The post Brnovich: Biden admin is ‘destroying’ the US with this move first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Note: The following is Sen. Roger Wicker’s weekly report and commentary from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. and is provided by Sen. Wicker’s office.

6,000 Migrants Crossing U.S.-Mexico Border Daily

Last month, federal immigration officers dropped off roughly 90 migrants at a bus station in Natchez, Mississippi, causing confusion for both the migrants and station workers. Similar drop-offs have occurred this year in Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) struggles to deal with the massive flow of migrants coming across the southern border. Because of the dire situation, ICE has now released 50,000 migrants into the country this year, thousands of whom have confirmed cases of COVID-19. Instead of being given court dates, these individuals are being told to report to an ICE office at a later date – something only 13 percent have done so far. Most will likely disappear into the country for good.

Biden Owns This Crisis

The crisis on our southern border began shortly after President Biden took office. President Trump had managed to stem the flow of migrants by building a border wall, increasing support for Border Patrol, and getting Mexico to use its military to block migrants from traveling north. Most importantly, Mr. Trump sent a clear message that the days of open borders were over.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris struck a much different tone, which has paved the way for the present crisis. Before taking office, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris signaled their intent to stop deportations. Once in office, President Biden began rolling back immigration enforcement and proposed a plan to legalize millions of illegal residents without first funding basic border security priorities. These actions have sent a clear message of openness to migrants, who are now crossing the border at a rate of 6,000 per day.

One Million Border Arrests and Counting

Illegal border crossings have increased every month under President Biden. In June, Border Patrol recorded 178,000 border arrests – a 571 percent jump from June 2020. In July, officers in the Rio Grande Valley arrested 20,000 border crossers in a single week – the most ever recorded. Border arrests have now already reached their highest since 2000 and are on track to reach 1.8 million this year. And these arrests are just a partial snapshot of the situation, as many others are crossing our borders undetected.

This chaotic situation could get even worse because of a recent decision by the Mexican government. This past week, Mexico announced it will no longer take back non-Mexican migrant families who have been caught by U.S. border agents. This is a major shift from last year, when President Trump struck a deal with Mexico to have asylum seekers “remain in Mexico” while their applications were being processed. President Biden has clearly failed to exert the pressure needed to obtain Mexico’s help in solving the border crisis.

Stopping Amnesty in Congress

Even in light of the border situation, President Biden has continued to push for legalization of illegal residents without seriously improving border security. Democrats are now considering slipping an amnesty measure into their upcoming tax-and-spend bill. Republicans are united in fighting against such a proposal, which would only further inflame the border crisis by incentivizing more migrants to make the dangerous trek north. President Biden bears a solemn duty to protect our southern border, and he is clearly failing.

Source: https://desotocountynews.com/mississippi-news/wicker-biden-has-abandoned-the-border/

The post Wicker: Biden Has Abandoned the Border first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post GOP Senator: ICE Dropping Migrants Off In My State ‘With Little To No Warning’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Tucker obtains whistleblower report on military flying illegal immigrants first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Everybody is in the Easter spirit, wishing each other a happy good Friday and looking forward to the “Easter” holiday.  My Dad always asked, “What’s good about good Friday?”  He explained that you can’t fit three days and three nights into the period between Friday and Sunday, no matter how you slice it.  Many took heart, and now they’re spread out between countless organizations with “leaders,” some of whom claim to be apostles wielding authority far beyond any human government.

Now all the mainstream companies and corporations are doing back-flips to become the enforcers of “woke philosophy.”  They are doing what the government can’t do Constitutionally, if that even matters anymore.  First we had the “mark” of the mask.  Now we’ve got the “mark” of the vaccine.  What do you think is coming?  It won’t necessarily be on the authority of government (though in some cases, and in some countries it is), it seems that corporations, financial institutions and travel companies can’t wait to impose their “woke” regulations and policies on us all.  All the rage now is the “vaccine passport,” making it nearly impossible to participate in commerce or travel unless you’ve got the “marks” they’ve imposed and unless you express fear and dread of whatever the latest craze may be.  The Governor of Florida is currently the most visible example of someone bucking the “vaccine passport.”

