Monday, May 17, 2021

ROME BURNS WHILE JOE BIDEN NAPS IN THE WHITE HOUSE BASEMENT

 

White House ‘Calls a Lid’ 1:48 p.m. Monday After Biden’s Extended Weekend Trip Home to Delaware

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 17: U.S. President Joe Biden listens to a journalist's question after giving an update on his administration’s COVID-19 response and vaccination program in the East Room of the White House on May 17, 2021 in Washington, DC. Biden announced that the U.S. will send 20 million …
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
2:05

The White House on Monday called an early afternoon lid on President Joe Biden’s public activities after an extended weekend at home in Delaware.

The president ended his schedule of public events at 1:48 p.m. EST — after about four hours of work.

The president and first lady traveled to their home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday evening with plans to return Sunday night. But they ultimately scrapped their plans after President Biden spent Sunday afternoon golfing.

The president returned to the White House from Delaware at roughly 9:30 a.m. EST on Monday for a scheduled 9:50 a.m. meeting with his advisers for the presidential daily briefing.

At about 1:30 p.m. the president delivered a roughly 20-minute speech on the ongoing fight against the coronavirus.

After his speech, the president told reporters he would have a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu within the hour and even suggested he would update the press afterward.

But his staff called it day for Biden’s public appearances, despite multiple crises facing his administration.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine continues, as well as economic difficulties at home in the United States, such as high gas prices, high unemployment, and a rise in inflation.

Staff calling a “lid” does not mean the president is no longer working for the rest of the day, but it does send the message he will no longer publicly speak to the American people or address their concerns with the press.

Biden was repeatedly mocked by former President Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential campaign for calling early afternoon “lids,” as proof of his low-energy campaign style.

But Biden’s advisers appear comfortable with continuing his light public schedule, even though he is now in the White House.

President Biden has only held one press conference since he was inaugurated in January.

Joe Biden Defiant in Face of Grim Economic Report: ‘Our Economy is Moving in the Right Direction’

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 07: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks on job numbers from April, 2021 at the East Room of the White House May 7, 2021 in Washington, DC. U.S. economy added 266,000 jobs in April, far less than the one million jobs that was expected. (Photo by Alex …
Alex Wong/Getty Images
1:54

President Joe Biden was defiant in reaction to the grim jobs and unemployment report released Friday.

“Today there is more evidence that our economy is moving in the right direction, but it’s clear we have a long way to go,” he said.

The president dismissed media commentary pointing out the disparity between the estimated job creation numbers and the jobs actually created in April.

“Listening to commentators today as I was getting dressed, you might think that we should be disappointed,” Biden said with a chuckle.

Unemployment rose to 6.1 percent in April, the report noted, the first time unemployment increased since April 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic began. Although analysts had expected up to a million jobs created in April, only 266,000 jobs were actually reported.

Biden stressed that the report was actually good news.

“Quite frankly, we’re moving more rapidly than I thought we would,” he said, arguing he always felt the recovery would be a “marathon” not a “sprint.”

Republicans questioned Biden’s decision to send expanded $300 a week checks to unemployed Americans until September 2021, arguing it was keeping workers on the sidelines during the pandemic.

But Biden said the economic news only proved the checks were necessary

“This is progress,” Biden continued. “And it’s a testament to our new strategy of growing this economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”

Biden also defended his call for $6 trillion in spending and dramatic tax hikes on businesses and the wealthy to boost the economy.

“The American people are counting on us. So, let’s get it done,” he said.

The national media don't view the Kennedys, Clintons, or Bidens as corrupt, and electronic media may be systematically covering it up its evidence.  If one Googles "most corrupt Democrats," the result will be pages of results on "Trump corruption."  It appears that Google and other high-tech players are suppressing information about the corruption of the liberal elite.

Big Dirty Money: “White-collar crime” and the nature of capitalism

Big Dirty Money, The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White-collar Crime , by Jennifer Taub, Viking, New York, 2020

The term “white-collar crime,” which appears in the subtitle of a new book, Big Dirty Money, The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime, was apparently first coined during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The phenomenon is as old as capitalism itself. In Jennifer Taub’s work the focus is on the United States, but the reality she describes, though nowhere more explosive than in the US, is a global one.

Taub, a professor at the University of Western New England School of Law in Springfield, Massachusetts, brings together much valuable data and information on white-collar crime and on the connection between its recent prominence and that of extreme wealth inequality. Her book is noteworthy for correctly focusing on the role of class in shaping the lives and futures of humanity.

Big Dirty Money

The author indicates that white-collar crime must be defined far more broadly than embezzlement or what might be termed low-level forms of corruption. She gives some recent examples of white-collar criminals, all extensively reported by the WSWS: the Sackler family, worth some $14 billion (as of the book’s printing), responsible for the marketing of oxycontin, which led to 232,000 overdose deaths between 1999-2018; Pacific Gas and Electric, to blame for the deadly Camp Fire of 2018 in California, which left 85 dead and the town of Paradise completely destroyed; and General Motors, whose faulty ignition switches led to sudden engine shutdowns and at least 124 deaths between 2002 and 2014, when the cars were finally recalled.

All of the above criminals escaped serious punishment, paying for the lives lost through fines that amounted, even where sizable, to the mere cost of doing business.

Taub makes a number of useful points in the course of discussing these issues. As she notes, the US has a prison population of 2.3 million, but even the very few white-collar criminal convictions (as opposed to civil cases) rarely lead to jail time. The few who have been jailed— Michael Milken is one prominent example—have served their time in “country club” prisons, facilities whose very existence illustrates the fact that incarceration is a weapon principally designed for and used against the working class.

Taub is hardly the first to note the huge gulf between the treatment of the poor and the wealthy by the so-called justice system. Petty offenses get harsh punishment while big criminals get off scot free. Eric Garner lost his life for selling untaxed loose cigarettes, Taub points out, while the executives of companies responsible for death and misery on a vast scale have paid no price. Indeed, as Taub was putting the finishing touches on this volume last May, this class reality was brought home, to the horror of vast numbers of people all over the world, in the murder of George Floyd after he was accused of passing a small counterfeit bill at a neighborhood convenience store.

The magnitude of the class gulf today is one that could barely have been imagined by famed French novelist Anatole France when he famously ironized, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

The last 40 years have seen an uninterrupted growth of white-collar crime and of all the abuses associated with it. Government has done much to facilitate this growth, and the political representatives of the corporate elite have often shared in the spoils. Furthermore, this has been a thoroughly bipartisan operation. As Taub explains, “in the Carter and Clinton administrations, legislation was enacted that allowed the credit default swap and private mortgage securities markets to flourish, enabling the toxic mortgage-backed securities that eventually blew up the banking system in 2008.”

This history serves to illustrate, as Taub does not point out, that the dividing line between the legal and the criminal, to put it mildly, is a porous one in the capitalist economy.

After the 2008 crash, the greatest since the Great Depression, the get out of jail card really came into its own during the two terms of Democratic President Barack Obama. “The Justice Department led by Attorney General Eric Holder from 2009 to 2015 let every bank executive engaged in accounting or securities fraud get away without prosecution,” writes Taub. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., another Democrat, brought no charges, except against a tiny bank that no one had ever heard of.

Taub’s polemical zeal in exposing glaring injustice can only be welcomed. Her outlook, however, could perhaps be summed up in a paraphrase of the Biblical reference to the poor—we will always have white-collar criminals with us. Or to put it somewhat differently, capitalism is here to stay.

She reviews the history, over most of the last century, of what she terms “corporate crime waves and crackdowns.” This is a cyclical conception, in which capitalist “excesses” are followed by regulation and reform, until the pendulum swings back toward corruption once again. The Gilded Age was followed by the Progressive Era, whose birth is associated with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Later, after the speculative boom of the 1920s, came the reforms associated with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Big business steadily attempted to evade or circumvent regulation, and the decades from the 1940s through the 1960s are dubbed a period of “invisible industrial violations,” as Taub puts it, leading to scandals such as Love Canal and the thalidomide birth defects. This was followed by yet another decade of regulation, this time under the improbable reformer Richard Nixon. The Environmental Protection Agency was established, along with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. After Watergate, other legislation established the Federal Election Commission.

American capitalism unquestionably did undertake major regulatory efforts in the last century. What Taub does not discuss, however, is the connection between the last 40 years, a period of uninterrupted deregulation and social counterrevolution, and the crisis and decline of US capitalism. There is little or no mention of globalization in this book, and no discussion of the financialization of the economy. We are left with the supposed problem of human nature, and of what is seen as an endless struggle against greed. Behind white-collar crime, however, is not simply greed, but a system of production and distribution that produces and requires it.

A cyclical theory of inequality and corruption followed by regulation and reform does not explain the last several decades. The Biden administration and its backers, who it is safe to presume include Professor Taub—even if she recognizes, quoting New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, that Donald Trump “did not come to Washington to clean up the tainted system; he came to bathe in it”—claim that a new era of reform is beginning. The conditions confronting US and world capitalism, however, are entirely different from those of the post-World War Two era.

The capitalist media dwell incessantly on misleading catchphrases like “systemic racism,” but the conditions described by the author demonstrate that what is truly systemic to capitalism is class inequality and all of its consequences. The solution to the misery that Taub details—the lives lost to poverty, illness and police violence—must also be systemic. It is not the pipe dream of a new era of reform, but rather the overthrow of the capitalist system and the building of a socialist society.

This is not Taub’s program. The final chapter of her book is entitled, “The Six Fixes,” and what she proposes is not much more serious than this somewhat glib heading. She calls for a new Department of Justice division devoted to white-collar crime; the amendment of the bribery laws to make it easier to convict politicians like Virginia’s former governor Robert McDonnell, who beat a bribery rap because of a legal loophole; legislation to protect journalists and whistleblowers; the restoration of Internal Revenue Service funding, after years and years of cuts that have been designed to cripple any effort to go after massive tax fraud; a nationwide registry for white-collar convictions; and improved data collection on white-collar crime.

To call these reforms would be a genuine stretch of the definition. Some of them amount to little more than improved methods of keeping track of the crime taking place, not doing anything about the conditions themselves. Even New York Times columnist James B. Stewart, in his review of Big Dirty Money, observes about these “fixes,” “These are earnest and well-intentioned, but small bore given the scope of the problem [Taub] so vividly illustrates.” It should also be pointed out that the fact that Taub, discussing whistleblowers, mentions Daniel Ellsberg and Karen Silkwood, but not Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, reflects her allegiance to what passes for bourgeois liberalism today.

Despite its serious faults, and although Big Dirty Money does not go much beyond a description of important aspects of 21st century capitalism, the exposures in this volume are vivid and at times gripping, and the book is therefore recommended, with the above caveats.



ANDREW CUOMO - THE LAWYER WHO LIED HIMSELF INTO A MILLION DOLLAR BOOK DEAL - Zeldin: Cuomo’s Millions from Book Deal Are ‘Blood Money’

 

Zeldin: Cuomo’s Millions from Book Deal Are ‘Blood Money’

1:12

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin (R-NY) said that the $5.1 million that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is set to receive from his book about the coronavirus pandemic “is blood money, profiting off of the suffering physically, emotionally, financially of your constituents, of New Yorkers.”

