposed.”
Invoking Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s famed statement on preferring to be “morally right” instead of “factually accurate,” Judd asked, “How can you have the moral high ground if you are going to throw facts out the window and spew falsehoods?”
“She gives absolutely no contexts to these allegations that she is making and by not giving context she is trying to paint a false narrative and a false picture and she needs to be held accountable for that,” explained the union head.
“Where is the proof?” Judd asked of the 29-year-old’s claim that migrants are being subjected to “psychological warfare” at the hands of Border Patrol agents.
“Let the cameras speak,&#8221; he said, adding, “The cameras will prove her wrong and they will prove that she is being false.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49059/ocasio-cortez-makes-wild-claims-about-cbp-facility-ryan-saavedra">According</a> to a witness speaking to the Washington Examiner, Ocasio-Cortez lost her cool when speaking with the officers during her visits.
“She comes out screaming at our agents, right at the beginning [of the tour] … Crying and screaming and yelling,” one witness claimed. “The agents, they wanted to respond, but they held back because she’s a congressional delegate. But when you have someone yelling at you in a threatening manner. … They were like, &#8216;Hey, you need to kinda step back.’”

Border Patrol Council President Blasts AOC Over Detention Center Claims, Demands Footage Be Released

Multiple U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials responded to salacious claims made by socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Monday about her visit to a CBP detention facility.
Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly claimed <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49059/ocasio-cortez-makes-wild-claims-about-cbp-facility-ryan-saavedra">without evidence</a> that CBP officials told detained female migrants to drink from the toilet while Ocasio-Cortez was present. Then, when pressed by a reporter if she actually heard a CBP official say that, Ocasio-Cortez <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49065/watch-ocasio-cortez-confronted-her-claim-migrants-ryan-saavedra">refused</a> to answer.
Multiple CBP officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Washington Examiner and the Daily Mail how Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) acted inside the facility and say that she distorted the entire situation.
A border agent who was there <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/aoc-screamed-at-border-patrol-agents-in-threatening-manner-during-tour-witnesses">told</a> the Examiner: &#8220;So this is what happened with the migrant and drinking water from toilet: She wanted water, didn’t know how to use the faucet in the cell, and drank from the toilet. She never told AOC that we made her drink from the toilet. AOC, of course, changed it … This was when she [the migrant] was apprehended and brought into the facility.&#8221;
Daily Mail editor David Martosko tweeted out a photo from inside a CBP detention center that showed a toilet that was connected to a sink that states: &#8220;potable water.&#8221;
The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7201939/Border-patrol-agents-shared-Photoshopped-images-AOC-performing-oral-sex-secret-Facebook-group.html">reported</a>: &#8220;But a CBP official said Monday in the early evening that plumbing fixtures at the locations Ocasio-Cortez visited are standard-issue jail appliances with sinks that dispense safe drinking water attached to toilets in a single unit.&#8221;
&#8220;Of course that&#8217;s what we have,&#8221; a CBP official <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7201939/Border-patrol-agents-shared-Photoshopped-images-AOC-performing-oral-sex-secret-Facebook-group.html">told</a> the Daily Mail. &#8220;No one is drinking toilet water. They&#8217;re drinking potable water from the sink attached to the toilet. It&#8217;s what you would find in every municipal jail in the United States.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">I haven&#8217;t seen photo of the Clint, TX facilities that <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AOC</a> described today, but it would be interesting if &#8220;drinking from the toilet&#8221; meant drinking from an attached sink marked &#8220;potable water&#8221; &#8212; like this image from a CBP holding facility in Tuscon (filed in federal court). <a href="https://t.co/uDbhy1GPOa">pic.twitter.com/uDbhy1GPOa</a>
— David Martosko (@dmartosko) <a href="https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/1145794081660055553?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Ocasio-Cortez confirmed in a tweet that the photo of the toilet that Martosko posted was the type of toilet that was in the facility.
A witness who was at the facility described Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s behavior toward CBP officals as being &#8220;threatening,&#8221; saying that she was &#8220;crying and screaming and yelling.&#8221;
A second CBP official described one of Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s outbursts, telling the Examiner that the 29-year-old &#8220;[said] something under her breath, &#8216;Oh, all these guys in here are gonna f*** me.'&#8221;
&#8220;The agents are standing there behind the computers,&#8221; the official continued. &#8220;One of the agents laughed at something he was saying to another agent, and she got irate and flipped out. Now they’re under investigation for it. She took it as they were laughing at her and screams at them and says, &#8216;What’s so funny?'&#8221;

