RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/migrant-surge-brings-killers-and-criminal-gangs/

Former New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly, the department’s longest-serving commissioner, cautioned on Sunday that New York City’s quality of life “has really deteriorated.” Migrant crime is a major reason.

Venezuela’s notorious Tren de Aragua gang and El Salvador’s feared MS-13 — what former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker calls “prison-spawned gangs” — are threatening to take over American cities. They bring “mindless knuckle-dragging violence,” warns Swecker. They’re the “most dangerous gangs on the planet.”

Swecker speculates that countries are emptying their prisons deliberately. Gang leaders setting up crime rings in the U.S. “come out of the muck and the slime of the South American prisons.”

While law enforcement officials here are warning us about the collapse of public safety, left-wing pols deny there’s a problem. Ana Maria Archila, co-director of New York’s Working Families Party, calls the “chaos and insecurity” people are feeling a “false sense.” She blames it on racism and xenophobia, not reality. Open your eyes, Ms. Archila.

Public safety is visibly spiraling downward: migrants beating cops in Times Square; migrants running prostitution rings; migrants on mopeds robbing pedestrians; migrants shoplifting and stripping retail stores; and now a migrant who recently left New York has been arrested for killing a Georgia nursing student, Laken Riley. Not everyone violating the border is a hardened criminal, but President Joe Biden’s open borders are allowing the worst to get in.

When Mayor Eric Adams was asked on Feb. 20 about stabbing incidents and violence against cops at the Randall’s Island shelter, Adams said that “even the most peaceful person — being confined to an area with 3,000 people … there comes a time where it just irritates you.”

“Irritates”? Adams is downplaying a serious threat.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-truth-about-illegal-alien-criminality/

This past December, U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) personnel encountered 301,983 aliens who had crossed America’s unprotected southern border unlawfully. That astonishing, unprecedented figure pushed the total number of illegals who had entered U.S. territory during 2023 to roughly 2.54 million. If we include also the estimated 840,000 so-called “got-aways” known to have slipped into the American interior, the total jumps to about 3.4 million. That is more than the populations of all the cities in America except New York and Los Angeles, and more than the populations of 22 separate U.S. states – all in just a single year.

These figures stand in stark contrast to those of 2020, the final year of the Trump administration, when the corresponding numbers were 516,908 illegal-alien encounters with border authorities, plus another 119,000 “got-aways,” for a combined total of just under 636,000 unlawful intruders – scarcely 18.7 percent of the 2023 total.

Democrat defenders of open-borders immigration policies and their allies in the media have long claimed that illegal aliens make wonderful neighbors who, per capita, commit significantly fewer crimes against persons and property than do native-born American citizens. President Biden’s campaign co-chair Rep. Veronica Escobar, for example, repeated this mantra as recently as Friday on CNN Newsroom, in reaction to the high-profile murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, allegedly by a Venezuelan national living illegally in the United States.

But common sense alone should tell us that people who blithely ignore American immigration laws are likely to disrespect federal, state and local laws as well. Indeed, as Ronald Mortensen  pointed out in The Hill, “virtually all adult, illegal aliens commit felonies” such as forgery, fraud, identity theft, and perjury, “to procure the documents they need to get jobs, to drive and to obtain other benefits that are restricted to U.S. citizens.” These documents include Social Security cards, drivers’ licenses, green cards, birth certificates, and I-9 forms, among others.

The crimes of illegal aliens also include a multitude of violent, bloody, highly destructive offenses. And this is by no means a new phenomenon. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that looked at the criminal histories of 55,322 aliens who had “entered the country illegally and were still illegally in the country at the time of their incarceration in federal or state prison or local jail during fiscal year 2003.” Those 55,322 illegals had been arrested 459,614 times — an average of 8.3 arrests apiece — and had committed almost 700,000 separate criminal offenses, or roughly 12.7 offenses each. Approximately 12 percent of their arrests were for violent crimes such as homicide, robbery, assault, and sex-related offenses; 15 percent were for property offenses like burglary, larceny, theft, and vandalism; 24 percent were for drug crimes; and the rest were for a wide array of transgressions like DUI, fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, weapons violations, immigration crimes, and obstruction of justice.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/19/the-border-crisis-has-brought-chaos-to-america/

n 2023, the US reached a new milestone. Its foreign-born population reached 15 per cent, the highest-ever recorded percentage since the nation’s founding. This recent surge is driven primarily by illegal entry via the US-Mexico border, where the number of migrants continues to rise. In December 2023, we saw a new record monthly high in illegal entrants on the south-west border.

