Sen. Graham: COVID Restrictions Apply to Americans, But Not to Illegal Immigrants
(CNSNews.com) – With the highly contagious delta variant sweeping the country and the CDC once again urging even vaccinated Americans to resume wearing face masks, we should know how much of the recent COVID surge stems from the ongoing border surge, Sen. Lindsey Graham says.
Graham is demanding answers from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas:
“I write today to discuss my ongoing concerns about the humanitarian and public health crisis at the southern border,” Graham wrote to Mayorkas on July 26.
“During one of the greatest public health emergencies in recent history, and at a time when illegal crossings are nearing 1.2 million migrants this fiscal year alone, it’s important to understand whether migrants are receiving appropriate COVID-19 testing and screening upon apprehension.”
Graham told Fox News on Tuesday: “So what I'm asking the Homeland Security Secretary to do is to tell me and the American people -- of the million people you've apprehended, how many of them have been released into the United States, how many of them do you test, what is the positive rate, what is the system in place to test people before they're released into the United States.”
Graham said the Biden administration’s COVID restrictions clearly do not apply to the southern border:
We have travel bans to some of our best allies with a robust healthcare system. We have absolutely nothing in place regarding illegal immigrants coming from the most severe hotspots in the world with no healthcare. Doesn't make any sense.
And what I'm trying to do is ask the Biden administration to have an accounting for how they deal with the million coming across, how many are tested, how many are released in the United States.
They're basically telling me to go to hell. I've written to Dr. Fauci. And I’ve asked him, what is your view of taking Title 42 COVID policy away from DHS and the Border Patrol. He said, that's not my area. Dr. Fauci, you're the medical adviser to president about COVID.
The Border Patrol agents and their families are American heroes. I've been to the border several times. It's complete chaos. I don't know how they go to work every day. They're American heroes.
And I can tell you this -- the Biden administration doesn't have their back. It doesn't seem to matter that the border communities are exposed to illegal immigrants. What matters is the Biden administration is trying to restrict us as Americans, and is just completely deaf, dumb and blind to the problem created by COVID through illegal immigration.
Graham said if Mayorkas doesn’t answer his letter, “that’s an affront to me as a senator, it’s an affront to the border communities, it’s an affront to the Border Patrol agents and their families who are on the front line of this COVID mess.
“I'm not going to take a nonresponse as a response. We're about to ratchet up the pressure on the Biden administration to account for this stupid policy at the border.”
The text of Graham’s July 26 letter to Secretary Mayorkas follows:
Dear Secretary Mayorkas:
I write today to discuss my ongoing concerns about the humanitarian and public health crisis at the southern border. During one of the greatest public health emergencies in recent history, and at a time when illegal crossings are nearing 1.2 million migrants this fiscal year alone, it’s important to understand whether migrants are receiving appropriate COVID-19 testing and screening upon apprehension.
I am also concerned that the recent policy changes by the Biden administration are only making matters worse. Although we are seeing historic numbers of illegal crossings, the use of Title 42 authority to slow the spread of COVID-19 has assisted U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers in managing an overwhelming influx of migrants during the deadly pandemic. Recession of this important public health tool, without other immigration reforms, will undoubtedly lead to an increase of migrants at the southern border at a time when our processing facilities are already full.
These questions have been asked of Dr. Fauci as well. This year, I wrote to him twice on this topic. Yet, he has pointed me to your agency for answers. Therefore, I will ask you similar questions about the testing procedures at the southern border.
- Are all migrants being tested for COVID-19 when they are apprehended by CBP officials?
- If so, what are the testing procedures and policies for migrants?
- What percentage of migrants test positive for COVID-19?
- When you receive a positive test result, what are the policies for quarantining or providing care for the affected individual?
- Finally, please provide the number of migrants who have been detained and then released into the United States since January 20, 2021.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, and please do not hesitate to contact Katherine Nikas if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Lindsey O. Graham
United States Senator
Michelle Malkin: COVID-19, Catholics, and Illegal Alien Charities
By Michelle Malkin | July 28, 2021 | 2:45pm EDT
It seems there's no sanctuary from draconian mask and vaccine mandates. You can't get on a plane, go to school, work at a hospital, perform onstage, compete in sports, exercise at a gym, worship in church, or walk outside without the long shadows of Big Pharma and the COVID-19 control freaks looming over every aspect of your lives. Every breath, every movement, every tweet, every Facebook post, every Instagram meme is being monitored for compliance.
