Reaching consensus among the bloc’s 27 nations has become more complicated with the growing influence of the far-right in the politics of several member states.

The issue, kicked along the road for years, will be on the agenda of a Thursday meeting of EU interior ministers, with a focus on how to speed up the process of returning undocumented migrants to their country of origin in cases where their asylum bid fails.

Sweden, the current holder of the EU presidency, will host the meeting.

The Scandinavian country, among the more generous in terms of giving asylum before 2015-2016, has since October had a coalition government reliant on a nationalist far-right party, the Sweden Democrats (SD).

That alliance “is really stepping up the restrictive approach” introduced under the previous Swedish government, an expert at Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies, Bernd Parusel, told AFP.

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Source: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230125-eu-grapples-with-asylum-reform-as-migrant-entries-surge

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The post EU grapples with asylum reform as migrant entries surge first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

We can hardly watch news from the border.  The third world is flooding into Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California.  The administration has other priorities.  It can’t be bothered with questions about the invasion that’s taking place.  We’re being warned that the human flood that we can’t even watch is about to get a whole lot worse.  What’s going on?  I think I heard it somewhere, “If you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country.”  We’ve seen the seizures of deadly drugs.  The statistics are mind-numbing.  The news shows us that the “migrants” are wearing wristbands showing that they’ve paid the cartels for organizing this disaster.  It looks like we’re cooperating with the cartels.  Can this ever be turned around?

No, the war in Ukraine is much more important.  If the pretender can make out the words on the teleprompter, we’ll all be put in our place and realize that the war in Ukraine is the most important thing going on.  And it might be.  We’ve long-since lost track of the money that’s been sent, and not just from the U. S.  They’ve been begging all the Western nations, warning of dire consequences should Ukraine once again become a Russian possession.  You hear of the “domino effect,” and wonder whether we’re headed for world war.  

Never mind the domino effect.  We’re told that the missile systems we’re providing require American operators.  Yesterday the big headline on the Drudge Report was that Putin was readying his nuclear arsenal for attacks on Western nations.  You have to consider the source.  But it looks as though most of the concern is way off in Eastern Europe.

Every bad actor on earth knows it’s the time to move.  We certainly hope the pretender is not the one making decisions.  He’s shepherded around by people who tell him what to say, and he tries to put a little of that pretender spin on it.  You think he would dare balk at anything he’s told to say or do?  He’s in deep trouble as it is, and will need all the cooperation he can get in the months ahead.  It’s going to be gut-wrenching if the Ukrainian and Chinese dealings are ever taken up by the mainstream media.  

Elon Musk used to be a darling of the left. Then he bought Twitter. Now Mr. Musk is their whipping boy. The mainstream media is just beside themselves that free speech, wrong or right, would be allowed in the public square. It’s an outrage to the tech world and the government agencies that they can’t control information anymore. At least they control the TV networks, the newspapers and most social media concerns. They’d love to ban Musk himself. It turns out that some of these reporters were tracking his private jet and his personal calendar. He pulled the plug on their accounts. Now they’re screaming from the rooftops that he’s silencing reporters from big papers. He says they’re trying to get him assassinated.  

He keeps dropping secret Twitter information revealing that the social media company was meeting with the heads of government agencies with requests for the banishment of “disinformation.” They couldn’t allow free speech on the subject of Covid 19! They couldn’t allow mandated closures to be discussed by regular people!  

I hate to be the one to break it, but it looks like the wall has cracked and there will be enough embarrassment to go around once the inner workings are exposed.  You’ve heard it, “They’re a private company and they can do whatever they want.”  It gets a little dicey when they’re fulfilling the requests of government agencies, with regulatory power.  And they call us “fascists.”  

It won’t be any fun hearing about the corruption.  It’s just so embarrassing for the country.  It’s liable to be ruinous to the pretender. The broad outlines are available, but you wonder what this administration will do to make sure we don’t understand the full extent of it. 

Mark

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – December 16, 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Former President Trump ripped President Joe Biden and his administration over the migrant surge at the U.S. border during an exclusive interview on “The Faulkner Focus” on Monday, arguing that the Biden administration is “destroying our country.”