Multiple Officials Respond To Ocasio-Cortez’s Claim About CBP Facilities

Over the weekend, an opinion writer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/opinion/immigration-children-detention.html">published in the New York Times</a> suggested that she might finally have a plan to stop migrant detentions at the United States-Mexcio border: find the names and addresses of the border patrol and immigration officers assigned to staff border detention facilities and harass them at home.
Kate Cronin-Furman, who is, by all accounts, a &#8220;professor of human rights&#8221; and a scholar of &#8220;mass atrocities&#8221; according to her Twitter profile (which is now locked), claims that the humanitarian crisis on the border meets the definition of &#8220;mass atrocity,&#8221; and must be stopped at all costs — and if that includes naming and shaming those who are working in border detention facilities, so be it.
&#8220;The identities of the individual Customs and Border Protection agents who are physically separating children from their families and staffing the detention centers are not undiscoverable,&#8221; Cronin-Furman wrote. &#8220;Immigration lawyers have agent names; journalists reporting at the border have names, photos and even videos. These agents’ actions should be publicized, particularly in their home communities.&#8221;
Cronin-Furman claims she&#8217;s not advocating any actual doxxing, because that would be wrong. Instead, she wants pro-immigration activists to share the information privately, then set up displays in front of or in close proximity to individual border agents&#8217; homes, so that their neighbors can bear witness to their complicity in &#8220;mass atrocities.&#8221;
&#8220;The knowledge, for instance, that when you go to church on Sunday, your entire congregation will have seen you on TV ripping a child out of her father’s arms is a serious social cost to bear. The desire to avoid this kind of social shame may be enough to persuade some agents to quit and may hinder the recruitment of replacements,&#8221; Cronin-Furman claimed.
She also doesn&#8217;t want them attacked or hurt, but rather shamed out of doing their jobs.
The plan worked on Nazis, of course. &#8220;In Denmark during World War II, for instance, strong social pressure, including from the churches, contributed to the refusal of the country to comply with Nazi orders to deport its Jewish citizens,&#8221; she adds.
As many witnessed over the weekend through video of an &#8220;anti-Fascist&#8221; rally in Portland that descended into chaos, leaving at least four people, including journalist Andy Ngo, severely injured, the Left isn&#8217;t likely to restrict itself to mere publication. Those who might be motivated to make doxxing part of their agenda aren&#8217;t often willing to simply stand outside someone&#8217;s home with a sign.
But that may even be beside the point, because Cronin-Furman appears to be arguing that any detention of migrants at all is a crime against humanity, and that&#8217;s why these officers, who are just doing their job, deserve to be named and shamed. She calls holding immigrants for several days or weeks in anticipation of issuing them a court date a &#8220;deliberate, systemic attack on civilians&#8221; and hysterically predicts that the Trump administration isn&#8217;t so much planning to adjudicate asylum seekers as it is to murdering them en masse.
Democrats in Congress clearly disagree with her assessment. Last week, even Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — no friend of the president — rushed through an emergency spending bill designed to flood the border detention facilities with fresh cash in an effort to alleviate the strain on buildings meant to house hundreds, which are now housing thousands.
The bill had few detractors — among them Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — who had even fewer solutions. Afraid to say they simply want to open the borders to all immigrants, they settled on calling the Democrats&#8217; own policy inhumane.

NYT Op-Ed Proposes Doxxing Border Patrol And Immigration Officers Who Work In Detention Centers

Federal law enforcement officials seized 16.5 tons of cocaine on Tuesday in Philadelphia in what was the largest drug bust in the history of the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
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*BREAKING NEWS* Federal authorities have seized approximately 16.5 TONS of cocaine from a large ship at the Packer Marine Terminal in Philadelphia. This is the largest drug seizure in the history of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. <a href="https://twitter.com/ICEgov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ICEgov</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CBPMidAtlantic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CBPMidAtlantic</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/PhillyPolice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PhillyPolice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/USCG?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USCG</a>
&#8212; U.S. Attorney EDPA (@USAO_EDPA) <a href="https://twitter.com/USAO_EDPA/status/1141046623159705602?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Federal authorities continue to comb a cargo ship at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia,&#8221; CBS Philadelphia <a href="https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2019/06/18/15000-kilos-of-cocaine-confiscated-during-drug-bust-at-philadelphia-port-federal-sources-say/">reported</a>. &#8220;Investigators believe there is still a significant amount of cocaine remaining on the ship.&#8221;
Two people were arrested and charged in connection to the bust. Authorities say that the ship had previously traveled to the Bahamas, Panama, Peru, and Colombia.
In a statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said:
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A U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations-led multi-agency inspection of shipping containers aboard the MSC Gayane resulted in a substantial cocaine seizure in Philadelphia on June 17, 2019. Authorities continue to process the seized cocaine and continue its inspection aboard the vessel in the Port of Philadelphia. Authorities have made two arrests, and will release a final tally and additional details when this operation concludes.
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U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain tweeted: &#8220;This is one of the largest drug seizures in United States history. This amount of cocaine could kill millions &#8211; MILLIONS &#8211; of people. My Office is committed to keeping our borders secure and streets safe from deadly narcotics.&#8221;
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This is one of the largest drug seizures in United States history. This amount of cocaine could kill millions &#8211; MILLIONS &#8211; of people. My Office is committed to keeping our borders secure and streets safe from deadly narcotics. <a href="https://t.co/nWPfgpGqYa">https://t.co/nWPfgpGqYa</a>
&#8212; US Attorney William M. McSwain (@USAttyMcSwain) <a href="https://twitter.com/USAttyMcSwain/status/1141047079009226753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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In a statement, the Philadelphia mayor&#8217;s office said:
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Every ounce of drugs we keep off the streets is helping to keep Philadelphians safe and alive. Mayor Kenney is thankful for the hard work of the Philadelphia Police Department, FBI, ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
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