Zeldin stated, “The nursing home order and cover up, you’re talking about the loss of life, you’re profiting off of — really, this is blood money, profiting off of the suffering physically, emotionally, financially of your constituents, of New Yorkers. What he should have done this time last year was show remorse, publicly apologize for the mistake of his order, be transparent with the public. He said he was too busy to provide that transparency. But he wasn’t too busy to go after this multimillion-dollar self-congratulatory book deal. So, it has New Yorkers outraged.”


Report shows CEOs in US cashed in during the pandemic as workers lost jobs, wages and lives

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) published a significant report on May 11 that details the rigging of executive compensation plans by corporate boards during the pandemic, so that vast sums could be funneled into the pockets of millionaire executives while workers suffered unemployment, reduced wages, exposure to COVID-19 and death.

Under the title “Pandemic Pay Plunder,” the top finding of the IPS’ 27th Annual Executive Excess report is that among the top US corporations with the lowest paid workforces, CEOs received a 29 percent increase in compensation, while workers’ wages fell by 2 percent on average last year.

The IPS research shows that 51 out of the 100 corporations on the S&P 500 list with the lowest median worker wages bent corporate rules during the pandemic to ensure that their CEOs increased their compensation by an average of $4 million, to a total of $15.3 million, while workers’ wages fell by more than $550 to $28,187. The CEO-to-worker pay ratio for these corporations reached 830 to 1.

Carnival Cruise CEO Arnold Donald made $13.3 million while his company lost $10.2 billion. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

In introducing the report, IPS authors Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project and co-editor of Inequality.org, and Sam Pizzigati, IPS associate fellow and co-editor of Inequality.org, write: “American families have been simply unable, on their own, to bear the COVID crisis. Meanwhile, corporate chief executives in the United States have continued to score the sorts of windfalls that have ballooned billionaire wealth.”

In explaining how corporate boards modified compensation rules to ensure a windfall for executives, the report says that the companies engaged “in various rigging maneuvers” such as (1) lowering the performance numbers so executives could meet their bonus targets, (2) awarding special “retention” bonuses, (3) excluding poor second-quarter (March-May 2020) results from performance evaluations and (4) replacing performance-based awards with time-based awards.

The IPS report says that “an army of ‘independent’ compensation consultants” was retained by the corporate boards in order to “give all this rule-rigging a veneer of legitimacy.” For example, Carnival—the largest international cruise line company—paid Frederick W. Cook & Co. $423,274 to give its CEO bonus “a stamp of fiscal probity as the company’s profits cratered and workers suffered.”

In relation to the Carnival compensation scam, the report notes that the company stranded employees at sea for months while it scrambled to get customers back home. But after securing $6 billion in low-cost financing from the US Federal Reserve, it gave CEO Arnold Donald special pandemic “retention and incentive” stock grants valued at more than $5 million. “Arnold’s total 2020 compensation came to $13.3 million, 490 times the company’s $27,151 median worker pay” the report states.

The IPS study does not mention reports that nearly a dozen cruise line workers died in suicides committed during the lengthy period of forced isolation without pay on ships, or as a result of mental health problems after they came ashore.

Other specific examples given by IPS of corporate manipulation of executive compensation in the midst of the pandemic include the meatpacking, poultry and automotive industries. In the case of $30 billion Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, the report says that “executives didn’t meet their cash bonus targets last year,” but the board “gave them stock awards to make up the difference.”

Tyson CEO Noel White earned $11 million, which is 294 times Tyson’s $37,444 median worker pay. The report states, “Another recipient of those special stock awards was company chair John Tyson, a billionaire hardly in dire need of special support. The heir and grandson of the company founder, Tyson has watched his personal wealth increase 72 percent during the pandemic—to $2.6 billion.”

Tyson workers, like all poultry and meatpacking employees, were declared essential workers during the pandemic and forced to stay on the job. The report says the Tyson workers suffered the most COVID-19 infections and deaths in the industry, noting: “As of February 2021, more than 12,000 Tyson workers had been infected by the virus and at least 38 had lost their lives to it.”

The automotive supplier Aptiv—one of the spin-offs from Delphi Automotive, itself a spin-off from GM—has the widest pay gap (5,294 to 1) on the IPS list of 51 low wage corporations. Aptiv CEO Kevin Clark was paid $31.3 million while the median wage earner made $5,906 in 2020. The report says, “The Aptiv board inflated Clark’s paycheck by moving bonus goalposts and excluding 2020 results from the 2018-2020 performance period for long-term executive incentive awards.”

The report also explains that the company justified the massive payout to Clark—totaling an additional $18 million—“as nothing more than the product of ‘accounting adjustments’ related to 2019 and 2020 stock awards.”

Aptiv operates in 44 countries and did not disclose to IPS where the workers earning a median wage of a little less than $6,000 are employed. The global corporation—which specializes in automotive cooling systems—was the product of the multi-billion-dollar July 2015 merger of Delphi Thermal with the German-based Mahle-Behr GmbH and British-based HellermannTyton.

Some of the other companies highlighted in the IPS report for extreme CEO-worker pay ratios in 2020 are:

*Apparel corporation Under Armour, where half the workforce earns less than $6,669 per year. There, the company board “altered bonus metrics and replaced performance-based with time-based stock awards” for CEO Patrik Frisk, so as to pay him $7.4 million.

* Chipotle Mexican Grill, where CEO Brian Niccol “received $38 million in 2020 compensation, 2,898 times the restaurant chain’s median worker pay.” The firm’s board of directors inflated his bonus by tossing out the company’s poor financial results from the peak shutdown period and excluding COVID-related costs.

While the political conclusions of the IPS editors are for tax reform that will force companies to pay increased taxes for CEO-worker wage gaps of more than 50-1—which is itself a defense of social inequality—the facts and figures presented in the report are a devastating exposure of the criminality of the ruling class under conditions of the worst public health crisis in a century.

The IPS report was published just as the US political establishment was launching a campaign to eliminate weekly supplemental unemployment benefits for millions of workers who remain unemployed as a result of the economic crisis and deadly health conditions caused by the response of the corporate and financial elite to the pandemic.

Already more than half of US states have revived their work search requirements in an effort to force workers back to work at low-paying jobs. As reported by the New York Times on Sunday, Arkansas and Louisiana brought back these requirements months ago and others such as Vermont and Kentucky have done so in the last few weeks.

Laying bare the economic interests that lie behind the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decision to lift the mask requirement for “anyone who is fully vaccinated” last Thursday, President Biden ordered the Labor Department four days before to pressure state governments to put the job search requirements back into place.

The IPS report is a further confirmation of the analysis made by the World Socialist Web Site that the capitalist ruling class lives by the motto, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” and has used the pandemic to intensify the exploitation of the working class, further enrich itself and expand social inequality to unprecedented levels.

De Blasio Rips Cuomo After Reports Show How Much Governor Made From Book Deal

Leah Barkoukis
|
|
Posted: May 18, 2021 8:00 AM
De Blasio Rips Cuomo After Reports Show How Much Governor Made From Book Deal

Source: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio criticized Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday when asked about reports the Democrat received a staggering $5.1 million for his book deal about his leadership during the pandemic.

Details about how much Cuomo earned from the book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic," come amid various investigations, including one looking into whether he used state resources to write and promote the title.  

After The Times reported that aides to the governor had assisted in the writing and promotion of the book, the state attorney general, Letitia James, opened an investigation into Mr. Cuomo’s use of state resources on the project. The Times reported at the time that the deal had been worth at least $4 million.

The governor received permission to work on his book from the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which is tasked with enforcing New York’s public officers law. The commission required that Mr. Cuomo not use state resources, such as staff time, to work on the book project. The governor has denied any wrongdoing and has said that any staff members who worked on the book did so voluntarily. (NYT)

“Was it improper, in your opinion,” one reporter asked de Blasio, referring to the governor's earnings as well as the investigation.

“I think it was state-sponsored literature,” the mayor responded, according to Mediaite. “This guy clearly depended upon public employees to do a lot of the work, and that’s not acceptable.”Katie Pavlich

“You don’t need a lot of ethics training to figure out that’s not acceptable,” de Blasio added.

Cuomo is also facing other investigations into his nursing home directive, which put COVID-19-positive patients back into long-term care facilities, killing nearly 13,000 New Yorkers, and sexual harassment allegations. 

In March, Crown Publishing Group announced it had "no plans" to reprint or reissue Cuomo's book, citing "the ongoing investigation into N.Y.S. reporting of Covid-related fatalities in nursing homes."

VISUALIZE THE IMPEACHMENT OF JOE BIDEN - FOR SABOTAGE OF AMERICA'S HOMELAND SECURITY AND ABETTING AN INVASION

 In April, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), a co-sponsor of the amnesty bill, wrote to Biden asking him to include the plan in any economic recovery package, calling illegal aliens “American heroes.”....WHAT ABOUT A WORD FOR ALL THOSE MURDERED BY ILLEGALS OR FOR THE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS IN WELFARE PAID TO THE INVADERS AND THE NARCOMEX CARTELS?!?


NYTimes: Biden Opens U.S. Border to the Globe’s Economic Migrants

Migrants mostly form Central America wait in line to cross the border at the Gateway International Bridge into the US from Matamoros, Mexico to Brownsville, Texas, on March 15, 2021. - It's the new normal for migrant families under President Joe Biden, after the harsh "zero tolerance" approach of Donald …
CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
6:56

President Joe Biden and his deputies have opened the nation’s southern border to a growing wave of economic migrants from Brazil, India, Cuba, Venezuela, and many other countries, according to a report Sunday in the New York Times.

“Agents have stopped people from more than 160 countries,” the newspaper reported, adding:

More than 12,500 Ecuadoreans were encountered in March, up from 3,568 in January. Nearly 4,000 Brazilians and more than 3,500 Venezuelans were intercepted, up from just 300 and 284, respectively, in January. The numbers in coming months are expected to be higher.

“Most are simply being released to nonprofit aid centers, where they spend a day or two before traveling to join friends and relatives elsewhere in the United States,” the New York Times admitted.

Breitbart News reported on May 12 almost 34,000 people from countries other than Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador, arrived in April. The numbers were based on data released by the Department of Homeland Security.

The migrants are driven by economic factors, the Times acknowledged:

… large numbers of migrants have been driven to the U.S. border by economic hardship in their home countries, and now the pandemic has widened that circle. Though no records are kept at the border on the reasons people have cited in choosing to move, interviews with many of those arriving at the border, along with Border Patrol officials, shelter operators and immigration scholars, suggested that the job collapse brought about by the coronavirus — coupled with the Biden administration’s more welcoming policies — is driving much of the new surge.

The migrants are being allowed into the country by Biden’s deputies, even though the federal government has the Title 42 legal authority to block all migrants — including juvenile migrants — during the coronavirus emergency.

Moreover, federal law only provides asylum to groups fleeing political and religious persecution — not to people fleeing poverty. This rule means border agents can deny them access to U.S. asylum courts.

Biden also has the political clout to challenge many of the open-border decisions made by judges, including the Flores decision, which limits the detention of migrants who bring their children.

In March, the chairman and CEO of the Gallup polling company warned Biden some 42 million people in Central and South America want to migrant into the United States. Nine years ago, Gallup warned that 150 million people worldwide want to move to the United States.