Very few are standing against the goody two-shoe movement, and the mainstream media ridicules anyone who dares.  In some cases, they bring false allegations and bogus prosecutions against those bucking the trend.  The military is being emasculated, forced to behave as if they’re enrolled in one of the institutions of “higher learning.”  We’re all starting to wonder if there’s a play on words there somewhere.  We hope not.

Internationally, it’s as if we’ve returned to the days of Jimmy Carter, meaning nothing but ashamed embarrassment for red-blooded Americans.  The world is threatening once again, and the US. is once again the world’s whipping boy. The current administration (regardless of who’s calling the shots) is bending itself into a pretzel trying to appease Iran and get back into the insane nuclear deal. But Iran has conditions, and there are currently “third party” talks on the calendar to satisfy whatever demands the Mullahs impose.  Re-entering the “Iran Nuclear Deal” might require another planeload of untraceable cash, and that will seem entirely reasonable to the “team” running American policy.  It worked last time.

There have been more examples of the absolute inhumanity taking place on the southern border.  Children, sometimes not much more than toddlers, are being used and abused in startling ways.  They seem to be little more than currency to be gambled for the benefit and profit of smugglers, or perish the thought, families.  Sometimes they’re sent back to be used again.  Border enforcement and ICE are “processing” immigrants as quickly as possible so they can get them on a bus or a plane and relieve some of the overcrowded conditions we’re not supposed to see.  Meanwhile, the smugglers are able to take advantage of the situation to transport their “products” without being chased down.  Enforcement agencies have been overwhelmed, and that was the plan. The Cloward-Piven strategy.  Very humanitarian, mind you.

The insanity is such that we can be thankful that God instituted a schedule that takes our minds off much that is going wrong in this world in order to remember how we got here, and the ultimate sacrifice made to secure our place in His kingdom.

We’ve been boosting that message, using means we don’t particularly like while we still can.  Our “boosted” message appeared on the screens of 33,858 individuals.  Of those, approximately 5000 engaged in some way (some only to wish us a happy Easter, having not understood what was going on,) but 240 actually followed the “link” and read the article.

This weekend entails the last Holy Day of the Days of Unleavened Bread, and the early activities are underway.  Last evening we had a get-together at a vacation home acquired by two families that came to visit.  We had a good turnout for a luncheon today at a local Mexican restaurant, and the crew is (as I write) bowling at a facility in town.  More visitors will be coming for the H. D. service tomorrow, and we hope that everyone far and wide is making use of this annual event.  Thanks to all who are with us in these most ignorant of times.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 2 April 2021 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.

A Guatemalan migrant and his son cross to the United States, via the Rio Grande natural border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, in search of political asylum. (Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images)

Republican critics of Biden say the new wave is the start of the crisis they have long predicted, invited by the new administration’s eager rejection of Trump’s deterrent approach. Yet Biden also inherited a highly improvised enforcement system from his predecessor that was already under strain and highly dependent on Trump’s diplomatic bullying of Mexico.

New Biden rules for ICE point to fewer arrests and deportations, and a more restrained agency

Late last month, Mexican authorities in some areas of the border stopped taking back families returned by the United States under emergency pandemic health measures implemented last March. With the U.S. capacity to hold adults and children reduced by the pandemic and the temporary closure of the largest Border Patrol facility in South Texas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection began dropping families off at bus stations and shelters last week.

“I came last year, but they weren’t giving you the opportunity to cross. But then I decided to come back again, and thank God, I got the opportunity,” said Daysi Funes Peña, 40, who arrived with her three children Thursday night.

Last fall, she crossed the Rio Grande with her family and surrendered to border officials, but they were returned to Mexico, she said. This time, Funes Peña and her children were released in downtown McAllen and into the care of the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley.

The area has been one of those hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 100,000 cases, raising concerns in cities and towns worried about a growing influx of people and outbreaks inside shelters. CBP officials do not test migrants for the coronavirus, but the state of Texas last week sent extra kits to border communities.

A group of 166 adults and children arrived in the Rio Grande Valley on Thursday night, followed less than an hour later by a group of 87, according to CBP. Since then, additional groups of more than 100 have been taken into custody in the same area, according to a CBP official who was not authorized to discuss the incidents.