He also said that Democrats are bringing violence from other countries into the U.S.

“You have a lot of bad people coming into our country and they’re [the Biden administration] is doing nothing about it,” Trump said, noting that murderers and sex traffickers are among those currently entering the U.S.

“It’s crazy,” Trump added.

The former president said he is speaking out about the situation at the border because he wants “to do what’s right.”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has claimed that the number of people looking to enter the U.S. at the southern border could be the highest in 20 years, but in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” he claimed that this is because of the Trump administration’s actions, not policy changes that took place in the early days of President Biden’s administration.

Biden has scrapped a number of Trump’s policies which included having asylum seekers remain in Mexico instead of staying in the U.S. while they wait for their cases to be heard. Mayorkas denied that Biden’s changes have encouraged the current migrant surge.

“What we are seeing is the result of President Trump’s dismantlement of the safe and orderly immigration processes that were built over many, many years by presidents of both parties,” Mayorkas said. “That’s what we are seeing, and that’s why it’s taking time for us to execute our plans to administer the humanitarian claims of vulnerable children. That’s what this is about.”

Addressing the elimination of the remain in Mexico policy, Mayorkas said the Biden administration has replaced this “with a safe and orderly triage system working with our partners in Mexico and humanitarian organizations in the international space and we are not expelling vulnerable children.”

The secretary also defended Biden’s elimination of Trump’s “safe third country” agreements, which required migrants to seek asylum in another country first if they were passing through a safe country on their way to the U.S. He claimed that “there’s nothing safe about” sending people back “to the very countries from which they are fleeing persecution.”

Mayorkas also asserted that the Biden administration has been sending a message discouraging children from trying to enter the U.S. right now “because we are rebuilding orderly processes for them as well, as the country always had until the prior administration.”

TEXAS GOV. ABBOTT REPORTS COVID OUTBREAK, NO ‘USEABLE RUNNING WATER’ AT MIGRANT HOLDING FACILITY

Despite that message, however, data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, shows that the numbers of migrants have gone up tremendously since Biden took office and changed immigration policies.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is encountering an average of 565 child migrants per day, up from 313 last month. In 2019, border agents encountered 76,020 unaccompanied children for an average of just over 208 per day. While families and single adults can still be expelled under Tile 42, a Trump-era coronavirus health order, no children will be expelled from the U.S.

Over the weekend, Trump slammed Mayorkas and his “pathetic” and “clueless performance” on the Sunday news programs, calling it a “national disgrace.”

“We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history,” Trump wrote in a statement on Sunday. “All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot.”

“Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast.”

Trump added that Mayorkas’ “self-satisfied presentation—in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer—is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS.”

“Even someone of Mayorkas’ limited abilities should understand that if you provide Catch-and-Release to the world’s illegal aliens then the whole world will come,” he continued.

“Furthermore, the Mayorkas Gag Order on our Nation’s heroic border agents and ICE officers should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation. But it’s clear they are engaged in a huge cover-up to hide just how bad things truly are.”

“The only way to end the Biden Border Crisis is for them to admit their total failure and adopt the profoundly effective, proven Trump policies,” he concluded.

While the Biden administration has maintained a message that now is “not the time” to come to the U.S. border, the White House still insists the overwhelming surge is not a “crisis.”

The post Former President Trump slams Biden for migrant surge: ‘They’re destroying our country’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Hannity: System-wide meltdown at our southern border first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Hannity: System-wide meltdown at our southern border first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, European politicians were arguing about how to curb the flow of refugees and immigrants who were escaping conflicts and hunger in their home countries in search of opportunities for a better life across the Mediterranean.

After marathon talks at an EU summit lasting nearly 10 hours, the leaders agreed on a text that tried to appease all sides but without actually solving the crisis, pushing it into extra time and more uncertainty. Leaders agreed EU countries should help migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to alleviate the burden on Italy and Greece, who are the most common first landing points, but the details about how and who would help remained unclear.

