House Republicans Demand Answers on Border Crisis
Graham Piro • May 20, 2021 3:25 pmCongressional Republicans are pushing the Biden administration for answers on the border crisis as illegal crossings surge under President Joe Biden's leadership.
Five Republican lawmakers from the Committee on Education and Labor sent a letter Thursday to the secretaries of the Health and Human Services and Homeland Security departments raising concerns over how the Biden administration's policies are "fueling a child safety crisis." The lawmakers pointed to the potential for minors to become entangled in child trafficking.
"As migrants see more opportunities to enter the country, we are concerned about the harm that may befall the children and resurgence of child trafficking," the lawmakers wrote. "With record numbers of children crossing the border, we believe it is imperative to understand what the federal government is doing to protect children crossing the border. The administration must treat this crisis as the emergency that it is and actively prevent predators from exploiting weaknesses in the enforcement of our laws."
The letter requests answers to several questions concerning how the federal departments are handling the unaccompanied minors to prevent them from falling into the hands of human traffickers. It also requests details on how the agencies are coordinating to deal with the crisis. The letter is led by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Labor.
Early in 2021, a massive influx of children crossing the border left administration officials scrambling to arrange for detainment facilities for the unaccompanied children. March saw the largest number of unaccompanied children stopped at the border in U.S. history, with close to 19,000 being stopped by authorities. In April, the number of children detained at the border dropped but remained near a 20-year high as migrant numbers remained high overall.
Intel Community Warns Biden of Terror Threat at Mexican Border
Biden admin memo acknowledges terror threat from border crisis
Joseph Simonson • June 2, 2021 5:00 amIntelligence officials told the White House in a classified briefing that individuals with ties to terrorist groups may be illegally crossing the southern border, contradicting claims by Democrats that the immigration crisis does not constitute a national security threat.
Immigrants with connections to Islamic terrorist groups have begun taking advantage of what one senior Customs and Border Protection official called "a porous border." In April, border patrol officers arrested two Yemeni nationals on a terrorist watch list. National security officials have pledged to assist officers in counterterrorism operations at the U.S.-Mexico border to help the strapped agency handle the influx of threats, according to a memo reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The classified report on Yemeni nationals received "positive feedback" from senior Biden officials, according to one government document. It remains unclear whether the Biden administration ordered the study, which was written by Customs and Border Protection in conjunction with the National Counterterrorism Center. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
"Our southern border is too easy to cross and everyone knows it, but unfortunately securing the border has become a partisan issue with Republicans in favor and Democrats against," Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) told the Free Beacon after reviewing the government document. "But let me tell you who doesn’t care about our domestic partisan politics: human traffickers exploiting vulnerable women and children from Central America, and those that wish to do us harm."
Customs and Border Protection officials have recorded a surge in foreign nationals arriving on the southwest border from outside Latin America in recent months. Individuals from as far away as India are attempting to seek asylum in the United States, claiming the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the economy in their home countries. The revelation underscores challenges facing the United States as it sees some of the highest levels of illegal immigration in recent history.
Democrats have downplayed national security risks associated with illegal immigration for years, alleging that such stories are nothing more than a false pretense for the GOP to crack down on the border.
Multiple Democrats accused House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) of lying when he said terror suspects had been caught at the border. On March 15, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) said McCarthy was either "wrong or lying." Rep. Veronica Escobar (D., Texas) said claims of terrorists crossing the border were used "to fuel the divisions" in the country. And Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) called GOP questions about the issue "hysteria" and "not about the safety of Americans." Omar went as far as to say that investigations into whether terrorists are infiltrating the southern border are "dangerous and violent for those that are the least fortunate in our immigration population." None of the Democrats responded to requests for comment.
McCarthy said it is no surprise that America's enemies would attempt to exploit the border crisis. He accused the administration of publicly playing politics with the border even as it privately acknowledges potential threats.
"President Biden and Vice President Harris’s own policies created the crisis at the southern border. Not only do they continue to ignore the crisis, but their message that the border is open has been heard around the world," McCarthy said. "Border patrol agents told us that it was not just people from Central and South America attempting to cross our border, but people from overseas countries thousands of miles away, including Yemen. And despite the increased security concerns, the vice president—the government official appointed to oversee the border crisis—has gone 70 days without traveling to the border."
Monitoring the southern border for suspected terrorists has long been a priority for immigration authorities. Critics of the Biden administration say Democratic policies have incentivized illegal immigrants from around the world to try to enter the country. The record number of border crossings have overwhelmed Customs and Border Protection officials, making it far more difficult to flag or monitor individuals with suspected ties to terrorist groups or hostile regimes.