Homeland Security officials have not said how many adults and children they have released since Mexico stopped accepting some family groups. They have described the releases as mostly limited to the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, but shelter operators in the Laredo and Del Rio areas, as well as in San Diego, have reported a sudden upturn in the number of people released by CBP needing care.

“In some instances, certain family units in a small fraction of the border have not been able to be returned to their last point of origin,” Matt Leas, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. “As Customs and Border Protection always has, it adjusts resources as needed to meet the demand at the border and regularly screens individuals for signs of health issues when they are encountered, including covid-19. Anyone who shows sign of illness receives the appropriate medical treatment.”

Mexico has stopped accepting some Central American families ‘expelled’ by U.S.

CBP typically releases families in its custody because U.S. courts have ruled that underage migrants cannot be held in adult immigration jails. Parents who arrive with children are generally issued an order to appear in court and released into the interior of the United States.

The Trump administration tried to deter families with its Zero Tolerance crackdown in 2018, which separated more than 3,000 children from their mothers and fathers before it was halted amid public outcry.

Border crossings soared after that, until Trump used tariff threats to coerce Mexico into helping the United States crackdown. Mexico began accepting Central American families sent back by U.S. authorities and made to wait outside U.S. territory while their humanitarian claims were processed by U.S. courts. That program, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, left thousands of families living in squalid tent camps along the Rio Grande, and Biden is suspending it.

Starting last March, the Trump administration turned to a different enforcement tool, known as Title 42, that allowed U.S. agents to rapidly “expel” most recent border crossers to Mexico. But after barely a week of Biden’s presidency, Mexico has started refusing the return of some families, citing a new law that went into effect last month requiring children to go to family-appropriate shelters.

The Mexican government released a statement Saturday acknowledging that it had “made some adjustments in recent days” due to the implementation of its new law, but it said there had been no broader policy change.

Across northern Mexico, migrants waiting along the border debated what to do. Some had read news stories about families crossing the Rio Grande and being released into the United States. Contradictory rumors swirled on WhatsApp groups.

Some parents were torn: Was it worth the risk of swimming across the river with their children, or should they wait until a more formal policy emerged? What if that policy never came?

“I don’t know what to do,” said Glenda, a 38-year-old from northern Honduras who was waiting in Matamoros with her two children, ages 2 and 5. “There are rumors and people have it in their head that if they swim across they’ll get a permit to live in the U.S., but I can’t tell if it’s real.”

She had been waiting in Matamoros for over a year for the chance to apply for asylum in the United States. Each time she had approached immigration officials on the international bridge, she was told to wait. In October 2019, she decided to send her 16-year-old son across the bridge alone, so that he would be processed as an unaccompanied minor, making it harder for officials to turn him back. He’s now in a San Antonio foster home.

There are over 20,000 outstanding MPP cases along the border, more than 5,000 of them in Brownsville, according to an analysis from the University of Texas. Even though Biden has suspended the policy, it remains unclear when and how those asylum seekers will be brought to the United States for their cases to be processed. Many of them have endured violence and extortion while waiting in Mexico. Some have decided that swimming across the river is now worth the risk.

Mexican police charged in massacre of Guatemalan migrants near U.S. border

Biden administration officials in recent weeks have issued public statements urging migrants not to make the journey north. But current and former CBP officials say the president’s other moves to rescind Trump-era controls, welcome immigrants, and curtail deportations risk incentivizing a new migration wave in Central America, which has been hit hard by natural disasters and the financial blow of the pandemic.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday announced the cancellation of another Trump-era program, known as Asylum Cooperation Agreements, that allowed U.S. authorities to send asylum seekers back to Central America to find refuge there.

“I think we’re just sending the wrong message in rescinding all these executive actions,” said Rodolfo Karisch, a retired Border Patrol official who was chief in the Rio Grande Valley in 2019. “I think we’re asking for additional chaos similar to what we saw in 2019,” he said.

“This could cause a huge problem for these communities along the border, because we still have significant challenges with covid, and this looks like a recipe for something that isn’t good,” Karisch said.

