Tag: BORDER PATROL

Emergency Declaration Drama Mitch Fails to Prevent Revolt as Border Remains Open

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has broken a reported promise to President Donald Trump, admitting Monday that he failed to prevent Republican Senators from passing a resolution blocking a national emergency declaration on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Speaking at an event Louisville, McConnell said that while the resolution will pass in the Senate, it is highly likely the House will vote to uphold the president’s veto. “What is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president and then in all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the House,” he said.

The admission comes after Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) announced Sunday that he joined three of his fellow Republican senators to vote with 47 Senate Democrats in backing an anti-declaration resolution which passed the House. “I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress. We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing,” Paul said, the Bowling Green Daily News reported.

In addition to Paul, Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Susan Collins (R-ME) will also support the measure, while Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Cory Gardner (R-CO), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have not made their position on resolution public.

Later this month, the Senate will vote on the resolution to prevent President Trump from reallocating, without Congress, billions of dollars to fund the construction of a Southern border wall. In February, President Trump announced that he would declare an emergency to build the wall after Congress passed legislation providing $1.3 billion for barriers. He plans to divert $3.6 billion from military construction of the wall and transfer another $3.1 billion towards the construction. As the New York Times reported, McConnell promised the president to support the declaration, signaling that he would quell any opposition to the measure.

[A]fter a particularly unpleasant meeting with the secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, the president was threatening to torpedo the deal, according to two people briefed on the exchange. Several hours and several phone calls later, McConnell had persuaded Mr. Trump to once again agree to sign the bill to avert another government shutdown looming at midnight Friday.

But persuasion came at a price: The president would declare a national emergency to try to secure wall funding without congressional approval, he told the majority leader — and Mr. McConnell would have to back him.

Later in his remarks Monday, the Senate Majority Leader said attempted to talk the president out of issuing a declaration, saying that it may set a precedent of abuse by future Democrat administration seeking to prosecute their progressive agenda without Congress. “That’s one reason I argued without success that he not take this route,” McConnell said.

“I was one of those hoping the president would not take the national emergency route,” added the Kentucky Republican. “Once he decided to do that I said I would support it, but I was hoping he wouldn’t take that particular path.”

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Violent Criminals, Drug Smugglers Exploit Incomplete Border Barriers in Texas

Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector seize bundles of marijuana. (File Photo: John Moore/Getty Images)

By Bob Price

Violent criminal aliens, gang members, and drug smugglers continue to exploit gaps in border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley Sector to move into the U.S. from Mexico.

Agents assigned to the Rio Grande City Station patrolling near Roma, Texas, came upon a Salvadoran national who had just crossed the border illegally last week. The agents transported the man to the station where they conducted a biometric background investigation on the subject, according to information provided by Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials.

The background investigation revealed the man to be a previously deported criminal alien who is a member of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). His record includes an extensive history in New York, where police arrested him for criminal possession of a weapon with intent to use and resisting arrest, officials stated.

A few days later, Weslaco Station agents arrested an Ecuadoran man after he illegally crossed the border. After transporting the migrant to the station, agents learned he has an active warrant from Anoka County, Minnesota, for a charge of 3rd degree sexual conduct, Border Patrol officials stated. Deputies with the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office previously arrested the man.

In addition to previously deported criminal aliens exploiting the incomplete border barriers, drug smugglers also take advantage of the weakness in border security and the fact that RGV Sector agents are occupied with nearly 1,000 migrant apprehensions every day.

On Wednesday, Rio Grande City Station agents patrolling near La Rosita, Texas, came upon a group of people carrying large bundles. The suspected drug smugglers were walking north from the Rio Grande River officials reported.

As agents approached the group, the illegal aliens jumped back into the Rio Grande and swam to Mexico. The agents searched the area they found three bundles containing more than 175 pounds of marijuana. The agents stated the value of the seized drugs at approximately $326,000.

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Illegal Alien Allegedly Beat Infant to Death in Texas

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A father brutally murdered his son.

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An illegal alien living in Texas is accused of beating his two-week-old son to death last week.

“Luis Angel Pacheco, 27, is charged with injury to a child, but that is expected to be upgraded due to the child’s death,” according to KTRK. “Pacheco is accused of causing severe injuries to his son’s skull, stomach and groin area.”

Pacheco reportedly told authorities that he had accidentally dropped his son on a concrete floor while changing his diaper. He said that he had not told his wife what happened, and waited hours – until his son’s breathing became heavy and labored – to call 911.

Authorities spoke with the child’s doctor, who said that the trauma sustained by the child was not consistent with Pacheco’s claim that he accidentally dropped his son.

The child died on Thursday, after spending several days in the hospital on life support.

Pacheco was released on a $250,000 bond, but also has an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer.