"Terrorist and transnational criminal organizations are well aware of the stress immigration officials are facing. They're monitoring us from across the border and then sending kids and family groups over. Once the agents respond, the cartels increase smuggling activities because they know we've deployed resources which are limited," a senior border patrol official told the Free Beacon. "Terror groups understand how these operations work and can exploit vulnerabilities to their benefit."
That cat-and-mouse game is backed by intel within Customs and Border Protection, the official said. Cartels and terrorist organizations closely watch publicly available border-apprehension numbers to know when law enforcement is spread thin.
The White House has publicly deferred questions on the topic to individual agencies. Although Biden's National Security Council has received reports on terrorist threats from the southern border, his administration has tried to maintain distance from the problem.
"Well, first, let me convey that these types of incidents are very uncommon," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on April 6 when asked about the apprehension of the two Yemeni nationals. "And [Customs and Border Protection] and [the Department of Homeland Security] can speak more to the timeline and the specifics, of course, in these particular cases and encounters. But encounters of known and suspected terrorists are very uncommon."
Rubio said the administration is acting in bad faith when it downplays border threats publicly, even as it acknowledges the gravity of the situation behind closed doors.
"We need to take the threat seriously and take immediate action to secure our border because terrorists are looking to exploit this known weakness," he said.
Pinpointing the exact number of suspected terrorists apprehended on the border remains difficult. Customs and Border Protection, which did not respond to a request for comment, does not provide complete data on such apprehensions because of national security concerns. A report from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security released in 2018 said 2,554 individuals on the terrorist watch list tried entering the country in 2017, which is about seven per day.
YOU WILL NOT HEAR OUT OF BETOMATIC'S BIG MOUTH A WORD ON JOE BIDEN'S INVASION OF HIS STATE OF TEXAS OR THE STAGGERING COST MIDDLE AMERICA WILL END UP PAYING FOR IT!!!
O’Rourke: Biden, Dems Have to Pass the ‘For the People Act’ — ‘Do or Die for America Right Now’
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “All In” that Senate Democrats and President Joe Biden have to do whatever it takes to pass the For the People Act because it was “do or die for America right now.”
O’Rourke said, “A few weeks ago when Senate Bill 7, the anti-voter elections bill that was working its way through the Texas House and Senate was being debated, we convened a rally outside the Texas Capitol in Austin, and on 24 hours’ notice, we were able to get the largest crowd of this year, of this legislative session standing up for voting rights and speaking out against voter suppression. So the people of Texas, more so than just Democrats, are fired up about this. They understand it is about our democracy. What you see in Texas, what passed in Georgia, in Florida, in Iowa, in Montana, this could spell the end of multiracial democracy that was guaranteed in 1965 by our fellow Texan, LBJ, when he signed into law the Voting Rights Act. So I think people understand just how precarious and important this moment is. It calls upon all of us to do all we can while we still have this window to act thanks by the way, to the Texas Statehouse Democrats who stopped that voter suppression bill, bought us a window of time. We may have about the month of June within which to get the for The People Act passed in the U.S. Senate, and that puts an end to what they’re trying to do in Texas, Georgia, and about 45 other state legislatures across the country.”
He continued, “I want the Senate Democrats and President Biden to take a page from the Texas House Democrats…They’re in the minority, and yet they were able to stop this awful voter suppression bill in Texas. Democrats in the U.S. Senate are in the majority. Let’s be very clear about what Republicans want to do. Not only do they not want to investigate the January 6th insurrection where five people, including a Capitol police officer, were killed, they want to roll back the right to vote in almost every single state in this country. Chris, you’ve got to understand this, in Texas, that bill was going to allow for the overturning of elections based on just the allegation of fraud. So you can imagine in 2024, a Democrat wins the 40 Electoral College votes in Texas. Republicans could allege fraud and overturn that election just as we know they’re going to try to do in Georgia and Florida and other states unless we have the For the People Act. So this is a time for Democrats to act. This is our moment of truth to step up and stand up for this country. We lose this moment at our peril and to the peril of American democracy. I really think it is make or break, do or die for America right now. We’ve got to have those Senate Democrats and President Biden come through for us.”
He added, “We need the Senate to pass the For the People Act. I just think it is that simple. That’s the solution, and Senate Democrats have to step up and get it done.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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