Last summer, Enedina Treviño, and five family members caught the virus. Her mother-in-law died from it.

Treviño was alarmed by the news of migrants being released untested in nearby McAllen. There was still a risk, she said, even if the migrants are tested soon after they arrive.

“I know they come here to better themselves, but it’s still a danger to us — a community who is still suffering from covid, still suffering the aftereffects,” said Treviño, who has been dealing with the lingering effects of the disease that she said put her in the hospital just two weeks ago.

Many of the Central American families reaching the border have been traveling long distances in cramped quarters, at greater risk of exposure.

Inside the McAllen shelter where Funes Peña and her children arrived after their release by CBP, kids wearing blue surgical masks chased each other. Posters hung around the large room, labeling stations for “Personal Hygiene” and “Registration.” A map of the United States hung on one wall. Colorful children’s drawings were taped to the windows. “Here is beautiful,” read one in Spanish.

On Sunday afternoon, Funes Peña was preparing to step on a plane for the first time — the last leg of a harrowing journey from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border that relied on the kindness of strangers to feed and clothe her and her children.

Her 11-year-old son fed a bottle to her 3-year-old daughter, who lay half-asleep in her arms. Funes Peña’s other daughter, Andrea Marisol, 9, looked on, a strip of blue tape concealing her right eye.

The girl had been attacked in the streets of Honduras, her mother said when she was 5 years old. Funes Peña was hoping she could find better medical care for her daughter’s eye in the United States.

The family is from the rough outskirts of San Pedro Sula, and Funes Peña said they were fleeing both poverty and violence. A single mother, she worked at a factory that laid off its staff amid the pandemic, and she was left jobless and with three children to feed.

The family first left Honduras in September, arriving at the border in October, she said. They were soon returned to Mexico. They went home to Honduras.

It was on her second trip north, while she was making her way slowly through Mexico, that she received a call from a friend who had embarked on the journey to the United States a week earlier.

“She said, ‘Come, they’re really receiving mothers with children, families.’ And it was true, we made it,” Funes Peña said. “That was my goal, to make it.”

The family left immigration custody and arrived Saturday at the shelter in downtown McAllen, which provided her with clothes, shoes, and food, Funes Peña said. The next day, they were on a flight to New Jersey to start a new life.

---

Arelis Hernández

Arelis Hernández is a Texas-based border correspondent on the national desk working with the immigration team and roving the U.S. southern border. Hernández joined the Post in 2014 to cover politics and government on the local desk after spending four years as a breaking news and crime reporter at the Orlando Sentinel. Follow

Kevin Sieff

Kevin Sieff has been The Washington Post’s Latin America correspondent since 2018. He served previously as the paper’s Africa bureau chief and Afghanistan bureau chief. Follow

Nick Miroff

Nick Miroff covers immigration enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security for The Washington Post. He was a Post foreign correspondent in Latin America from 2010 to 2017, and has been a staff writer since 2006. Follow

---

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/migrant-families-us-border-biden/2021/02/07/1bf05212-6970-11eb-9ed1-73d434b5147f_story.html

[Disclaimer]

The post Biden faces border challenge as migrant families arrive in greater numbers and large groups first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Fresh off a week-long tour of security installations along Arizona’s border with Mexico, Montana congressman Matt Rosendale blasted the Biden administration’s actions halting construction of former President Donald Trump’s southern border wall.

“The first thing that became extremely clear was the policies of the Biden administration are already, right now, having impact and not in a positive way,” Rosendale said. “It’s compromising our national security, it’s hurting the economy. There’s just a whole host of problems that are already beginning to show up.”

Last week’s journey to the Arizona desert was Rosendale’s first congressional trip as the newly elected Representative for Montana. He was joined by eight additional Republican House members including Arizona congressman Andy Biggs, co-chair of the Border Security Caucus, who organized the event.

“If the Biden administration persists with its open-borders policies, the United States will be overrun with a historic surge of illegal aliens, who are chasing amnesty and sanctuary from the rule of law,” Biggs said in a news release on Monday.. “I hope this administration will stop pandering to the radical left when it comes to securing our border and enforcing our laws.”