However, Biden nominated — and the Senate confirmed — Alejandro Mayorkas, a pro-migration zealot, to run the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Mayorkas’ appointment was cheered by the ethnic lobbies, pro-migration groups, and investor groups that have so much clout in Biden’s party.

Mayorkas is now encouraging mass migration by opening many small side-doors in the nation’s immigration laws and by clearing away rules and policies that would slow the award of green cards and citizenship to the economic migrants. Mayorkas has frequently claimed that Americans’ homeland is actually a “Nation of Immigrants” and that migration is central to the nation’s values and economic health.

For example, on April 28, Mayorkas tweeted “small immigrant-owned businesses … are the backbone of our communities — and of our country.” On March 4, Mayorkas declared “our highest priority” is to fly lawfully deported migrants into the United States to reunite them with the children they left behind so the children could also ask judges for green cards.

Biden’s political allies have persuaded him to restart the federal extraction of low-wage workers, government-aided consumers, and high-occupancy renters from foreign countries. Even foreign children and sick retirees are sought as an economic stimulus because they inflate rents and stimulate federal, state, and local spending, for example, on K-12 education programs and healthcare spending.

Business leaders are especially eager to import more foreign college graduates for white-collar jobs and more people to drive up real estate prices in coastal cities.

The lax border policies encourage economic migration, Andrew Selee, the pro-migration president of the Migration Policy Institute, admitted to the New York Times.  “Many people around the world saw their standard of living slide backward, it’s no surprise that they would jump at the chance to get into the U.S. when they hear that others have managed to cross from Mexico successfully,” Selee said.

At least one Democratic Senator suggested that Biden would not police the borders until the GOP agrees to an amnesty that would create millions of new Democratic voters.

“So far, for our Republican colleagues, the focus has been all about the border,” Sen.Bob Menendez, F-NJ), told RollCall.com for a May 12 report. “We certainly are willing to deal with questions about the border — but the question is much broader: What do we get for that?” he added.

GOP legislators, such as Rep. Jody Hice (R-TX), have begun to spotlight the international migration:

However, GOP politicians and state parties rely heavily on donations from investors who want more migration. So far, the GOP legislators have complained about border chaos and illegal immigration but have not campaigned against the labor migration that is the biggest concern of their base and of the non-political swing voters.

For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. This opposition is multiracialcross-sexnon-racistclass-basedintra-Democraticrational, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.

The voter opposition to elite-backed economic migration coexists with support for legal immigrants and some sympathy for illegal migrants. But only a minority of Americans — mostly leftists — embrace the many skewed polls and articles pushing the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition to labor migration is built on the widespread recognition that legal and illegal migration moves money away from most Americans’ pocketbooks and families.

Migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to investors, from technology to stoop labor, from red states to blue states, and from the central states to the coastal states such as New York.

 


Hispanic Caucus Eyes Big Amnesty After Biden Meeting with DACA Illegal Aliens

Activist from migrants organizations Cosecha (Harvest) and TPS Alliance protest near the White House on April 30 in Washington, DC, to demand more immigration action from the administration of US President Joe Biden. - The activists want the executive to push the US Senate to approve legislation that passed the …
ARIELA NAVARRO/AFP via Getty Images
4:22

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is eyeing a big legislative push for amnesty for millions of illegal aliens living in the United States, hoping to ride a wave of momentum after President Joe Biden met with illegal aliens at the White House.

Last week, Biden met with illegal aliens enrolled and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program who urged him to help pass a series of amnesty bills — including one that would put the roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. on a path to obtaining American citizenship while doubling legal immigration levels.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, with 38 members, has officially endorsed an amnesty bill that would give amnesty to at least 5.2 million illegal aliens deemed “essential.”

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) said in a statement:

Immigrant essential workers have been on the frontlines working to keep us safe, healthy, and fed during the pandemic. The Department of Homeland Security designated these immigrant workers as essential and part of our country’s infrastructure. Supporting essential workers means supporting economic growth and productivity for our nation.

In April, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), a co-sponsor of the amnesty bill, wrote to Biden asking him to include the plan in any economic recovery package, calling illegal aliens “American heroes.”

Likewise, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is requesting that the U.S. Senate and the Biden administration prioritize an amnesty for about 4.4 million illegal aliens.

Ruiz said in a statement following Biden’s meeting with DACA illegal aliens:

I am incredibly proud of each Dreamer who met with President Biden today, including United Farm Workers’ Leydy Rangel from my hometown of Coachella, California. As Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, I thank President Biden for his commitment to securing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.

Also part of the amnesty push are corporate interests such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Koch brothers’ network of donor class organizations, as well as former President George W. Bush.

As Breitbart News reported, Bush, joined by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, the refugee lobby, the Chamber, and the Business Roundtable, is lobbying Congress to increase legal immigration levels and give amnesty to illegal aliens, claiming it will end illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.

While Biden, Democrats, corporate interests, and Bush call for passage of the expansive amnesty bills, about 16.4 million Americans remain jobless and another 5.2 million are underemployed but want full-time jobs.

A flooded U.S. labor market has been well documented for its wage-crushing side effects, so much so that economist George Borjas has called mass immigration the “largest anti-poverty program” at the expense of America’s working and lower-middle class. The biggest winners are corporations and investors who can keep the cost of labor low and have a steady stream of consumers to buy their products and services.

Other research finds current legal immigration to the U.S. results in more than $530 billion worth of lost wages for Americans.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), likewise, has repeatedly noted mass immigration cuts Americans’ wages.

In 2013, CBO analysis stated that the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan would “slightly” push down wages for the American workers. A 2020 CBO analysis stated “immigration has exerted downward pressure on the wages of relatively low-skilled workers who are already in the country, regardless of their birthplace.”

Every year, about 1.2 million legal immigrants receive green cards to permanently resettle in the U.S. In addition, 1.4 million foreign nationals get temporary visas to fill U.S. jobs that would otherwise go to Americans. Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, as well, enter the U.S. annually.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.


Padilla: ‘Increasingly Clear’ among Dems We Might Not Have Free and Fair Elections without For the People Act

1:04

On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) stated that it’s “increasingly clear” among Democrats that if they don’t pass the For the People Act, there may never be another free and fair election in America.

Host Joy Reid asked, “Do you think that your fellow Democratic colleagues understand that if they don’t pass this bill we may never get another free and fair election again? Does Joe Manchin — do they — do Democrats understand that?”

Padilla responded, “I think that’s increasingly clear, absolutely. A lot of issues that we’re passionate about, that, as President Johnson once upon said, voting rights is the right that protects all other rights. If our democracy, the bedrock of our democracy is undermined, we’re in a whole world of hurt, and that’s what we’re fighting for with S. 1.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett


EXCLUSIVE: Border Patrol Migrant Got-Away Count Hits 200K

KinneyCountySheriffsOffice
Kinney County SO
2:59

A law enforcement source within Customs and Border Protection revealed the number of migrants escaping apprehension has reached 200,000 this fiscal year. The source, speaking on a condition of anonymity, says more than 45,000 of those avoided capture in the last 30 days.

As Breitbart Texas reported previously, the got-away total had reached more than 185,000, frustrating Border Patrol leadership. Last year, 69,000 migrants managed to avoid apprehension. In just over seven months of this fiscal year, the number has nearly tripled over last year’s figures. Sources report the sharpest increase has occurred since January.

The metric is usually not released by the Department of Homeland Security. It is achieved by counting illegal immigrants who ultimately escape Border Patrol apprehension after being observed by aircraft platforms and camera systems. In addition, Border Patrol agents using traditional sign-cutting techniques identify footprints crossing the border and count those that elude apprehension.

“That’s where it gets tricky,” says one Border Patrol agent who did not wish to be identified. “On a small trail, dozens can walk all over each other’s footprints, so you just do your best. Often, they’ll glue carpet to the soles of their shoes making detection even harder.”

Sources report for these reasons, the “got-away” count is usually lower than reality. How much so is debatable as the latter method of counting is not scientific. The increasing “got-away” numbers come as CBP reports its highest apprehension totals since 2006.

Despite the current administration’s refusal to call the immigration situation on the border a crisis, the recent surges are concerning. The increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border has Health and Human Services struggling to find sponsors within the United States. Many believe the impetus for the surges in illegal entries is being fueled by the promise of amnesty legislation. The Biden administration’s new policies regarding lax interior enforcement and a reduction in removals are also believed to be contributing to the surge in activity along the border.

Recent reports concerning the reduced patrols being conducted by the Border Patrol are likely contributing to the surge in the “got-away” count. Addressing the humanitarian needs of thousands of migrants crossing the border directly impacts the Border Patrol’s ability to patrol many remote areas. This situation is likely to worsen as the crisis develops.


Randy Clark
 is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.

Joe Biden Diverts Healthcare Cash to Help Illegal Migrants

US President Joe Biden speaks on the American Jobs Plan, following a tour of Tidewater Community College in Norfolk, Virginia on May 3, 2021. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

President Joe Biden has taken $2 billion from Americans’ healthcare programs to help deliver migrant youths and children to their illegal-migrant parents throughout the United States, press reports say.

“The Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] has diverted more than $2 billion meant for other health initiatives toward covering the cost of caring for unaccompanied immigrant children,” Politico reported May 15. The article continued:

The redirected funds include $850 million that Congress originally allocated to rebuild the nation’s Strategic National Stockpile, the emergency medical reserve strained by the Covid-19 response. Another $850 million is being taken from a pot intended to help expand coronavirus testing, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

In addition to transferring money from the Strategic National Stockpile and Covid-19 testing, HHS also has pulled roughly $436 million from a range of existing health initiatives across the department.

The program costs are expected to reach almost $9 billion by October according to a leaked report in the New York Times.

The transfer of funding to the growing population of more than 50,000 foreign children and youths means fewer resources for lower-profile American kids, as their diverse American parents are damaged by the Chinese virus, cheap labor migration, job losses, housing costs, drugs, or homelessness.

The Politico report follows the leak of a government report to the May 10 New York Times.  The leaked report showed how the HHS agency expects to spend almost $9 billion by October to implement Biden’s decision to import the youths and children of U.S.-based illegal migrants.

“Current projections show [a] preliminary budget estimate of $8.6b for FY21,” said the briefing for officials in HHS. It continued:

With existing resources, a shortfall (of 366m) occurs in May and grows quickly through July with an overall project shortfall in excess of $4 billion

OMB approved an additional transfer from HHS resources to the UC [UAC] programing the amount of $850 million this week. This funding is not reflecting in this morning balance — will be added once [the] execution process is complete. There may be [an] additional $846.5 million available in future weeks. This will mitigate but not fully resolve the project budget shortfall.

The HHS spending does not including spending — or diverted resources — at other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) are the top Republicans on the panels overseeing federal spending at HHS and the DHS. Their offices did not respond to emails from Breitbart News.

Since January, roughly 50,000 youths and children have been accepted at the border by the government-run program, which replaced President Donald Trump’s policy of flying the youths and children back to their homes in Central America.

Biden declined to use the judge-approved option of flying the arriving youths and children back to their distant homes. Strong majorities of swing voters blame Biden, not Trump, for the unpopular migration crisis.

“The $2.13 billion in diverted money exceeds the government’s annual budget for the unaccompanied children program in each of the last two fiscal years,” Politico reported.

But the overall migration is an economic stimulus for Biden’s business donors because the migrants inflate rents and stimulate federal, state, and local spending.

