The post US Border Patrol chief has update on border wall progress first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

President Donald Trump took to Twitter on July 30 to again criticize the open border agenda proposed by Democrats and tout progress at the southern border days after the Supreme Court allowed the White House to use $2.5 billion in Department of Defense funding to build a portion of the wall.

“Despite the Democrats wanting very unsafe Open Borders & refusing to change the Loopholes & Asylum, tremendous progress is being made [at] the Southern Border,” Trump wrote. “We all waited because we assumed the Dems would ultimately be forced to change the horrible Immigration Laws. They didn’t!”

Last week, the high court, ruling 5-4, lifted orders by a federal judge in California and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that barred the Trump administration from redirecting the Defense Department’s funds for the promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The ruling will allow the White House to build a portion of the border in California, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Trump’s Twitter post also comes after news that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) escorted a pregnant Mexican woman across the border into the United States to obtain emergency medical care.

Wyden visited Juarez, Mexico, to tour a shelter housing asylum seekers on July 27. He said while he was there he met a young woman who was 8-months pregnant and was suffering “serious medical complications.”

“She tried to get across the border but was denied until it became clear to law enforcement that I was accompanying her. She was taken to a hospital to get care,” he wrote in a series of Twitter posts.

“It shouldn’t have to take being escorted by a U.S. Senator to get asylum seekers and migrants to safety in the United States. After my time in Juarez, I’m reflecting on the hundreds—perhaps thousands—of women just like her who are unable to get the medical care they need,” he added.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) made a similar trip to Mexico earlier in the month where he also escorted several asylum seekers across into the United States.

This comes at a time when the crisis at the border has garnered significant attention due to the influx of illegal immigrants in recent months, and conflicting reports on the conditions in Border Patrol detention facilities.

In recent months, 2020 Democratic candidates have been coming out to express support for decriminalizing illegal border crossing. During the first Democratic presidential primary debate in late June, all but one candidate from the second night showed their support for decriminalizing illegal immigration, an indication of the Democratic Party’s position on illegal immigration.

Presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also came out earlier this month to unveil a plan in a blog post on Medium to repeal a law that makes unauthorized entry into the United States illegally.

Trevor Loudon, a communism expert, and contributor to The Epoch Times said Democratic lawmakers are pushing an open border agenda because they are losing their traditional support base and bringing migrants over could provide “a new supply of dependent voters.”

“The Democratic Party has lost its traditional union, manufacturing Midwestern base. So how do you keep winning? You have to bring new people over the border,” Loudon told The Epoch Times.

“And we know that there are 22 million illegals in the country now according to M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology),” he said. “We know that Hillary Clinton promised to give them more citizenship and voting rights within 100 days of taking office.”

Loudon said the Democrats’ agenda could give them an extra “16, 17, 18 million new potential voters overnight.”

“And considering that Trump won the election nationwide by two hundred thousand votes and Mitt Romney lost by two and a half million votes you can see what an advantage to the Democratic Party that would be,” he said.

Loudon said in a previous interview that if a Democratic candidate were to win the 2020 presidential election, the borders would effectively be dissolved.

“There’d be no effective border security. And all the Democrat candidates are united on this—all of them. Not one of them has made a stand against what is happening on the border,” Loudon said.

“They’re all for amnesty, they’re all for welcoming illegals over the border. So you would see the end of America as we know it because we would get so many million people coming over. They would be given citizenship and voting rights, and they would vote for the party that let them in.”

Follow Janita on Twitter: @janitakan

Source: https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-criticizes-democrats-push-for-open-borders-days-days-after-supreme-court-ruling_3022533.html

The post Trump Criticizes Democrats’ Push for Open Borders Days After Supreme Court Ruling first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“Anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned from a quick visit to West Virginia, adding that “we’ll probably keep them, or a large portion of them, until such time as we get the wall.”

In Mexico, Trump’s push for a troop surge at the border prompted President Enrique Peña Nieto to chastise him for straining the relationship with unfounded “threatening or disrespectful attitudes.”

“If your recent statements are the result of frustration due to domestic policy issues, to your laws or to your Congress, it is to them that you should turn, not to Mexicans,” he said in a national address in which he echoed condemnations from four contenders to succeed him next month.

It was an unusual show of unity fueled by resentment of Trump’s bashing of immigrants and threats to scrap a trade deal.

“Something that brings together and unites absolutely all Mexicans is our certainty that nothing and no one stands above the dignity of Mexico,” said Peña Nieto.

Trump’s announcement Tuesday caught aides, lawmakers and Mexican officials by surprise. The White House has provided few details since he declared that as long as Congress refuses to provide wall funding, he will use military assets to block drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

Top aides had not mentioned the possibility of a troop surge in the days leading up to the announcement, even as they discussed Trump’s demands for the wall and for enhanced funding and legal authority for border security and immigration enforcement.

Critics, including the ACLU and a chorus of immigrant advocates, accuse Trump of manufacturing a crisis, and rashly deploying the military out of frustration that Congress has stymied his signature campaign pledge.

Mission needs not drafted

In a sign of the haste with which the troop surge was unveiled, Homeland Security officials haven’t yet drafted a list of mission needs, which will be used to set personnel targets.

“The Pentagon has to work with the states to get the right kind of resources and the right combination and then we owe the Pentagon a full and complete list of our requirements,” Border Patrol chief Ron Vitiello told Fox News.