Building a wall on the U.S border with Mexico was one of former President Trump’s most divisive campaign promises. Supporters assert that a physical barrier is necessary to bolster national security and halt the flow of undocumented immigrants and illegal drugs into the United States.

While a majority of Americans favor increased security at the southern border, many argue that building a 1,954-mile-long wall would be enormously expensive, would trample on private property rights, cause vast ecological damage, and would ultimately prove ineffective in halting illegal traffic into the United States.

Montana Representative Matt Rosendale walks with a U.S. Border Patrol agent at a port of entry on the Arizona/Mexico border. Photo: U.S. Representative Matt Rosendale

Thus far about 475-miles of wall has been completed along the southern border, the majority replacing pre-existing barriers with 30-foot tall, steel bollard fencing. A recent story in the Arizona Republic newspaper reports that construction includes new roads, lighting, and sensors to help agents better patrol areas at a cost of roughly $24.4 million per mile to U.S. taxpayers.

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order halting construction on the wall and redirecting funds that had been set aside for its construction.

Rosendale said that during his four-da-long trip to the Arizona border he spoke with Border Patrol agents, members of local law enforcement, customs officials, and government contractors about the construction shutdown, and warned that dire consequences were already apparent.

“Right now, with construction shut down, there is a hole in this barrier 150 miles wide, from Sasabe, Arizona to Yuma, and there are people putting together caravans right now that are starting to come north because they hear that the new administration’s policies are going to be a lot more lax on illegal immigration. Thousands and thousands and thousand of people,” Rosendale said.

“They’ve already, since the election seen a 15% increase in illegal crossings,” he added. “Only 30% of the detainees are from Mexico. We also have folks that are coming in that they are detaining from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, India. This is a really, really big problem for our national security.”

President Joe Biden signs his first executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Six of Biden’s 17 first-day executive orders dealt with immigration, such as halting work on a border wall in Mexico and lifting a travel ban on people from several predominantly Muslim countries. Photo: Evan Vucci, AP

A 2019 report by the Associated Press shows that nearly ¾ of all detainees at the southern border come from just four countries; Guatemala (21%), Mexico (19%), El Salvador (18%) and Honduras (16%). Additionally, the number of southwest border detentions has tripled during Trump’s four years in office as tens of thousands have headed north hoping to enter the U.S. before the crossing becomes more tenuous and escape from the poverty and violence of their home countries.

About 10.5 million people currently reside in the U.S. illegally according to a 2017 report from the Pew Research Center. Of these, roughly 40% did not cross into the United States illegally, but simply remained after their legally issued student or work visas expired, that according to a recent article in The New York Times.

“More than 60 percent have resided in the country for more than a decade, and they have more than four million U.S.-born children,” the Times article reads. “They account for 5 percent of the work force, representing the backbone of the agriculture, construction and hospitality sectors.”

The American Immigration Council reports that fewer than 5,000 undocumented immigrants currently reside in Montana, constituting less than ½ of 1% of the state’s total population.

Rosendale emphasized the increase in illegal drug seizures documented at border crossings at the Arizona border in the past year.

“There was 1,300 pounds of heroin that got across that border last year,” he said. “There were 8,600 pounds of meth that came across that border last year. There was 3½ million tabs of fentanyl that came across that border last year, and these guys are talking about increases. When those increases take place they don’t just land in Arizona. When the border becomes that porous every town across this country has the potential to become a border town.”

As security measures along the southern border have become more stringent, undocumented immigrants have increasingly been willing to risk crossings at more remote and hazardous locations.

File – In this June 23, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump tours a section of the border wall in San Luis, Ariz. President Donald Trump is expected to travel to the U.S. Mexico border on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021 to highlight his administration’s work on the border wall, the White House said Saturday, (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) – Evan Vucci, AP

“Children, infants and the elderly attempt to cross,” a story from the C/NET news website reports. “The conditions are extreme and some people will go for days without food or water. According to the Human Rights National Commission of Mexico and the American Civil Liberties Union, almost 5,000 people died attempting to cross the border between 1994 and 2007.”

Rosendale cited these humanitarian costs as an added motivation for his support for continuing border wall construction.