Most of the 50,000 “children” are actually older teenage boys, many of whom will take jobs at low wages to repay their smuggling debts and support relatives in Central American countries.

But even children are an economic stimulus for Biden’s business donors because they inflate rents and because they stimulate federal, state, and local spending, for example, on K-12 education programs.

Biden’s delivery of the incoming youths and children also helps to keep their illegal migrant parents in the United States amid pressure from their distant families to return home.  For example, a New York Times May 6 report noted 51 percent of the UACs released in the prior week were handed over to parents or step-parents. Another 38 percent were handed over to immediate relatives, some of whom may have been fronting for nearby illegal migrant parents who declined to come forward.

May 13 tweet by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) cited federal data for 1029 that said 79 percent of sponsors were “without [legal] status.”

The migration also creates a new generation of illegal migrants for business groups and progressive Democrats to champion instead of poor or disadvantaged Americans, just as Democrats now cheerlead for the “DACA” illegals.

Biden’s policy is being implemented by Alejandro Mayorkas, a Cuban-born child refugee who runs the Department of Homeland Security. Mayorkas frequently claims the United States is a “Nation of Immigrants,” not of Americans. He frequently argues the nation’s values require Americans to accept many migrants, poor or rich, old or young, as if there is no economic or civic cost to Americans from the inflow of foreign migrants.

The federal delivery of children to their illegal migrant parents, after their handoff at the border by cartel-controlled coyotes, has been an open secret in Washington, DC, for at least six years.

The secret federal cooperation with the coyotes and the cartels stopped when President Donald Trump used his emergency authority in 2020 to send the migrants home when they arrived at the border.  The cooperation has been accelerated by President Biden as his deputies seek to extract more wage-cutting workers, taxpayer-supported consumers, and high-occupancy renters from Central American into the United States.

“We’re complicit as a nation in human trafficking,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said at a March 26 press conference in Texas with 17 other GOP senators.

EconomyImmigrationPoliticscoronavirusCOVID-19healthcareJoe BidenUACUACs


Life in Prison for MS-13 Member Convicted in Murder of Texas Teen

Douglas Alexander Herrera-Hernandez (Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office)
Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office
3:17

HOUSTON, Texas — A Texas jury rendered a sentence of life without parole to an MS-13 gang member convicted in the killing of a Houston-area teenager. The victim witnessed several gang-related murders before being lured to Missouri City, Texas, for his own execution.

A jury in Harris County, Texas, sentenced Douglas Alexander Herrera-Hernandez, an MS-13 gang member who illegally entered the United States in December 2014, to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of 16-year-old Estuar Quinonez. The victim suffered 15 gunshot wounds as he sat on a park bench in Buffalo Run Park on June 13, 2016, Fox 26 Houston reported.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officials confirmed to Breitbart Texas that Herrera-Hernandez, aka “Terror,” entered the U.S. illegally as an Unaccompanied Alien Child (UAC) by crossing the Rio Grande in December 2014. Officials reported the migrant was 17 years old at the time he crossed the border.

Border Patrol agents released him under President Barack Obama’s catch and release policies with a “notice to appear” before an immigration court. A Houston immigration judge issued a final order of removal against Herrera-Hernandez after he failed to appear for his hearing.

Just under one year later, Herrera-Hernandez murdered 16-year-old Estuar Quinonez in Missouri City, Texas, a suburb of Houston, Breitbart Texas reported. Quinones reportedly witnessed several MS-13 gang-related murders. Missouri City police, working with the Houston Police Department, identified the Salvadoran national as a suspect in the murder.

Herrera-Hernandez fled from Texas and was later arrested by police in Virginia in late July 2017, Breitbart Texas reported. In addition to the murder of Quinones, the MS-13 gang member also allegedly shot and killed 26-year-old Kevin Alvarez in southeast Houston on July 9, 2017.

During the trial, prosecutors told the jury that Herrera-Hernandez got permission from MS-13 gang leaders in El Salvador to kill Quinonez, the local Fox affiliate reported. The now-convicted killer gathered several gang members to carry out the execution of the victim. Herrera-Hernandez and another gang member picked up Quinonez and brought him to the park where the gang members fired multiple gunshots including one to the head.

“We are trying to break the back of this organization by sending their assassins to prison for as long as possible and we will remain unrelenting in our pursuit of these criminals who band together to terrorize communities,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg told reporters.

ICE Director on Illegals Released into U.S.: ‘Our Ability to Track Those Folks Closely is Much More Limited’

By CNSNews.com Staff | May 17, 2021 | 3:01pm EDT
 
 
 
 
Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa (Screen Capture)
Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa (Screen Capture)

(CNSNews.com) - Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tae Johnson told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security on Thursday that—except for a limited number who are put in an “Alternatives to Detention” (ATD) program--his agency cannot track illegal aliens who are caught and then released into the United States.

Johnson made this concession in an exchange with Rep. Ashley Hinson (R.-Iowa).

“Today, can you confirm for me the ability--the inability, rather, for ICE to track illegal immigrants’ location and then their activity within the homeland on that person level following their release by CBP?” Hinson asked Johnson, who had discussed the issue earlier in a telephone call with Johnson.

“As I mentioned in our call, there's certainly some gaps in our ability to track everyone that's released in the interior,” Johnson said.

“For those individuals that are released on an Alternative to Detention, whether it's an ankle monitor or smart link or telephonic reporting, we have, you know, much better success at keeping track of those,” he said.

“But for individuals that are just released with notice--notification to report to ICE or to show up in court, then our ability to track those folks closely is much more limited,” Johnson said.

Johnson then said it was his “understanding” that when Customs and Border Protection releases an illegal alien inside the United States, their recording system does not report where that illegal alien is “proposing to reside” in the United States. Therefore, they cannot say how many of them, for example, are in Hinson’s home state of Iowa.

“Can you state for the record that you're not currently able to tell Iowans how many illegal immigrants are present in Iowa right now or how many CBP has released into the country with plans to be in Iowa?” asked Hinson.

“That is correct,” responded Johnson.

“I mean, and again, you know, I would want to just--that's my understanding,” he said. “I would like to start with--I would like to go back to CBP and just clarify that they are unable to pull data by state. But that is my understanding that their system of record will not sort of produce a report based on the states that the individuals that they're releasing are proposing to reside.”

Congressional Research Service report published in 2019 explained the “Alternatives to Detention” program for illegal aliens.

“Since FY2004,Congress has appropriated funding to the Department of Homeland Security’s(DHS’s) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for an Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program to provide supervised release and enhanced monitoring for a subset of foreign nationals subject to removal whom ICE has released into the United States,” said the report.

“These aliens are not statutorily mandated to be in DHS custody, are not considered threats to public safety or national security, and have been released either on bond, their own recognizance, or parole pending a decision on whether they should be removed from the United States,” it said.

“Currently, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) runs an ATD program called the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program III (ISAPIII),” said the CRS report. “On June 22, 2019, program enrollment included more than 100,000 foreign nationals, who are a sub group of ICE’s broader ‘non-detained docket’ of approximately 3 million aliens. Those in the non-detained docket include individuals the government has exercised discretion to release—for example, they are not considered a flight risk or there is a humanitarian reason for their release (as well as other reasons).”

“Individuals in the non-detained docket, and not enrolled in the ISAP III program, receive less-intensive supervision by ICE,” the report said.

Here is a transcript of Hinon’s exchange with Johnson about ICE’s tracking of illegal aliens released into the United States:

Rep. Ashely Hinson: “Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate you holding this hearing today. I did have the ability to speak with Acting Director Johnson earlier this week. So, thank you, again, for taking the time to meet with me earlier this week. My time today I'm going to devote to follow up questions from that conversation, as well as a few concerning issues that have been brought to my attention, specifically about ICE's activity or lack thereof in certain cases as well. These issues and a general lack of information are highly concerning to me, and we're going to follow up with the secretary when he's in in a few weeks, but on these issues must be addressed by ICE leadership and the administration. In my mind, it's part of our role to hold everybody accountable and make sure taxpayer dollars are spent effectively. So, Director Johnson, thank you, again, for your service and our frank conversation earlier this week. I also think it's important to note when members of this committee reach out to ask for answers, we're doing that not to create more work for you but because we are ultimately accountable to the American taxpayer and require those answers to be able to make truly informed decisions about how to spend those taxpayer dollars, their money.

“So, thank you for the responses I have already received. And I trust that you and your team are going to follow up on the existing--the other questions that we discussed in our call.

“We did talk about, in our call, the disconnect between ICE and Customs and Border Patrol, specifically when it comes to tracking illegal immigrants once they have been released into the United States. So, today, can you confirm for me the ability--the inability, rather, for ICE to track illegal immigrant's location and then their activity within the homeland on that person level following their release by CBP?”

Acting ICE Director Tae Johnson: “Sure, thanks, congresswoman. As I mentioned in our call, there's certainly some gaps in our ability to track everyone that's released in the interior. For those individuals that are released on an alternative to detention [ATD], whether it's an ankle monitor or smart link or telephonic reporting, we have, you know, much better success at keeping track of those. But for individuals that are just released with notice--notification to report to ICE or to show up in court, then our ability to track those folks closely is much more limited. And—”

Hinson: “So this gap you talk about why is it so much more challenging to track individuals now than it was in 2019?”

Johnson: “No, I don't think it was much more limited to track in 2019. The systems have been--the same systems are in place. And in 2019, when we were seeing a surge of family units that were being released, I mean, they were being released with a notice to appear. And not, you know, we couldn't enroll everyone on ATD, because the numbers were high just as they are now. So we were certainly running into those same issues in 2019 as we are today. That's not changed.”

Hinson: “Can you state for the record that you're not currently able to tell Iowans how many illegal immigrants are present in Iowa right now or how many CBP has released into the country with plans to be in Iowa?”

Johnson: “That is correct. I mean, and again, you know, I would want to just--that's my understanding. I would like to start with--I would like to go back to CBP and just clarify that they are unable to pull data by state. But that is my understanding that their system of record will not sort of produce a report based on the states that the individuals that they're releasing are proposing to reside.”

Hinson: “Right. And you say you want to go back to them, obviously, to confirm this. But do you believe that ICE should be able to provide this information? You know, obviously, we've got a gap here in communication if you can't and they can't. But do you believe Americans should know if illegal immigrants are in their neighborhood? Specifically, you talk about some of these risk categories. I think people deserve to know who's coming in.”

Johnson: "I agree. And--and we, you know, it should be possible for that information to be transferred over to an I--to ICE's system of record in a way that would allow us to--to track folks down to the state and, quite frankly, the cities that these individuals are living in. We just don't have that capability or capacity currently."

Hinson: "Okay, so why is that? I mean, is it lack of resources that you're not able to track individuals down to that in person level at this point?"

Johnson: "It--it is our--it's--it's the--the two systems. The one system that CBP uses and the one that ICE uses. It-- they just don't talk to each other in a meaningful way. So I do think it's, you know, getting some technology that will make this two systems talk would be extremely helpful. Or, you know, maybe we will have to just scrap the two systems that are being used and--ad start afresh with something that provides the--the sophistication that we--that we need to--to track folks."

Hinson: "Well, Director Johnson, I appreciate those answers. And I'll probably have a few more questions around you. But thank you. And Madam Chair, I yield back. Thank you."