It is no exaggeration to say that the latest wave of migrants has caused a crisis. This unexpected influx has overwhelmed towns and cities across the country and left them straining to find the funds to house and feed these newcomers. Local news is full of stories of crimes being committed by newly arrived migrants.

Americans increasingly recognise that the situation is out of control. Some three-quarters say the condition of the south-west border is a ‘crisis’ or ‘very serious’. In fact, immigration has become the primary concern of American voters, recently overtaking even inflation and the economy.

Until recently, President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats tried to argue that Republicans were exaggerating the border problem. But as the situation has deteriorated, that line has been harder to maintain.

This is a crisis of Biden’s own making. Biden, along with secretary of homeland security Alejandro Mayorkas and others in the administration, have systematically adopted measures that have encouraged a largely unrestrained inflow of migrants.

Having campaigned in 2020 on overturning Trump’s immigration policies, Biden got to work quickly. In his first 100 days in office, he signed 94 executive orders designed to dismantle the border protections installed by the Trump administration. He suspended the ‘remain in Mexico’ policy, which required applicants to stay in Mexico while they awaited an asylum interview. He also scrapped agreements with Central American nations to limit immigration to the US from those countries. And he tried to impose a moratorium on most deportations, though this was blocked by a federal judge. Biden did, however, manage to stop construction on the border wall.

https://thespectator.com/topic/2024-invasion-southern-border/

Donald Trump crushed the New Hampshire primary, as every poll in Alpha Centauri predicted he would. Nevertheless, his sole remaining opponent for the GOP nomination, Nikki Haley, “vowed to fight on.” Why? A cynical person might suggest the interaction of two volatile liquids: cash, on the one hand, and consultants, on the other. Haley is swimming in both. The cash is coming from two sources: brittle, establishment faux conservatives like the Kochs and wily Dem operatives like the billionaire Reid Hoffman who, in addition to shoveling gobs of money to Nikki Haley, is also funding such entrepreneurial activities as E. Jean Carroll’s bizarre lawsuit against Donald Trump.

In a sane world, the support of a malignant figure like Hoffman would be disqualifying for Haley. Will Haley have dropped out (“suspended her campaign”) by the time you read this? Maybe. I predict, though, that as long as there is cash in the kitty, Haley’s consultants will “advise” her to “fight on.” After all, consultants are people, too, and they have mortgages and therapy to pay for.

But whenever the money runs out and Haley disappears, one thing that is not going to change is the overriding issue of this campaign. People are worried about inflation, yes; the economy, of course; America’s overextension in the foreign wars that have started since Joe Biden’s tremulous hand lay on the Bible and he promised faithfully to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” you betcha.

But as Iowa and New Hampshire and every poll taken across the fruited plain remind us, the one overwhelming, all-absorbing, keep-you-up-at-night concern is the southern border, which is to say the lack of a southern border. People everywhere, in the trenches in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, as well as far-off Iowa and New Hampshire, are terrified by the hordes of trespassers pouring over the southern border.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/mayorkas-is-not-the-right-target-for-impeachment-over-the-border/

There is one official in the United States who has the undeniable statutory and constitutional authority to end the border catastrophe — for which that official is wholly responsible. That official is not Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It is President Joe Biden. This is not to say Mayorkas is undeserving of the impeachment that House Republicans approved on Tuesday — only after losing a similar, party-line squeaker last week in a fit of incompetent vote-counting. But since this is merely a gesture — since there is not the slightest possibility that the Democrat-controlled Senate is going to convict and remove high-ranking Biden administration officials for carrying out Biden policy Democrats support — why not aim the gesture at the right target?

Like many of us, I’ve been ambivalent about the Mayorkas-impeachment gambit. Notwithstanding the ill-informed insistence of Representative Ken Buck (R., Colo.) in a National Review column this week, there’s no real doubt that the willful failure to secure the border is an impeachable offense, and that Mayorkas has willfully failed to secure the border, his main job. Nevertheless, in my 2014 book on impeachment, Faithless Execution, in discussing the debates that led to the congressional impeachment power that Madison regarded as “indispensable,” I made much — because the Framers had made much — of the interplay between impeachment and the constitutional concept of the unitary executive.

https://thespectator.com/topic/stalemate-illegal-immigration-border-crime/

Few moments are less promising to reach a bipartisan deal than the months before a presidential election. And few issues present greater obstacles than limiting illegal immigration. Even the word “illegal” is contested. Progressives say it is too harsh. Conservatives say it is simply truthful.

It is no surprise, then, that the compromise “border-security bill” gasped its final breath this week. The Senate bill, negotiated by a Democrat, a Republican and an Independent, met a hostile reception as soon as the text was released. House Speaker Mike Johnson declared it “dead on arrival.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reluctantly brought it up for a procedural vote, where it went down in flames.