“They’re being sexually molested, they’re being physically abused, they’re forcing these women into prostitution, they’re taking those children and abusing them and forcing them to carry drugs across the border,” he said of the human smugglers paid to transport illegal immigrants into the U.S.

“If they in fact survive that area between the crossing and when they finally get picked up –  which could be anywhere from 10 miles to 60-miles traversing some very bad country – if they’re not killed by the severe exposure of the elements, then many of these folks are forced into servitude to pay off that debt – and if they’re not paying that debt off then guess what, they’ve got family members back in Nicaragua or El Salvador or Mexico that are at incredible risk. Anyone who walks around this country and thinks we’re helping these folks – we are not helping people when we expose them to that kind of treatment.”

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the current price migrants pay to get themselves smuggled from Central America ranges between $5000 and $12,000. Mexican drug cartels control routes along the Mexican portion of the journey, and are known to charge fees to smugglers and migrants who use them. The cartels are also known to kidnap and kill smugglers and migrants who fail to pay these fees.

Rosendale also highlighted the economic impact a cancellation of government contracts would have on local economies.

“When you see millions of dollars worth of heavy equipment; excavators and bulldozers parked on the lay-down yards, and the materials that they were actually constructing the wall with setting there on the side – it is very, very troubling,” he said. “In talking to the contractors they say, look, we’ve got about a 60-day window here where … we would be able to commence work again if we were able to get some authority and direction, but after 60 days, then people start pulling out.”

The Arizona Republic estimates the Trump administration secured about $16.3 billion for border wall construction, based upon congressional appropriations, reprogramming notices and contract award data. Of that, perhaps $8 billion has already been spent.

In 2017 the Washington Post estimated that completing the wall would take three and a half years and cost roughly $25 billion – enough to hire 50,000 teachers for 10 years.

President Donald Trump tours a section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall under construction Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021 in Alamo, Texas. Photo: Alex Brandon, AP

In early January the Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Mark Morgan, criticized any effort to stop construction, claiming it would cost taxpayers even more money to cancel the contracts.

“If the Biden team implements the immigration policies that they have campaigned on, that they promised the American people on Day One, they will create an unmitigated crisis in the first few weeks,” he said in a telephone interview with reporters.

However, contracting experts quoted by the Arizona Republic said Biden will have various legal options to stop construction, including the termination for convenience clauses built into federal contracts that allows the government to cancel them any time and provide adequate compensation to contractors.

“There is an established regulatory process to stop these contracts, if the president should so decide, in an efficient and orderly manner that will also fairly compensate the contractors for the work that has been performed,” said John Horan, a professor on government procurement law at Georgetown University Law Center.

In the final months before Biden assumed the presidency, contractors along the Arizona border proceeded at a break-neck pace, completing approximately 1.5 miles of construction a day with limited expectation that the project would ultimately be completed.

“Every single day, the Department of Homeland Security continues to dynamite, to blow up these rugged mountains in order to clear a path for a wall that, in all likelihood, will never be built,” Laiken Jordahl from the Center for Biological Diversity told National Public Radio in November, 2020  “It’s just destruction for destruction’s sake.”

Most environmental organizations oppose the wall’s construction, which has already cut paths across the Coronado National Memorial and Guadalupe Canyon, a wildlife corridor for Mexican gray wolves and endangered jaguars.

Environmentalists claim that existing walls have already blocked off or divided the habitats of several rare animals, including the jaguar, ocelot, mountain lions, desert big horn sheep, and low-flying pygmy owls.

Montana Representative Matt Rosendale speaks with a contractor near the Arizona/Mexico border. Photo: U.S. Representative Matt Rosendale

However, Rosendale continues to emphasize the importance of seeing the project through to some form of completion.

“We have to continue this construction,” he said. “We have to continue to raise the awareness and work with the administration to help them see the errors in his ways.”

Montana’s lone congressman in the House of Representatives said he his working on several pieces of legislation “to help sort out some of this immigration issue and stem some of these problems.”

David Murray is Natural Resources/Agriculture reporter for the Great Falls Tribune. To contact him with comments or story ideas; email dmurray@greatfallstribune.com or call (406) 403-3257. To preserve quality, in-depth journalism in northcentral Montana subscribe to the Great Falls Tribune.