CBP: U.S.-Mexico Border Apprehensions Up 944% in April 2021 Compared With April 2020

By Michael W. Chapman | May 12, 2021 | 10:43am EDT

 
 

(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

(CNS News) -- The latest numbers from Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) show that there were 178,622 apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border in April 2021, what the agency calls "enforcement encounters."  

That number is up from March 2021, which saw 173,348 apprehensions, and from January 2021, which saw 78,443 apprehensions.

For comparison, under the Trump administration in April 2020, there were 17,106 apprehensions.

(Screenshot, CBP)
(Screenshot, CBP)

In other words, the difference between April 2020 and April 2021 is a 944% increase in enforcement encounters.

In March 2020, there were 34,460 apprehensions.  Compared with March 2021 (173,348), that's a 403% increase.

These "enforcement encounters" do not include the illegal immigrants who were never apprehended, those who got away into the United States. 

On May 11, 19 governors signed a letter about the border crisis that was sent to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. 

(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

"We call on you to take action on the crisis at the southern border immediately," reads the letter.  "Contrary to statements from your Administration, the border is neither closed nor secure. ... The crisis is too big to ignore and is now spilling over the border states into all of our states."

"This Administration has enticed a rush of migrants to our border and incentivized an influx of illegal crossings by using irresponsible rhetoric and reversing a slew of policies -- from halting border wall construction to eliminating asylum agreements to refusing to enforce immigration laws," reads the letter.

(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

"Even officials of our neighbor, Mexico, reportedly conveyed concerns that the shift in U.S. policy is stoking illegal immigration and creating business for organized crime," the governors wrote.  "As Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated, 'They see him as the migrant president, and so many feel they’re going to reach the United States. We need to work together to regulate the flow, because this business can’t be tackled from one day to the next.”

"The cause of the border crisis is entirely due to reckless federal policy reversals executed within your first 100 days in office," states the letter.

EXCLUSIVE: Criminal Alien Arrests at U.S. Border Exceeds 6K in 2021

Men wearing neon-colored jail clothes signifying immigration detainees walk down a hall at the Theo Lacy Facility, a county jail which houses convicted criminals as well as immigration detainees arrested by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), March 14, 2017 in Orange, California, about 32 miles (52km) southeast of …
ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty
2:34

As Border Patrol struggles with the surge of migrants this year, a law enforcement source informs Breitbart Texas that more 6,000 migrants with serious criminal records were apprehended since the new fiscal year beginning October 1, 2020. One thousand of those were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas alone.

The term “criminal alien” is not used by the Border Patrol to refer to migrants with only immigration violations. It is reserved for those with criminal convictions for state and federal crimes like murder, rape, sexual assault, burglary, robbery, narcotics, and more.

The source reports that within this total, nearly 700 had convictions for assault and battery; 34 were convicted of homicide; nearly 500 for burglary-related offenses; and more than 300 convicted of sexual offenses.

Most of these individuals are returning to the United States illegally after deportations.

On May 10, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector arrested an Ecuadoran national convicted for the rape of a minor in New York. A day later, agents in McAllen, Texas, arrested a Salvadoran national who readily admitted to serving seven years for murder and aggravated theft in his home country.

CBP further reports, during Fiscal Year 2020, San Diego agents arrested 25 sex offenders. This year, 25 were arrested in the sector during the first five months–putting them on pace to double the statistic. The San Diego Sector began tracking the annual apprehension of sex offenders in 2019.

Although only a small percentage of migrants illegally entering the country have criminal backgrounds, the source is concerned that many are eluding apprehension. As Border Patrol struggles to process and provide humanitarian care for the latest border surge, fewer agents are on normal duties.

The number of migrants avoiding apprehension by the Border Patrol exceeded 200,000 during the last seven months. The most noticeable increases began in January.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.

Joe Biden’s Deputies Boast of Getting Migrants into the U.S.

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 13: Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing May 13, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee is hearing testimony about the Biden administration's plan to deal with unaccompanied minors at the Southern U.S. …
Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images
8:52

President Joe Biden’s deputies are congratulating themselves for delivering foreign migrants into Americans’ workplaces, communities, and society without approval from Congress or debate with the worried voters.

“We’re increasing and improving legal migration,” Tyler Moran, a White House official, told the Washington Post. “We have put in place a number of policies creating legal pathways to migrate and seek protection, and we see that as a metric of success,” she added.

“We have a three-pronged approach,” Biden’s border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told a Senate hearing on May 13. “Address the root causes [of migration], to build legal pathways [into the U.S.], and to advocate more with the hope that Congress will pass immigration reform,” he said.

Mayorkas is opening legal pathways into Americans’ workplaces and homes by widening the side doors in immigration law, such as parole admissions and asylum claims. He is also widening the doors to legalization by easing the award of green cards to illegal or unlawful migrants.

White House spokeswoman Pili Tobar worked in a variety of advocacy migration jobs before joining Biden’s administration. On May 7, she tweeted:

The vast majority of “vetted sponsors or family members” for supposedly unaccompanied children are illegally present in the United States. Many of those sponsors paid coyotes — and the cartels — to deliver their children or job-seeking teenage boys to U.S. agents on the border. Mayorkas’ agency is now completing the contracted delivery — gratis — of the young migrants to their U.S.-based illegal migrant relatives.

Mayorkas is declining to use a court decision that would allow him to stop the coyote-delivered entry of so-called “unaccompanied” youths and children into the United States.

The DHS secretary told the Senate in testimony that he wants to provide asylum approval to youths and children who have not even left their home country: “If we can, in fact, adjudicate [asylum] claims in the countries of origin, or in truly safe places, then we will spare children the perilous journey north.” He added, “These are people, yearning to be free.”

In April, Mayorkas used optional Title 8 rules to allow roughly 60,000 people across the border, including roughly 35,000 people from distant places other than Mexico or Central America.

DHS does not repatriate migrants who try to sneak across the border, helping roughly 45,000 do so in April, often on their second or third attempts. Moreover, the very lax enforcement rules at DHS leave migrants with little fear of being deported. At least 11 million people are already living illegally in the United States.

Mayorkas is using the parole side door in immigration law to bring thousands of legally deported migrants back into the United States.

The DHS secretary is also drafting regulations that would dramatically raise the number of poor economic migrants who could use claims of crime or domestic abuse to get U Visas or T Visas and then win the huge prize of U.S. citizenship.

He is also stripping away bureaucratic and regulatory curbs on the Fortune 500 hiring of foreign graduates for jobs needed by American graduates. In addition, he is backing a bill that would automatically award green cards to foreign migrants if they perform 10 years of work for U.S. companies.

As administration officials try to create new their migration pipelines without approval by Congress or debate with the public, they are dismissing media coverage — and public criticism — of the migration wave as a distraction. Roughly 178,000 migrants were recorded arriving at the border, marking a 20-year record.

According to the Washington Post:

Rather than attempting to drive down migration through more stringent enforcement, Biden officials in recent weeks have been seeking to change the perception that high border numbers equate to a crisis, a failure, or even something manifestly negative.

“Apprehensions don’t tell the full story, and getting to zero is not a measure of success,” Tyler Moran, one of Biden’s top immigration policy advisers, said in an interview. She and other Biden officials have urged patience with their policies and plans to address the “root causes” driving Central American emigration, while blaming the Trump administration for handing them an immigration system with a myopic focus on keeping border numbers low.

“We’re moving toward a fair, orderly and humane system,” Moran added. “We’re increasing and improving legal migration, and deterring irregular migration. We have put in place a number of policies creating legal pathways to migrate and seek protection, and we see that as a metric of success.”

The “full story,” as described by Moran, does not include the economic damage – such as housing prices — done to native-born and immigrant Americans, the expanding poverty and regional gaps in U.S. society, or the damage done to migrants’ home countries by the left-wing policy of extracting migrants for use in the U.S. economy.

Republican legislators are pushing back, but usually with ineffective rhetoric about socialism, border chaos, or illegal migrants.

The rhetoric looks good on some conservative websites, and it avoids a clash with pro-migration business donors, who oppose any GOP talk about immigration, jobs, wages, and careers. For example, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) responded to Mayorkas’ May 13 hearing comments by pointing to the crush of migrants at the border:

What I find astonishing … is that we have the secretary responsible for securing our border and our immigration system, who doesn’t recognize these charts as being a problem … and is not saying “We’ve got to make some changes immediately.” I find that I find that extraordinary and extremely damning.

But some GOP politicians are cutting the heart of the issue.

“The open borders policy of Democrats is driving down the wages of millions of Americans,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Wednesday during a May 12 hearing for a Democrat amnesty bill. He continued:

The bill that we’re discussing in this hearing today is, I believe, a very dangerous bill. It is a radical bill that would grant amnesty to millions of people here illegally, with a broad swath that is wrong, immoral, and profoundly unfair.

It is unfair to millions of Americans — [to] low-income Americans, Americans who may be out of work, Americans who may be in difficult jobs.

The open borders policy of Democrats is driving down wages of millions of Americans [including] the African American community. This bill is terrible for the African American community. It lowers wages in the African American community. The Hispanic community: This bill is terrible for the Hispanic community. For legal immigrants: … this bill drives down wages for millions of legal immigrants.

Pro-American activists are sharpening their responses: “It is extraction immigration,” said Rob Law, the director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. He added:

At the end of the day, calling everybody north to the United States leaves these other countries with a desolated population and completely destroyed economy. It is cruelty on steroids. What they’re doing is callous. It is cruel and it’s immoral.

For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates. This opposition is multiracialcross-sexnon-racistclass-basedbipartisanrationalpersistent, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.

The voter opposition to elite-backed economic migration coexists with support for legal immigrants and some sympathy for illegal migrants. But only a minority of Americans — mostly leftists — embrace the many skewed polls and articles pushing the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition to labor migration is built on the widespread recognition that legal and illegal migration moves money away from most Americans’ pocketbooks and families. Migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to investors, from technology to stoop labor, from red states to blue states, and from the central states to the coastal states such as New York.

EconomyImmigrationPoliticsAlejandro MayorkasDepartment of Homeland SecurityJoe BidenMigrantsMitt RomneyRob LawTed Cruz 


South Texas Police Encounter Pakistanis in Alleged Smuggling Stop near Border

Smugglers Vehicle
ZCSO
1:58

On Tuesday, Zavala County Sheriff’s deputies and Border Patrol arrested two U.S. citizens for suspicion of human trafficking near La Pryor, Texas. Six passengers were determined to be migrants illegally present in the country. Two of those were Pakistani nationals.

The arrest of human smugglers on border highways is becoming common due to the surge in migrant crossings. Encountering Pakistani nationals in these types of stops are uncommon at the moment, however.

Most illegal border crossings involve citizens of Mexico and Central America. A source working for Customs and Border Protection says they are detaining several migrants from Department of Homeland Security-designated “special interest” countries. The source says CBP is holding alien nationals of Turkey (18), Pakistan (4), and Syria (1).

According to the Department of Homeland Security:

[G]enerally, a Special Interest Alien is a non-U.S. person who, based on an analysis of travel patterns, potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests. Often such individuals or groups are employing travel patterns known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism.  DHS analysis includes an examination of travel patterns, points of origin, and/or travel segments that are tied to current assessments of national and international threat environments.

This case remains under investigation.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.