There is one escape hatch, however. If you're an illegal alien, congratulations! Privileged border trespassers have been handed special "Get out of COVID Tyranny" cards, while the Biden administration is poised to send vaccine squads door to door to harass law-abiding citizens. Immigration rules don't apply to illegals, and neither do the invasive pandemic rules imposed on our citizenry.
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin reported on Tuesday that "after an incident at a Whataburger, police in La Joya (Texas), say they've learned illegal immigrants who test positive for COVID-19 are being released from federal custody to a local Catholic charity in the (Rio Grande Valley), which then places them in local hotels without notice."
Border Report, a publication of Nexstar Media Group, also discovered that Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, or CCRGV, had placed illegal aliens at a local hotel that "reportedly did not contain them inside their rooms. The La Joya Police Department issued a public health warning citing reports that visibly sick migrants had been at a burger joint not wearing masks." Border Report spoke to CCRGV executive director Sister Norma Pimentel, who told the outlet that the situation "has been corrected" and "a security guard was hired at the hotel to keep the migrants inside."
It is unknown how many COVID-19-positive illegals have been housed at hotels in Texas, but the federal government's outsourcing arrangement with Catholic Charities has been in place in the Rio Grande Valley since at least May 2014. I interviewed former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Victor Avila in April about illegal alien-coddling activities at the CCRGV he observed, including routing untold numbers of border trespassers onto buses or planes without IDs (try doing that, my fellow Americans!). Avila also told me he saw envelopes being handed to the illegal aliens at the Catholic Charities facility, which he believed to be cash.
Catholic Charities certainly has money to burn. As I reported in my 2019 book, "Open Borders, Inc.," Catholic Charities raked in an annual revenue of nearly $4 billion in 2016, $1.2 billion of which came from government sources. Taxpayer funding is the largest single source of funding for Catholic Charities, comprising more than one-third of its total funding.
Operating under the umbrella of the illegal alien amnesty-promoting U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities employs an estimated 65,000 employees engaged in affordable housing, health, welfare, employment, and immigration and refugee resettlement. In 2016 alone, Catholic Charities' members served 413,050 immigrant and refugee clients. Immigrants (no distinction is made between legal and illegal) received help with "Dreamer" applications, detention and removal hearings, visa applications, and citizenship services. Refugees received "interpreter services, job placement, employment training, outreach, counseling, legal services, and matched savings programs."
As I warned in my book, what every Catholic who believes in a sovereign America needs to understand is that the radicalized leaders of Catholic Charities are using your collection-plate contributions to implement Marxist-inspired liberation theology principles; think of it as faith-based socialism for a borderless planet. What every taxpayer needs to know is how much of this Catholic largesse for open borders has actually been subsidized by you.
By one Washington Times estimate, some 57 government agencies now contract with the Catholic Church. From the federal Corporation for National and Community Service in 2016, for example, Catholic Charities agencies scooped up $14 million. That year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provided the largest infusion of tax dollars, followed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other major agencies. The federal funding includes both direct government grants as well as "pass-through" money funneled through to Catholic agencies from federal grants to other state and local entities or nonprofit groups (including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops).
Catholic Charities has also reaped unknown financial and in-kind contributions from governmental and intergovernmental agencies ranging from the European Union to the United Nations to the governments of Austria, Australia, Canada, Columbia, El Salvador, Germany, Honduras, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K., and the World Bank.
It's bad enough the multibillion-dollar illegal alien racket run by Catholic Charities puts "welcoming the (border-jumping) stranger" above America's own homeless, jobless, veterans, Native Americans, and poor. But for federally funded Catholic Charities and Biden officials to work together to undermine our borders and open our doors to hordes of maskless COVID-19-carrying trespassers flouting our laws — as we citizens suffer under unceasing pandemic oppression — is unholy treachery.
Michelle Malkin is a conservative blogger at michellemalkin.com, syndicated columnist, author, and founder of hotair.com. Michelle
Illegal Aliens Convicted of Homicide Return to the US
By Terence P. Jeffrey | July 28, 2021 | 6:58am EDT
In June, the U.S. attorney's office for the district of Arizona charged six individuals who had previously been convicted of homicide in the U.S. with illegally reentering the country.