Why such stiff opposition? Because the bill contains not one but two divisive issues. The first is that the “immigration bill” also funds Ukraine’s war with Russia and, to a lesser extent, Israel’s war with Hamas and Hezbollah. Funding for Israel has broad support, but funding for Ukraine does not. There is considerable opposition among Republicans and some progressive Democrats to giving Ukraine another $60 billion. (Faced with the defeat of the combined bill, Schumer is considering a separate package to fund Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with no mention of immigration.)

The second problem goes to the heart of the immigration bill. It includes provisions that would allow some 5,000 to 8,000 migrants to cross illegally into the US each day before tougher restrictions kick in.

Almost every Republican, including many moderates, are appalled by those numbers. They remember when President Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security called 1,000 illegal crossings per day a crisis. If that was a crisis, they say, what do you call five- to eight-times that many?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/the-senate-border-deal-should-be-rejected-on-the-merits/

EXCERPTS:

The proposal would undermine the existing presumptions in the law that illegal aliens should be apprehended, detained, and rapidly removed.
 

On X/Twitter, Fox News’ superb reporter Bill Melugin has a good analysis of the long-awaited Senate border legislation. It is very fair in presenting what is enticing about the proposal. The problem is that what is enticing is disingenuous and, ultimately, counterproductive.

That is to say, the good in the bipartisan Senate negotiators’ proposal — and there definitely is some — (a) can already be accomplished under current law, and (b) would require faith that the Biden administration will for some reason enforce these provisions even though it has systematically refused to enforce existing border-security provisions. More important, to get the illusory good in the proposal, Congress would have to enact provisions in the deal that would both undermine existing statutory restrictions and etch into our law magnets for illegal immigration.

Both legally and practically speaking, the border can be shut down, right this instant. There is no legal requirement that any alien who sets foot on American soil be permitted to apply for asylum (which is a discretionary act of national clemency, not a right of the alien). There is similarly no mandate that such aliens be routed into a “process” that enables them to remain — even though their first contact with our nation is to flout its laws, and even though empowering illegal aliens this way is patently harmful to aliens who are attempting to enter by complying with our laws.

To state it clearly, it is not true under existing federal law that an illegal alien who makes it onto U.S. soil has a right to be processed or seek asylum. As things stand, that is a wayward proposition, and there is no need for a new law to reform it. To the extent that the senators claim otherwise, they are either misinformed or misleading us.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-goal-of-an-open-border/

For decades, progressives have dreamed of changing Texas from a “red” Republican state to a “blue” Democrat one. This dream is realistic because Democrats have succeeded in turning several western states “blue.”

For example, California was the state that launched the political career of President Ronald Reagan. Prior to his presidency, Reagan served two terms as Governor of California. Today, California is a progressive wasteland, rapidly losing population and businesses.

Not long ago, Republicans controlled Washington, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. Today, Democrats either totally or partially lead those states.

One of the major reasons these states have become Democrat bastions is the influx of Hispanic immigration, both legal and illegal. In the last midterm election, a survey showed that 64% of Hispanic voters supported Democrat candidates, while only 33% supported Republican candidates.

Thus, boosting the size of the Hispanic population helps improve the political chances for Democrats. It is certainly a major reason Democrats, like President Biden, encouraged undocumented migrants to cross our border. In his first press conference as President, Biden said he was “flattered” that undocumented migrants were surging into the country.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/06/the-moral-hazard-of-an-open-border/

The political left argues that the immigrants illegally crossing our borders are in search of better lives, and that those who want to stop the flood are hateful, heartless bigots and racists. Morality is a certainly central to the dilemma, but it’s not the morality that much of the Democratic Party wants everyone to believe it is.

An average of more than 200,000 immigrants a month have illegally jumped America’s southern border during Joe Biden’s three years in the White House, almost four times the monthly rate of crossings under Donald Trump. By any fair description, our southern border is open, and this has created a humanitarian crisis of emigres being processed in cities where there are not enough services to meet the surging demand.

The Democrats and their marketing department, known as the media, insist that we have a principled obligation to absorb the immigrants. Some seem to think the poem found on the Statue of Liberty that asks “ancient lands” to “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” is actually U.S. law. Or at least a tenet that we all have the duty to live by.

To drive this point home, a number of Democrat-run municipalities declared themselves to be “sanctuary cities,” where the local government refuses to comply with federal immigration law and to cooperate with immigration officials. Chicago’s welcoming ordinance, for instance, “means that the city will not ask about your immigration status, disclose that information to authorities, or, most importantly, deny you city services based on your immigration status.”