The issue of migrants stranded at sea caught the world’s attention when Italy closed its ports to rescue ships, leaving hundreds of desperate people adrift, until Spain stepped in to help. Recognizing the seriousness of the situation and the dilemma it puts Europe in legally and morally, leaders agreed there should be “a shared effort,” but “only on a voluntary basis.” Countries will take in rescued migrants and establish processing centers to assess asylum claims on their soil.

There, “rapid and secure processing” would sift economic migrants from refugees with a potential right to asylum, “for whom the principle of solidarity would apply.” So, does that mean we will see “detention centers” in Europe for migrants who are refused entry?

Leaders also backed plans, broadly agreed by all members, to tighten the EU’s external border, and give more money to countries such as Turkey and Morocco to help prevent migrants leaving for Europe. The EU accord also said governments should “take all necessary internal legislative and administrative measures” to stop refugees and migrants crossing Europe’s internal borders — but what does that actually entail?

However, the bloc dodged an agreement on controversial refugee quotas, as a quartet of central European countries who are anti-immigration completely rejected any language on EU-wide responsibility.
The summit exposed Europe’s long-standing divisions on migration between Central Europe, which refuses to take any refugees, versus western countries, which are seeking “solidarity.”

Trying to find consensus, EU leaders called for migrant processing centers in North African countries — such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia — which are already overwhelmed and unable to handle the influx of migrants attempting to illegally reach Europe. EU leaders agreed to “swiftly explore the concept of regional platforms in close cooperation” with non-EU countries, the UN refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration.

As World Cup progresses, worried migrants will watch the EU immigration issue advance to the semi-final round of negotiations.

Maha Akeel

They tried to persuade the North African countries with a promise of EU funds to help establish and manage the processing centers, but so far none of them have agreed, while a couple have ruled themselves out.

Even the UN vision for the scheme clashes with those of some EU leaders, who stressed on closing borders and stopping arrivals. Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, called for a “strong border” to stop what he called an “invasion” of migrants. Due to its geographic location, Hungary is one of the main transit countries of irregular land migration toward other EU member states, with most of the asylum seekers being Syrians, Afghans and Kosovars.

After the spike in numbers in 2015, the Hungarian government constructed fences along its borders with Serbia and Croatia and enacted a series of legal amendments intended to reduce irregular migration through Hungary, resulting in a drop of over 90 percent in 2016. The message is clear: Fences work. Austria is now threatening a similar measure.

This would mark the end of the EU’s iconic passport-free Schengen Area. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said at the EU summit in Brussels that migration could “decide the fate of the EU.”

The UN and IOM have called for “strong leadership from European Union member states on upholding the right to asylum and the rights of migrants,” while stressing that the EU could not outsource the problem by pressuring African countries to keep asylum applicants within their borders. What if these countries also decided to shut their borders in the face of fleeing refugees?

Refugees and immigrants are humans and deserve a chance to live a better life and achieve their dreams and aspirations, both for themselves and the country they settle in. Can you imagine the French team that won the World Cup in 1998 without its superstar Zinedine Zidane? Many of the players in the French team at the current World Cup are descendants of Arab and African migrants, including rising star Kylian Mbappe. Almost every Western European team has at least one player of Asian or African origin.

But such achievements are not limited only to sports. Many famous names in medicine, literature, technology and other fields, whether in Europe or the US, are unmistakably of non-European origin.

Fans watched Belgium win their match with Brazil on Friday to advance to the semi-finals, and on Tuesday they will meet France. Worried migrants will also watch the immigration issue advance to the semi-final round of negotiations, with the coming days and weeks seeing more meetings between Germany, Austria, France and Italy.

• Maha Akeel is a Saudi writer. Twitter: @MahaAkeel1

The post EU immigration crisis goes to extra time first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

ANGELA Merkel is holding crisis talks today to try and save her political future after her interior minister said he was ready to quit over her handling of the migration crisis.

Horst Seehofer revealed he was poised to resign from his crucial cabinet post and key role as leader of her coalition partners because he believes the German Chancellor is too soft on immigration.

AP:ASSOCIATED PRESS

The post ANG-ING BY A THREAD Angela Merkel’s government on brink of COLLAPSE over Germany’s migrant crisis as coalition minister threatens to quit first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.