This statistic — published in the U.S. attorney's monthly report on immigration and border crimes — shines a revelatory light on our justice system and our border security.
Each of these six individuals convicted of homicide had come to the U.S. from a foreign country. While here, they killed someone. Law enforcement had tracked them down and gathered sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt they had committed homicide. They were brought before a court and either pleaded guilty or were convicted. They were then incarcerated.
But then, they were freed — and deported from this country.
Then, they illegally reentered the U.S.
At some point, these individuals convicted of homicide were caught here again — and the U.S. attorney for Arizona charged them with "illegal reentry."
Since January 2020, the office of the U.S. attorney for Arizona has been putting out monthly reports that cite both the number of aliens it charged that month with "illegal reentry" and the subset of those who had previously been convicted in the U.S. of a non-immigration crime.
It charged 241 aliens with illegal reentry in June, according to this report. Of those 241, 178 "individuals had previously been convicted of non-immigration criminal offenses in the U.S.," the report said.
It also said that 40 "had violent crime convictions," of which, "6 individuals had homicide convictions, 8 individuals had sex offense convictions" and "6 individuals had domestic violence convictions."
In addition, "10 had property crime convictions," "36 had DUI convictions" and "90 had drug crime convictions."
How diligently has our federal government been working to secure our border against illegal aliens like those cited in this report from the U.S. attorney for Arizona?
"108 of those 241 individuals had been deported three or more times," said the report.
In the full 18 months on record (January 2020 through June 2021), the U.S. attorney for Arizona has charged 28 illegal aliens who had previously been convicted of homicide in this country with illegally reentering this country.
Apparently, people convicted of homicide do not respect U.S. immigration laws.
In the last 12 full months that President Donald Trump was in office (January 2020 to December 2020), 12 illegal aliens who had previously been convicted of homicide in the U.S. were charged by the U.S. attorney for Arizona with illegally reentering the country. That was an average of one per month.
In January — the month of the inauguration — no illegal alien who had previously been convicted of homicide in the U.S. was charged by the U.S. attorney for Arizona with illegally reentering the country.
In the five full months that President Joe Biden has been in office (February through June), 16 illegal aliens who had previously been convicted of homicide in the U.S. were charged with illegally reentering the country. That was an average of more than three per month.
The six individuals previously convicted of homicide charged in June in Arizona with having illegally reentered the U.S. were the most in any of the 18 months so far on record.
Whatever the reason may be for the recent increase in the number of individuals previously convicted of homicide being prosecuted in Arizona for illegally reentering the country, the solution is obvious: Secure the border.
This week, Biden released what he calls his "blueprint" for immigration reform. In this document, he claims that in the past six months, his "administration has made considerable progress to build a fair, orderly and humane immigration system."
Is that why the federal government is discovering an increasing number of individuals who were convicted of homicide and previously deported?
Biden noted in his "blueprint" that his budget "redirects resources from a needless border wall to make robust investments in smarter border security measures, like border technology and modernization of land ports of entry, that are proven to be more effective at improving safety and security at the border."
But would a man previously convicted of homicide in this country — who had been released and deported — seek to illegally reenter the U.S. through an official port of entry?
Or would he look for a remote spot where — thanks to Biden — there will be no border fence?
We know from the reports published by the U.S. attorney for Arizona that illegal aliens who have already been convicted of homicide here are returning here.
But we do not know what Biden will do to stop them.
(Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor in chief of CNSNews.com.)
Only 13% of Biden's Illegals Freed Ever Showed Up After Being Released
Releasing illegal aliens in the United States and then asking them to show up works about as well as the similar Democrat policy of releasing criminals without bail and then asking them to show up in court.
But those aren't policy bugs, they're policy features.
Here's the initial scale of the open borders catastrophe that Biden and his radical faction are inflicting on Americans.
About 50,000 migrants who crossed the southern border illegally have now been released in the United States without a court date. Although they are told to report to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office instead, just 13% have shown up so far, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The sizable numbers are a sign of just how overwhelmed some sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border continue to be: A single stretch covering the Rio Grande Valley had 20,000 apprehensions in a week.
When we're talking about 50,000, those are the 50,000 that were apprehended and then released with a request to show up. Not all of the illegals invading America under Biden's open borders policy.
It's unprecedented for agents to release migrants without an official notice to appear in court. Where it has occurred recently, migrants have instead been given a list of addresses and contacts for ICE offices across the country and told to report to one of them.