TX Sheriff: We’ve Never Seen Border Like This and It’s ‘Only Going to Get Worse’ and More ‘Are Going to Die’

1:38

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Faulkner Focus,” Val Verde County, TX Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez (D) stated that the situation at the border is “something that has not taken place in this part of our county ever.” And that without implementing a solution, the situation will get worse and “more people are going to die.”

Martinez said, “Well, this is something that has not taken place in this part of our county ever. This is the first time we’ve experienced something like this. So, it’s overburdened our federal partners, U.S. Border Patrol, who are doing everything they can to handle the situation. But we see these immigrants that are coming across fleeing their home country looking for a better way of life, you’ve got to feel for these individuals. But at the same time, there has to be a system in place that allows them a legal process. But it’s heartbreaking to watch some of these family units dragging their small children across a river risking their life.”

He added, “I wish that a decision be made one way or the other as to [how] to stop this. Because more people are going to die. Our state partners are involved in car chases every day. People are — there [are] accidents, they’re going through fences and stuff. People are going to die trying to come here. So, we need to put a stop to this nonsense until we come up with a solution. Because it’s only going to get worse. People are going to continue to come.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

Smuggler Who Packed 35 Migrants in Hot Tractor-Trailer Gets 9 Years in Prison

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents find 66 migrants locked in a tractor-trailer at the IH-35 Immigration Checkpoint. (Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Laredo Sector)
File Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Laredo Sector
2:49

A federal court in Laredo, Texas, sentenced a local man to more than nine years in prison for packing 35 migrants into a hot tractor-trailer in June 2019. Many of the migrants lost consciousness from the heat and lack of oxygen in the sealed trailer.

U.S. District Court Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo sentenced 52-year-old Juan Contreras this week to a federal prison sentence of 110 months, according to information obtained from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas. Contreras pleaded guilty to the human smuggling attempt in February 2020.

Judge Marmolejo noted this was Contreras’ third alien smuggling conviction and that he had multiple opportunities to stop the criminal activity and the suffering of the migrants locked inside the trailer.

On June 19, 2019, law enforcement officials found Contreras in a tractor-trailer on the side of Interstate 35 near Laredo. While the trailer was reported to be sealed, law enforcement officials noticed a person attempting to force their way through the trailer doors.

Inside the trailer, officials found 35 migrants locked inside, prosecutors stated.

“The investigation revealed the aliens had been banging on the walls while the vehicle was on the side of the highway,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a written statement. “They also tried to reach through holes they made with a crowbar. Multiple individuals even lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen and high temperatures.”

“The sentencing of Contreras sends a clear message that individuals who engage in criminal activity with disregard for human life will be located, arrested, convicted, and sentenced for their actions said Deputy Special Agent in Charge Timothy Tubbs from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). “Criminals who illegally smuggle people into and throughout the United States place personal profit ahead of public safety. HSI will continue to utilize its broad authorities to dismantle human smuggling organizations.”

Prosecutors noted that Contreras was on supervised release from his previous human smuggling conviction when he committed this crime. The court revoked the remainder of his supervised released and tacked on an additional nine months to his 110-month sentence. Once this is completed, Contreras will face an additional three years of supervised release.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.

Border Patrol Agents Save Life of Migrant Suffering Heat Stroke in Texas

Kingsville Station Border Patrol agents rescue a migrant suffering from heatstroke in May 2021. (Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Rio Grande Valley Sector)
Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Rio Grande Valley Sector
2:42

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents saved the life of a migrant found on a ranch in South Texas. The agents aided the unresponsive migrant and stabilized him before arranging transportation to a regional hospital.

Border Patrol agents assigned to the Kingsville Station encountered an unresponsive migrant adult male on a ranch about 80 miles from the Texas border with Mexico. The migrant appeared to be suffering signs of severe heat stroke, according to a tweet from Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings.

One of the Border Patrol agents trained as a paramedic began providing medical assistance. Other agents help provide aid to the migrant and arranged a helicopter transport for the man.

The agents managed to stabilize the migrant and the helicopter ambulance transported him to a hospital for further evaluation and treatment.

In the month of April, Border Patrol agents along the southwest border with Mexico rescued 873 migrants. Since the beginning of Fiscal Year 21, agents carried out nearly 5,800 rescues — exceeding the total number of rescues (5,255) for all of Fiscal Year 2020.

Agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector prosecuted more than 400 documented rescues so far this fiscal year. That number already exceeds Fiscal Year 2020 total of 350 rescues.

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 61,000 migrants in April 2021. This compares to 3,459 in April 2020 — an increase of 1,659 percent, according to the CBP Southwest Border Land Encounters report released in an after-hours press release on May 11.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.

Texas: Muslim Who Helped His Father Evade Capture After Murdering His Sister Gets Ten Years

But no one is facing up to the reality of Islamic honor killing in the U.S.

  5 comments

In Fort Worth, Texas on Tuesday, a 32-year-old Muslim named Islam Said was sentenced to ten years in prison for spending the last thirteen years helping his father, Yaser Said, one of the FBI’s Most Wanted criminals, evade capture. Yaser Said was wanted for murdering his two daughters, Islam Said’s sisters, Amina and Sarah Said. What kind of man would know that his father had murdered his two sisters and then help his father avoid justice, rather than turning him in? The answer to that question is far too uncomfortable and inconvenient for law enforcement officials to face honestly.

Islam Said was arrested along with Yaser last August. Apparently he was in hiding with his father, although he doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with the killings. And according to the Dallas Morning News, Islam Said denies that the killings were honor murders or had anything to do with Islam. “It’s something else. Religion has nothing to do with it.”

Yet that raises the question of why Islam Said was with his father at all. If these weren’t honor killings, why would Islam Said go on the run with Yaser and help him hide for all these years? Why wouldn’t he have the normal human reaction of thinking that what his father had done in murdering his sisters was abhorrent, and turn his father in to authorities? Did Islam Said’s commitment to the religion of Islam override that natural human reaction and make him think that what his father had done was good and praiseworthy?

For despite media denial and obfuscation of the fact, honor killing is something that many Muslims believe to be good and in accord with their faith. According to Islamic law, “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (Reliance of the Traveller o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In this case the victim was the murderer’s daughter, a victim to the culture of violence and intimidation that such laws help create.

That is why Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”

Also connected to the Islamic aspect of the story, and evidence that these were honor killings, is the fact that Yaser Said was enraged that Amina and Sarah had non-Muslim boyfriends. The Dallas Morning News reported at the time of the arrests last August that “Sarah said her father had threatened her older sister when he learned that she had a boyfriend, saying he’d put a bullet through Amina’s head.”

Thirteen years ago, however, the Dallas Morning News was more courageous and honest. Back in January 2008, it reported that the girls’ mother Patricia had said (regarding Amina) that “since they are Muslim that the daughter was only allowed to date other Muslims. Yaser had found out she went on a date with a non-Muslim and became very angry and threatened her with bodily harm.”

Yet now Patricia is now playing dumb: “She had no idea where Said was, and, despite public speculation about a motive, she doesn’t know why the sisters were killed.” We can only hope that police will not take her claim at face value, and thoroughly investigate whether Patricia had any role in Yaser being able to evade capture for twelve years. For note this: Patricia “divorced Said in 2009 and had converted to Islam after her daughters’ deaths, said in 2011 that she didn’t know why Said had killed Amina and Sarah but that he thought they were overly Westernized.”

This is a woman who admitted in 2008 — after her husband had killed their two daughters — that her husband had threatened to kill one of her daughters for dating a non-Muslim. Then, after that, she converted to Islam. What kind of a mindset could Patricia Owens Said possibly have had that would have induced her to join the religion that seems to have played a role in leading her husband to murder their daughters? Could it have been because she was in touch with Yaser and was signaling her acquiescence to and approval of his act? Will investigators look into this possibility, or would that be “Islamophobic”?

Probably the latter. Irving police Chief Jeff Spivey says “This man brutally murdered — shot to death — his two daughters in his taxi cab. What led him to do that, I think at this point to us, is irrelevant.”

No, sir. It isn’t irrelevant at all. It could shed important light on the behavior of Islam Said, and on the question of whether or not Patricia Owens Said were involved in his twelve years as a fugitive. Also, knowing exactly what happened in this case could help authorities prevent such honor killings in the future. Yet Chief Spivey seemed cheerfully willing to allow political correctness and fear of the leftist mob to curtail and deform his investigation. And so it is virtually certain that this isn’t the last such case we will see in the United States.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins―Revised and Expanded Edition. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

WATCH: 5 Migrant Girls, Under Age 6, Abandoned Overnight on Texas Bank of Rio Grande

Kate Coleman Hobbs
Volume 90%
2:38

A Texas rancher living north of Eagle Pass discovered five unaccompanied migrant children abandoned by smugglers on their farmland Saturday night. The five small girls, ranging in ages from one to six years old, were led across the Rio Grande River and abandoned the evening before. The human smugglers left them with no food, water, or any adults to care for them throughout the night.

The rancher’s wife shot a video when they found the children on Mothers Day Sunday morning. The frustrated woman expressed their displeasure for the dangers the children faced throughout the night and the seriousness of their situation. Temperatures reached 103 degrees on Sunday and the children appeared to be exhausted and dehydrated.

A Texas rancher found five little girls abandoned on the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande on Mother's Day. (Photo: Katie Coleman Hobbs)

A Texas rancher found five little girls abandoned on the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande on Mother’s Day. (Photo: Katie Coleman Hobbs)

The ranchers’ employee and his spouse helped care for and comfort the abandoned children while they awaited the arrival of Border Patrol agents.
The frustration was easily heard as the rancher’s wife expressed her feelings in a Facebook post.

“Five little girls were crossed yesterday afternoon and were dumped with no food, water, nothing,” Kate Coleman Hobbs wrote. “My husband found them this morning while on rounds. The adults in the video are our farm manager and his wife who brought much-needed water and food.”

“This is happening everywhere!!!!” she continued. “Share, make calls, raise hell! Stop this inhumanity! This summer is going to be a killer for many! 110 degrees! Stop! Stop this!”

In another post, Hobbs said her husband thought one of the little girls was dead. Fortunately, they were able to revive the child and provide water.

This incident comes as the Biden Administration opens additional Health and Human Services (HHS) Intake Sites to accommodate a surge in unaccompanied migrant children being smuggled into the United States. The children’s parents are sending the children alone to avoid immediate expulsion under the CDC Title 42 emergency order if crossing as a family unit. According to a law enforcement source, the parents or other relatives illegally enter the United States afterward to claim the children to avoid deportation once the children are freed by HHS.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.

PUT THIS FUCKER IN PRISON BEFORE HE DOES ANY FURTHER DAMAGE TO THIS UNRAVELING NATION!!!

Amnesty Axis: George W. Bush Touts Cheap Migrant Labor with Zuckerberg Group

JUNO BEACH, FLORIDA - MAY 07: Former U.S. President George W. Bush speaks during the flag raising ceremony prior to The Walker Cup at Seminole Golf Club on May 07, 2021 in Juno Beach, Florida. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)
Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images
6:17

Americans’ immigration laws can be changed in “bite-sized pieces” to let employers hire foreign workers instead of Americans, former President George W. Bush told an advocacy group backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“We’re working with a big coalition here in the Bush center,” Bush said in a May 6 interview arranged by the National Immigration Forum (NIF), which has been funded by Zuckerberg:

Can we get something done? I think so, but it’s going to have to be in bite-sized pieces … We don’t recognize the fact that there are jobs that need to be done and [foreign] people willing to do them and that needs to be part of a reform.