Source: https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2021/02/04/montana-congressman-promotes-completion-southern-border-wall/4357546001/

The post Rosendale warns of dire consequences if southern border wall is not completed first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked President Biden’s attempt to put a moratorium on deportations for 100 days.

After Texas sued over the policy, the judge blocked Biden, via a temporary restraining order, from moving forward for 14 days.

Texas’ lawsuit claims that the administration would be violating an agreement it has with the Department of Homeland Security – and would require at least 180 days’ notice, as well as consultation, prior to implementing changes in immigration policy. It is unclear whether those terms are enforceable, but similar agreements were struck with several other states under the former administration.

CHAD WOLF: BIDEN IMMIGRATION ACTION ‘ABSOLUTELY’ GOES AGAINST THE LAW 

The U.S. district judge implemented a nationwide injunction because a geographically-limited order would not adequately protect Texas’ interests due to “the free flow of movement” of illegal aliens from other states.

Fox News exclusively reported over the weekend that an email sent last week to ICE officers called for stopping “all removals” and to “release them [undocumented immigrants] all, immediately.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Biden has pledged to move forward with a moratorium on deportations as his administration resets its approach toward U.S. immigration following the change in administration.

Noncitizens who have engaged in, or who are suspected to have engaged in, terrorism and espionage can still be deported.

The moratorium – which took effect on Friday – also does not apply to persons who were not physically present in the U.S. as of Nov. 1, 2020.

The Biden administration was planning to announce further guidance on the issue by Feb. 1.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-judge-blocks-biden-deportations

The post Federal judge blocks Biden’s 100-day moratorium on deportations first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

After tense negotiations and multiple rounds of televised theatrics, Congress has passed a spending bill. It’s 5,593 pages long and allocates $2.3 trillion, including more than $900 billion in COVID relief.

That’s a lot of money, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of need. Thanks in part to government lockdowns, more than 100 million Americans are out of the workforce. One in six restaurants is closed. Huge parts of the retail sector are in tatters. J. Crew, Pier 1, Neiman Marcus, Brooks Brothers, Century 21, and many others are in bankruptcy.

If there was ever a time that Americans need relief, it’s right now. So be glad to know there is something for you in this bill: It is entirely possible that you could get a $600 check, courtesy of the U.S. Congress.

That money, should you receive it, is yours with which to do what you wish. Buy a moderately sized television set and watch the free channels all night. Rent a Tesla for a day and drive it until the power runs out. Order two appetizers off the tasting menu at The French Laundry in Napa County (Tip not included). The sky’s the limit here. Go crazy. It’s good to be an American.

TRUMP THREATENS TO VETO MASSIVE COVID BILL, DEMANDS CONGRESS INCREASE DIRECT PAYMENTS

On the other hand, it’s also pretty good to be a Jordanian. The same bill passed (but not read) by Congress allocates $500 million for border security in that country. Congress wants to help Jordan build a wall along its 275-mile long border with Syria. Apparently, Congress is worried about illegal immigration in the Middle East, which is why it allocated another $250 million for additional border security in Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman. God knows those countries need it. Borders make a nation, remember that.

Except here in the United States, which is unique among nations through history, borders are not relevant. In fact, borders are racist. And that’s why this very same bill defunds American border security. It slashes funding for ICE detention space and blocks requests to hire more deportation officials. Immigration authorities in this country will have 11,000 fewer detention beds starting this year.

There’s also $33 million for what is called “democracy programs” in Venezuela because we’re experts on democracy. We’re spending $231 million to help pay down the national debt of Sudan, debt being another area we know a thing or two about. And just in case you were worried that American society wasn’t divided enough, this bill creates two new monuments to the interest groups that have the most political power at the moment. So the Smithsonian will create a women’s history museum, as well as what’s called the National Museum of the American Latino.

There’s a whole lot more for the rest of the world. This bill spends $10 million on what it calls “gender programs” in Pakistan. Now, Congress doesn’t specify exactly what those are. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., seems to know and he’s thrilled about it. Here he is on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning.

The post Tucker Carlson: Congress tells struggling Americans to take their $600 and shut up first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.