“We’re going to coordinate. They will provide us with the requirements, and then, from that, we’ll determine how many, and what’s the mission, and how many we’ll deploy,” the chief Pentagon spokeswoman, Dana White, told reporters.

The comments suggested that Trump has a target in mind that hasn’t yet been supported by expert analysis and advice.

Trump sought $25 billion to replace existing border wall and expand the barrier from its current 654 miles. He said Tuesday that he seeks no more than 700 to 800 miles of barrier along the 1,954-mile southwest border. Last week, Vitiello cited a 1,000-mile target.

Both are well shy of the impression Trump gave during the campaign, when he promised to build a “big, beautiful wall” at least 30 feet high, and to make Mexico pay for it.

Congress provided $1.6 billion in the $1.3 trillion budget Trump signed last month — enough for about 100 miles of barrier, two-thirds of it replacement for existing fence. Slow progress has proved an embarrassment for Trump, as has Mexico’s adamant and public refusal to bow to his demands.

Tension with Mexico

Tensions have run high between Trump and Peña Nieto. Traditionally, a summit between the U.S. and Mexican presidents is a top priority after an election in either country. Peña Nieto canceled a visit to Washington early in Trump’s term when the American refused to disavow his demand for a border wall that Mexico would pay for.

The two presidents could meet next week at at the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, but a senior White House sidestepped the question by noting previous meetings with Mexican counterparts by Jared Kushner and at the secretary of state level. Kushner is Trump’s son-in-law.

Dallas Rep. Jeb Hensarling was among the Republicans praising Trump’s move to put troops at the border.

“As any Texan can tell you, our national borders are not secure enough,” he said in a statement. “It is refreshing to see the Trump administration take bold action to protect our national and economic security.”

Tea party activist Jenny Beth Martin also lauded the impending troop deployment, citing — as he did — a caravan of Central Americans walking through Mexico in an annual protest of working conditions.

“President Trump is doing exactly what a president should do by sending our troops to the southern border as a caravan of many thousands of potential illegal immigrants approaches our country,” she said in a statement.

Trump signed an order Wednesday night authorizing a National Guard deployment.

The memo paints a dire picture — a “drastic surge of illegal activity on the southern border” –involving drugs, gangs and illegal immigrants that imperils American safety and sovereignty. It speaks of “lawlessness at the border” and a “point of crisis” that justifies military action.

Critics view such descriptions as exaggerations.

“Our American way of life hinges on our ability as a Nation to adequately and effectively enforce our laws and protect our borders,” Trump’s memo says.

Federal law bars the use of military for civil law enforcement, including immigration law. But troops can be used to free up Border Patrol resources. Pentagon spokeswoman White said that “the National Guard’s efforts will include aviation, engineering, surveillance, communications, vehicle maintenance and logistical support.”

President George W. Bush sent 6,000 National Guard troops to the border for a two-year mission that began in 2006. President Barack Obama sent 1,200 guard troops in 2010.

Border governors must agree

Border state governors would need to agree to requests for National Guard troops.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Wednesday that she had conferred with the four governors.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, embraced the troop deployment. Both are Republicans. Neither had publicly requested troops before Trump’s announcement.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, also a Republican, was more cautious, saying only that she appreciated being consulted.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat who has fought the Trump administration in court over the border wall proposal and immigration enforcement, was wary, and it’s unclear if he will go along with Trump’s push for a troop surge. Speaking for Brown’s administration, Lt. Col. Tom Keegan of the California National Guard said the proposal “will be promptly reviewed to determine how best we can assist our federal partners. We look forward to more detail, including funding, duration and end state.”

For days, Trump aides were unable to say how many troops the president wants at the border, how long the mission will last, when it will start, and how he would define success.

Texas has had guardsmen and state troopers assigned to border security for a number of years. California currently has 55 guardsmen assigned to the border.

Source: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2018/04/05/trump-wants-4000-troops-us-mexico-border-wall-gets-built

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The post Ingraham: Trump calls the Senate’s bluff on immigration first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Trump said he would Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi “to discuss the tragic terrorist attack, with so much loss of life,” adding on Twitter: “We have to get TOUGHER AND SMARTER than ever before, and we will. Need the WALL, need the BAN! God bless the people of Egypt.”

Egyptian state media reported that at least 235 people died and more than 130 were injured during an attack on a Sufi mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai region, the deadliest attack ever on Egyptian civilians by Islamic militants.

Earlier Friday, Trump tweeted: “Horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers in Egypt. The world cannot tolerate terrorism, we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence!”

In a readout after the call, the White House said Trump offered his condolences to the people of Egypt after the “heinous attack” on worshippers. Trump “reiterated that the United States will continue to stand with Egypt in the face of terrorism,” the statement said. “The international community cannot tolerate barbaric terrorist groups and must strengthen its efforts to defeat terrorism and extremism in all its forms.”

More: Hundreds killed in Egypt mosque attack, state media reports

Trump has used previous terror attacks to promote immigration restrictions that are the subject of many political and legal disputes.

The administration’s proposed ban on immigration from six Muslim majority countries has faced a number of legal challenges. And congressional Democrats have moved to block funding for the proposed wall on the nation’s southern border.

Democrats said the nation has long screened immigrants in an effort to block potential terrorists, and they have accused Trump of making his proposals to keep Muslims and Hispanics out of the United States.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/24/trump-uses-egypt-attack-plug-border-wall-immigration-restrictions/893143001/

The post Trump uses Egypt attack to plug border wall, immigration restrictions first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.