That “willing worker” goal would destroy Americans’ right to their own national labor market where American employers and American employees can compete on a level playing field for work and wages.

The “willing worker” goal pushed by Bush and his right-of-center Koch network is also being pushed by Zuckerberg’s left-of-center amnesty campaign.

The goal is hidden inside the January 20 amnesty and cheap-labor bill that was introduced by Joe Biden and cheered by Zuckerberg’s coalition. The bill creates an easy way for companies to hire an unlimited number of mid-skill foreign graduates in exchange for the promise of getting green cards in just ten years.

The plan builds on the existing pipelines of visa workers, which are imported via the H-1B, Optional Practical Training (OPT), L-1, TN, B-1/B-2, and other visa worker programs. Even though only about 80,000 foreign graduates get green cards per year, this green-cards-for-work labor system has allowed companies to build a foreign workforce of at least 800,000 mid-skilled foreign contract workers.

That huge mid-skill, no-rights workforce displaces hundreds of thousands of young Americans. This displacement slows technology growth, but it spikes profits by reducing pay, and it also reduces the chance that groups of U.S. or foreign tech workers can split off to create their own novel technologies and companies.

The NIF arranged the interview with Bush. It is part of a larger coalition of Zuckerberg-backed left-wing groups that are using street protests and lobbying to push Congress to pass multiple amnesties in 2021. George Soros has also supported the NIF’s spinoffs.

Bush explained that his personal low-profit, old-economy business on his estate could not survive if he had to rely on higher-wage, blue-collar American labor:

I’m a tree farmer — live oaks, red oaks if you need any … It’s not a very profitable business I want you to know, but it works because there are eight H-2B visa holders who come up [from Mexico] and work for us. They’re skilled, big family people, they send their money home to their families, but [the H-2B visa program requires] they have to go home every year for two months.

Then there’s a question as to whether or not the government let him back in after the two-year hiatus. That creates enormous uncertainty and if at some point, the government says “You can’t come back in,” then all of a sudden, we got a real problem.

“We’d benefit economically when people come to do work that needs to be done … and yet the system doesn’t recognize that now [because] it’s antiquated and broken, and it complicated, and it’s confusing,” Bush complained.

Bush explained why he does not favor Americans over migrants. “It depends on where you start your philosophy from. I started mine from ‘All life is precious, and we’re all God’s children.'”

While president, Bush’s poll ratings dipped to 33 percent in 2008 after he pushed amnesties in 2006 and 2007. Those amnesties included his “Any Willing Worker” plan, which would give American citizenship to foreigners if they agree to undercut Americans by taking jobs where employers offered meager wages.

“New immigration laws should serve the economic needs of our country,” Bush announced on January 7, 2004. “If an American employer is offering a job that American citizens are not willing to take, we ought to welcome into our country a person who will fill that job,” he said.

In April, the Cato Institute released a survey that showed that strong majorities of Americans believe U.S. immigration policy should first serve the interests of their fellow Americans, not of employers or investors.

“Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Americans say it’s more important when making immigration policy to consider what ‘benefits the United States and its current citizens,’” said the April 27 survey of 2,600 U.S. adults. The survey also showed that 60 percent of Americans want to reduce immigration by at least half.

Bush acknowledged the unpopularity of his plans. “There’s been a lack of leadership on the issue because … it is a very hot political issue,” Bush admitted to the NIF group. “Once an issue becomes politically hot, it’s very difficult to, you know, paint a positive picture.”

For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

This opposition is multiracialcross-sexnon-racistclass-basedintra-Democraticrational, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.

The voter opposition to elite-backed economic migration coexists with support for legal immigrants and some sympathy for illegal migrants. But only a minority of Americans — mostly leftists — embrace the many skewed polls and articles pushing the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition to labor migration is built on the widespread recognition that legal and illegal migration moves money away from most Americans’ pocketbooks and families.

Migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to investors, from technology to stoop labor, from red states to blue states, and from the central states to the coastal states such as New York.

Joe Biden Defiant in Face of Grim Economic Report: ‘Our Economy is Moving in the Right Direction’

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 07: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks on job numbers from April, 2021 at the East Room of the White House May 7, 2021 in Washington, DC. U.S. economy added 266,000 jobs in April, far less than the one million jobs that was expected. (Photo by Alex …
Alex Wong/Getty Images
1:54

President Joe Biden was defiant in reaction to the grim jobs and unemployment report released Friday.

“Today there is more evidence that our economy is moving in the right direction, but it’s clear we have a long way to go,” he said.

The president dismissed media commentary pointing out the disparity between the estimated job creation numbers and the jobs actually created in April.

“Listening to commentators today as I was getting dressed, you might think that we should be disappointed,” Biden said with a chuckle.

Unemployment rose to 6.1 percent in April, the report noted, the first time unemployment increased since April 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic began. Although analysts had expected up to a million jobs created in April, only 266,000 jobs were actually reported.

Biden stressed that the report was actually good news.

“Quite frankly, we’re moving more rapidly than I thought we would,” he said, arguing he always felt the recovery would be a “marathon” not a “sprint.”

Republicans questioned Biden’s decision to send expanded $300 a week checks to unemployed Americans until September 2021, arguing it was keeping workers on the sidelines during the pandemic.

But Biden said the economic news only proved the checks were necessary

“This is progress,” Biden continued. “And it’s a testament to our new strategy of growing this economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”

Biden also defended his call for $6 trillion in spending and dramatic tax hikes on businesses and the wealthy to boost the economy.

“The American people are counting on us. So, let’s get it done,” he said.

George W. Bush Lobbies Republicans to Work with Joe Biden on Amnesty for Illegal Aliens

PHILADELPHIA, PA - NOVEMBER 11: Seated on the dais are former Vice President Joe Biden, former US President George W. Bush, National Constitution Center Executive Committee Chairman Doug DeVos and National Constitution Center Executive Committee Chairman President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen await presentation of the 2018 Liberty Medal at The …
William Thomas Cain/Getty Images
3:04

Former President George W. Bush is lobbying House and Senate Republicans to work with President Joe Biden on amnesty for illegal aliens.

In an interview with the Dispatch Podcast, Bush said Biden and Republicans ought to strike a deal to provide amnesty, at the least, to illegal aliens enrolled in or eligible for former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“I think piecemeal probably makes sense and I think the president, if I could be so bold, is calling Republicans like-minded and saying ‘Let’s see if we can get something done,'” Bush said.

“Comprehensive may be too big of a reach right now,” Bush continued. “Like if they can get DACA done with some kind of border enhancement, you know plans to give Republicans comfort in voting for the bill, then all of the sudden there’s confidence to be gained.”

The statements come as Bush helps lead a charge among a Democrat-Republican coalition, big business interests, and the open borders lobby to provide amnesty to potentially millions of illegal aliens — a plan to which Biden gave a resounding endorsement in his first address to Congress last week.

In the address, Biden touted his amnesty for 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States while also urging Congress to pass two other amnesties: One for potentially 4.4 million illegal aliens and another for 2.1 million illegal aliens working on farms.

Bush, in recent weeks, revealed he is working the Koch network — run by the billionaire Koch brothers estate — to help Biden pass amnesty for illegal aliens. Not passing amnesty, Bush previously said, was his biggest disappointment as president.

The push comes as a survey from the pro-migration, Koch-funded Cato Institute reveals the extent to which Bush is out of step with Republican and conservative voters, as well as the majority of Americans.

The survey found 6-in-10 Americans want less overall immigration to the U.S., including 75 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of conservatives. Similarly, the survey showed 72 percent of Americans would prefer less immigration to the U.S. and more public benefits over more immigration and less public benefits.

Likewise, the survey confirmed opposing birthright citizenship is a mainstream Republican-held position.

In exclusive statements to Breitbart News, Republican staffers on Capitol Hill described Bush as an irrelevant globalist who does not represent the GOP’s base of voters or the majority of those in elected office.

“Republicans are well aware that his presidency was a national disaster on this issue as he failed to act when needed. Bush immigration policy has no impact today other than a reference on what not to do,” one House GOP aide said.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here

150 Migrants Apprehended, Armed Smuggler Arrested in Failed Smuggling Attempts near Border in Texas

Human smugglers pack migrants into luggage area in SUV. (U.S. Border Patrol/Del Rio Sector)
U.S. Border Patrol/Del Rio Sector
0:47

Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 150 migrants and an armed human smuggler in multiple failed human smuggling attempts over the weekend. The arrests took place as smugglers packed migrants into a variety of vehicles, including a stolen vehicle.

Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Austin Skero tweeted photos of multiple failed smuggling attempts where human smugglers packed migrants into vehicles. The interdictions led to the arrest of more than 150 migrants and at least one armed smuggler during vehicle stops by Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement partners.

Skero reported at least one of the human smugglers arrested had a gun in their possession. In another smuggling incident, agents recovered a stolen vehicle.

Skero also tweeted the punishment handed down to a U.S. citizen teenager who was recruited into the human smuggling business with promises of “easy money.” The 19-year-old convicted human smuggler now faces a sentence of 24 months in prison and three years of probation, Skero stated.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.

Migrant Charged with Threatening Fellow Traveler with Knife to Avoid Arrest

Agents arrested Eduardo Segovia-Luna after he allegedly held a knife to a fellow migrant in an attempt to avoid apprehension. (Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Laredo Sector)
Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Laredo Sector
1:34

A Laredo Sector Border Patrol agent successfully arrested a Mexican migrant who allegedly threatened a fellow migrant. The migrant reportedly put a knife to the other migrant’s neck in an attempt to avoid apprehension.

A Laredo South Station Border Patrol agent apprehended a group of three migrants on Thursday, according to a tweet from Chief Border Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak. As the agent attempted to take the three migrants into custody, one of the migrants pulled a knife and held it to the neck of a fellow traveler.

The agent said the Mexican migrant, later identified as Eduardo Segovia-Luna, tried to use the other migrant as a human shield and demanded to be released. The agent ordered Segovia-Luna to drop his weapon.

A standoff ensued as the agent awaited backup. Once other agents arrived, Segovia-Luna dropped the knife and surrendered, Hudak said in his tweet.

The three migrants reportedly entered the United States illegally.

Segovia-Luna now faces criminal charges connected to the assault on the second migrant, Hudak reported.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s Sunday-morning talk show, What’s Your Point? Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Parler @BobPrice, and Facebook.

180 Migrants Found in 3 Texas Stash Houses near Border

Laredo Sector agents find 180 migrants in three human smuggling stash houses on May 4. (Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Laredo Sector)
Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Laredo Sector
2:58

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 180 migrants in three human smuggling stash houses. The arrests came in raids on three residences in the Laredo, Texas, area within hours of each other on May 4.

Laredo South Border Patrol Station agents and the Laredo Special Operations Detachment (SOD) teamed up with ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents and Webb County Constables Office (WCCO) Precinct 2 deputies to investigate a possible human smuggling stash house located in central Laredo, according to information obtained from Laredo Sector Border Patrol officials.

The law enforcement team conducted a welfare check on the residence and found 68 migrants who were illegally present in the United States.