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Woman In ICE Custody After Attacking Man Wearing MAGA Hat In Mexican Restaurant…

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FALMOUTH (CBS) – The woman who was charged with confronting a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat inside a Falmouth Mexican restaurant was taken into custody by ICE. The department said she was in the country illegally.

Police said Rosiane Santos walked by Bryton Turner as he was eating dinner at Casa Vallarta and knocked the hat off his head. She then allegedly confronted him verbally.

Turner recorded video showing some of the confrontation.

Falmouth Police charged Santos with disorderly conduct following the incident earlier this month. On Tuesday, ICE took her into custody.

“Deportation officers with ICE’s Fugitive Operations Team arrested Rosiane Santos, an unlawfully present citizen of Brazil, today near Falmouth, Massachusetts,” said ICE spokesman John Mohan.

Turner said he was just trying to eat a nice meal when Santos grabbed his hat supporting President Trump.

“It’s just a hat at the end of the day,” Turner told WBZ after the incident. “I don’t really understand why people can’t just express themselves anymore, everybody has to get mad.”

Santos was later released from ICE custody. She has been ordered to appear before an immigration judge for removal proceedings.

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California, 15 Other States Sue Trump over Border Wall Emergency Declaration

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By Joel B. Pollak

The State of California and fifteen other states sued President Donald Trump on Monday over his declaration Friday of a national emergency and his plans to redirect federal funds to the construction of a wall on the southern border.

The lawsuit, as expected, was filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, and was joined by attorneys general from “Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia — all of which have Democratic attorneys general and all but one of which are led by Democratic governors,” the Wall Street Journal noted Monday.

However, ten of the 26 Democrat attorneys general have not joined the lawsuit — at least not yet, as of Tuesday.

The complaint, filed in federal court in the Northern District of California, decries what it calls “President Donald J. Trump’s flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution.” It adds:

Contrary to the will of Congress, the President has used the pretext of a manufactured “crisis” of unlawful immigration to declare a national emergency and redirect federal dollars appropriated for drug interdiction, military construction, and law enforcement initiatives toward building a wall on the United States-Mexico border. This includes the diversion of funding that each of the Plaintiff States receive.

The complaint continues through several familiar talking points from the Democratic Party:

The federal government’s own data prove there is no national emergency at the southern border that warrants construction of a wall. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) data show that unlawful entries are near 45-year lows. The State Department recognizes there is a lack of credible evidence that terrorists are using the southern border to enter the United States. Federal data confirm that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are native-born Americans. CBP data demonstrate that dangerous drugs are much more likely to be smuggled through, not between, official ports of entry—rendering a border wall ineffectual at preventing their entry into this country.

Later in the complaint, the states claim that the border wall is not only unnecessary, but that it will also cause environmental damage. The complaint also claims a border barrier will not block “drug smuggling corridors.”

President Trump said Friday that, following earlier patterns, he expected a legal challenge in California, to lose there and in the liberal Ninth Circuit, and then to prevail at the Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 5-4 majority.

Unlike President Barack Obama’s invocation of executive powers to declare the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) programs, Trump’s use of emergency powers is arguably within the powers assigned to him by the Constitution and delegated to him by Congress under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, according to analysis by Breitbart News legal editor Ken Klukowski.

Many experts agree. The Journal notes that “courts have been reluctant to second-guess the president on national-security matters,” and quotes liberal constitutional law professor Mark Tushnet of Harvard as saying that the case is “not a slam dunk” for the states, though he added he believes there is a “decent chance” that they could prevail.

The case is State of California et al v. Trump et al, number 3:19-cv-00872, Northern District of California.

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U.S. Taxpayers Fund Border Walls in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Middle East

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By John Binder

American taxpayers are continuing to fund border security measures and border walls in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Lebanon with President Trump’s signing of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill.

While the United States-Mexico border received only $1.3 billion for construction of a border wall at the overwhelmed southern border with soaring illegal immigration, foreign countries are getting help from American taxpayers to secure their borders.

The Republican-Democrat spending bill signed by Trump last week provides Pakistan with at least $15 million in U.S. taxpayer money for “border security programs” as well as funding for “cross border stabilization” between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In total, the spending bill provides about $6 billion in American taxpayer money to finance foreign militaries, some of which can be used by Lebanon to “strengthen border security and combat terrorism.”

The spending bill provides about $112.5 million in U.S. taxpayer money for economic support for Egypt, including $10 million for scholarships for Egyptian students. Egypt’s military receives about $1.3 billion in the spending bill, some of which can be for border security programs.

Additionally, the spending bill includes:

Meanwhile, illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border has swelled in recent months. In December 2018, the last month for illegal border crossing totals, there were close to 51,000 border crossings. The month before, there were nearly 52,000 border crossings. Experts project there to be at least 606,000 crossings this year at the southern border, a level of illegal immigration that surpasses nearly every year of illegal immigration under President Obama.

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