The hope has been for migrants to show up at these offices after reaching their final destination, to get work permits.
Hope and change. Works about as well.
By the numbers: Just 6,700 migrants who crossed between mid-March and mid-July showed up at ICE offices as of Monday, one source briefed on Department of Homeland Security data told Axios.
Biden Official Orders Immigration Judges to Stop Using ‘Illegal Alien’ Term
President Joe Biden’s administration has ordered federal immigration judges to stop using the terms “alien” and “illegal alien” to describe illegal aliens living in the United States.
On July 23, Acting Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Jean King, appointed by the Biden administration in January, issued a memo titled “Terminology” that orders immigration judges and adjudicators to stop using the terms “alien” and “illegal alien.”
Instead, King writes that judges and adjudicators to use the terms “noncitizen,” “migrant,” “undocumented noncitizen,” or “undocumented individual.”
Likewise, judges and adjudicators are ordered to use the terms “unaccompanied noncitizen child” and “UC” when referring to Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs).
“This Policy Memorandum clarifies proper terminology at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), and directs EOIR staff, including adjudicators, to use language that is ‘[consistent] with our character as a Nation of opportunity and of welcome,'” King writes.
Center for Immigration Studies’ Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge, said the move is “just one small step removed from telling [immigration judges] how to rule” in that ordering an illegal alien deported “denies that alien ‘opportunities in the United States and is not ‘welcoming’ in the least.”
Already, the Biden administration has barred the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency from using the terms “illegal alien” and “assimilation.” Rather, ICE agents have been ordered to use “noncitizen” and “integration.”
Similarly, staff at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) were ordered in February to stop using the terms “illegal alien,” “alien,” and “assimilation.”
The term “alien” is regularly used as a legal definition to describe a foreign national in the United States. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) codified the term into law and defines it as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.”
Despite objections from the Biden administration over the terms “illegal alien” and “assimilation,” the terminology was readily used by civil rights icon Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-TX) who advocated for legal immigration reductions to boost the quality of life, wages, and job opportunities for America’s working and middle class.
In a 1995 op-ed for the New York Times, for instance, Jordan blasted “policies that permit the continued entry of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and blur distinctions between what is legal and beneficial and what is illegal and harmful.”
Jordan similarly referenced the need for a national assimilation policy, which she called “Americanization.”
“Immigration imposes mutual obligations,” Jordan wrote. “Those who choose to come here must embrace the common core of American civic culture. We must assist them in learning our common language: American English.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
ICE Has Arrested Hundreds of Illegal Immigrant Sex Offenders Since June: Report
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have arrested 302 illegal immigrant sex offenders since June, according to a new report.
The arrests come as part of an ongoing nationwide enforcement effort to arrest and deport illegal immigrants convicted of sex crimes, Fox News reported. ICE officers have been carrying out Operation SOAR (Sex Offender Arrest and Removal) since June 4.
The agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Fugitive Operations Support Center has worked alongside its Law Enforcement Support Center to find illegal immigrants who are also registered as sex offenders.
The effort comes after the agency received new orders in February asking agents to focus on arresting recent border crossers, aggravated felons and those posing a threat to national security.
“Our officers have prioritized the arrest of noncitizens who pose the greatest threat to the security and safety of our communities,” acting ICE Director Tae Johnson said in a statement, according to Fox News. “By focusing our resources on those who have committed sex crimes and demonstrated predatory behavior, we reinforce our steadfast commitment to enhancing public safety across the United States.”
Earlier this month, Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) questioned Texas Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, Biden’s nominee to lead the agency, about a drop in ICE arrests in recent months.
Gonzalez told Hawley during his Senate confirmation hearing that, under his leadership, the agency would continue to train its focus on the biggest threats to American communities. He said it would be “aggressive” in doing so.
“In my experience I would like to see more data to see what other factors may have played into that to better understand the numbers,” he said. “It is concerning, so I would make sure, again, that if we’re being strategic and we’re prioritizing properly that we could go after those individuals that pose the greatest threat to our communities.”
“I think that’s reasonable and appropriate, but we would be aggressive in going after them,” he added.
The arrests come as numerous lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed concern over a major influx of migrants at the southern border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced earlier this month that Border Patrol agents arrested or turned away 188,829 migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in June — the highest monthly total in at least a decade, according to previously published data reviewed by CNN.
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