Later that day, Laredo South Station agents received information about a second human smuggling operation at a house located in south Laredo. The law enforcement team arrived and found 50 more migrants packed inside the residence.

The team assembled once again Tuesday night to investigate a third possible stash house for the day. In this incident, the law enforcement team discovered 65 migrants.

In total the team arrested more than 180 migrants, all illegally present in the United States, officials stated. The agents identified the migrants as foreign nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. Officials said none of the migrants packed inside the houses wore PPP equipment to deter the spread of COVID-19.

“All of the people rescued from these Stash Houses were being held against their will,” Laredo Sector Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Carl E. Landrum said in a written statement. “Human Smuggling/Trafficking are dangerous situations.  Please help others by reporting suspicious situations you see; you just might save a life.”

Agents provided the migrants with PPP and transported them to the station for processing.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.


Thousands of Migrants Freed into U.S. by DHS Resettle in Florida, Texas

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO - MARCH 16: Asylum seekers leave Mexico while walking into the United States on March 16, 2021 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Some 50 asylum seekers were officially allowed to cross the Santa Fe International Bridge as part of the Biden administration's unwinding of the Trump-era Migrant Protection …
John Moore/Getty Images
2:52

Thousands of migrants, enrolled in the now-defunct “Remain in Mexico” program, released into the United States interior are resettling in Florida, Texas, and other states, new data reveals.

After taking office in January, Biden ended the Remain in Mexico program, which had proven remarkably effective in eliminating the Catch and Release policy whereby border crossers are apprehended and subsequently released into the U.S. interior while awaiting their asylum hearings.

As of February, of the more than 71,000 asylum cases under Remain in Mexico, less than one percent of foreign nationals were found to have a legitimate asylum claim.

Biden announced in February that his Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with the help of the United Nations, would start releasing about 25,600 migrants enrolled in the program into the U.S. interior. Breitbart News exclusively reported that the migrants are being released in Brownsville and El Paso, Texas, as well as San Diego, California.

Data compiled by the Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University shows that nearly 4,000 Remain in Mexico cases out of close to 25,000 pending cases have been transferred out of courts along the U.S.-Mexico border to locations inside the nation’s interior.

The data shows where Remain in Mexico migrants are traveling to once they are released into the U.S. interior. More than 650 have gone to Miami, Florida, while more than 320 have ended up in Orlando, Florida, and more than 200 have resettled in Dallas, Texas.

Likewise, 135 of the cases have been transferred to San Antonio, Texas; 83 transferred to Houston, Texas; 43 transferred to Harlingen, Texas; 19 transferred to El Paso;Texas, and a handful of others transferred to Pearsall and Laredo, Texas.

Hundreds of Remain in Mexico migrants are also resettling in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego, California, while more than 140 have ended up in Arlington, Virginia.

As of early April, more than 6,400 Remain in Mexico migrants had been released into the U.S. interior who otherwise would have had to wait in Mexico until their asylum hearing in court.

Even if migrants are deemed ineligible for asylum following their hearing, they are unlikely to be deported from the U.S. thanks to Biden’s “sanctuary country” orders that ensure illegal aliens are not deported unless they have been recently convicted of an aggravated felony.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here

1100 Venezuelans Cross into West Texas Border Town Within 2 Weeks

Venezuelans
Breitbart Texas
2:50

A law enforcement source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, reported the illegal entry of more than 100 Venezuelan nationals south of Del Rio, Texas, early Wednesday morning. The group consisted of mostly family units and was apprehended by Border Patrol. They were transported to nearby stations for processing. Since April 16, Border Patrol agents have apprehended more 1,100 in the area.

On Tuesday, a group of 106 Venezuelans nationals entered in the same area. The groups are entering the United States illegally on a near daily basis.

Most will be summarily released into the community to travel to their destination in the United States. The few single adults within the group will await transfer to ICE for placement in facilities or released under alternatives to detention.

Del Rio, like other cities across the southern border, has seen its share of the increase in migrant traffic. A soft-sided facility was recently opened within the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector to deal with the influx. Del Rio has dealt with large groups of illegal migrants from outside the usual Central American countries normally encountered throughout other border areas.

Because of the relative safety of Ciudad Acuna, directly across from Del Rio, the area is a draw for large groups of Haitians, Cubans, and Central Africans. Cartel violence has slowed in recent years when compared to other cities in Mexico along the border and is the reason many within law enforcement believe Del Rio is the chosen crossing point.

Last month, the Biden Administration granted Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan nationals for 18 months. The designation applies to those residing in the United States since March 8, 2021. The designation suspends any attempts at removal for the period. Generally, these deadlines are extended–sometimes for years on end. Some critics argue this is a pull factor, encouraging illegal immigration from designated countries.

This group will more than likely be released into the United States to pursue asylum claims even though they would not qualify for the TPS designation. The source reports many of the Venezuelans interviewed during the week directly attributed the suspension of deportations by the Biden Administration as the impetus for their entry into the United States.

Randy Clark
 is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.

Exclusive: Migrant ‘Got-Away’ Total Exceeds 185K this Year, Says Source

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agent searches for tracks of migrants near Texas border. (File Photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
File Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
3:00

A law enforcement source within Customs and Border Protection says more than 185,000 migrants escaped Border Patrol apprehension so far this fiscal year. On average, more than 30,000 illegal aliens avoided capture in the last 22 days the source said.

Breitbart Texas reported in mid-April, the “got-away” total exceeded more than 155,000 leaving Border Patrol leadership frustrated. Last year, 69,000 illegal migrants managed to avoid apprehension by the Border Patrol. In just over seven months of this fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2020, the number of “got-aways” nearly tripled last year’s totals. Sources report the sharpest increase began in January.

The metric is usually not released by the Department of Homeland Security. It is achieved by counting illegal immigrants who ultimately escape Border Patrol apprehension after being observed by aircraft platforms and camera systems. In addition, Border Patrol agents using traditional sign-cutting techniques identify footprints crossing the border and count those that elude apprehension.

“That’s where it gets tricky,” says one Border Patrol agent who did not wish to be identified. “On a small trail, dozens can walk all over each other’s footprints, so you just do your best. Often, they’ll glue carpet to the soles of their shoes making detection even harder.”

Sources report for these reasons, the “got-away” count is usually lower than reality. How much so is debatable as the latter method of counting is not scientific. The increasing “got-away” numbers come as CBP reports its highest apprehension totals since 2006.

Despite the current administration’s refusal to call the immigration situation on the border a crisis, the recent surges are concerning. The increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border has Health and Human Services struggling to find sponsors within the United States. Many believe the impetus for the surges in illegal entries is being fueled by the promise of amnesty legislation. The Biden administration’s new policies regarding lax interior enforcement and a reduction in removals are also believed to be contributing to the surge in activity along the border.

Recent reports concerning the reduced patrols being conducted by the Border Patrol are likely contributing to the surge in the “got-away” count. Addressing the humanitarian needs of thousands of migrants crossing the border directly impacts the Border Patrol’s ability to patrol many remote areas. This situation is likely to worsen as the crisis develops.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas Sector.


52 Migrants Found in Texas Human Smuggling Stash Houses near Border

Border Patrol agents find 52 migrants in multiple human smuggling stash houses on April 28. (Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Rio Grande Valley Sector)
Photo: U.S. Border Patrol/Rio Grande Valley Sector
2:45

Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents found 52 migrants in stash houses during a seven-hour period last week.

Rio Grande City Border Patrol Station agents working the border near Garciasville, Texas, on April 28 detected migrant tracks indicating a group illegally crossed the border from Mexico, according to information provided by Border Patrol officials. The agents began following the tracks north from the river.

The agents tracked the group of migrants to a suspected human smuggling stash house. Agents contacted the Starr County Sheriff’s Office for assistance in investigating the possible stash house operation.

While carrying out a welfare check on the residence, agents identified 10 migrants hiding in the home. All were determined to be illegally present in the United States, officials stated.

A few hours later, agents working with Starr County deputies identified three additional homes near Roma, Texas, believed to be operating as human smuggling stash houses. Authorities arrived at all three locations and found several migrants in each house who were identified as being illegally present in the U.S. Agents carried out immigration interviews and identified the 42 migrants as foreign nationals from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

“With help from our law enforcement [partners], we will continue putting pressure on these dangerous smuggling organizations,” Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings said in a tweeted message.

Agents transported all of the migrants to Border Patrol stations for processing and possible expulsion under Title 42 coronavirus protection protocols put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Even with the spread of the COVID-19 virus, human smugglers continue to try these brazen attempts with zero regard for the lives they endanger nor to the health of the citizens of our great nation,” Border Patrol officials said in a written statement. “The U.S. Border Patrol agents of the Rio Grande Valley Sector will continue to safeguard the nation and community against these criminal elements.

Texas Game Wardens Rescue 10 Migrants During Rio Grande Border Crossing

Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens rescue ten migrants from drowning in the Rio Grande in April 2021. (Image: U.S. Border Patrol/Del Rio Sector)
Image: U.S. Border Patrol/Del Rio Sector
3:13

Texas game wardens, DPS troopers, and Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents teamed up in the rescue of 10 migrants who became distressed while illegally crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico. Game wardens responded after hearing people screaming for help in the river.

“Our agents and partners continue to save the lives of those in need,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Austin Skero tweeted. “With assistance from Texas Game Wardens, we recently responded and rescued 10 migrants that were heard screaming for help from an island in the river.”

The video shows Texas Parks and Wildlife wardens in their river patrol boat approaching the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande with a group of migrant adults and children. The game wardens heard the ten migrants screaming for help and pulled them into their boat.

Once they arrived at the Texas riverbank, Border Patrol agents and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers assisted in offloading the migrants and getting them ready for processing.

Water rescues in the Del Rio Sector have been on the rise in recent months, Chief Skero previously discussed. Just last week, Skero announced the deployment of a new water rescue vessel — a jet ski type watercraft with a towable flotation device, Breitbart Texas reported. This first-of-its-kind Border Patrol rescue vessel will enable Del Rio Sector agents to traverse shallow water to get to migrants in distress more quickly.

“This vessel can be quickly deployed in any water depth, improving our agents’ abilities to conduct rescues or aid agents working from land,” Skero tweeted. “Greater versatility saves both lives and time.”

Earlier this month, these agents rescued a two-year-old child and the child’s parents after agents found them struggling in the Rio Grande. Following this rescue, agents found 20 more migrants trapped on an island in the border river.

About a week earlier, a nine-year-old girl drowned during a border crossing attempt. Agents were unable to revive the girl but managed to revive the child’s mother and a sibling.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.


Sanctuary State: Illegal Alien Gets Five Years in Prison for Killing 24-Year-Old

An illegal alien has been sentenced to five years in …
GCCI
1:48

An illegal alien has been sentenced to five years in prison for killing a 24-year-old man in a drunk driving car crash in the sanctuary state of New Jersey.

Jesus Leal-Corona, a 49-year-old illegal alien, pleaded guilty in 2020 to second-degree vehicular homicide, two counts of third-degree vehicular assault, and drunk driving after hitting and killing 24-year-old Frankie Hensley of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in September 2019.

Leal-Corona, who had been living in Monroeville, New Jersey, admitted to police that he was drunk driving when he hit Hensley. At the time of the crash, Hensley was the passenger in a vehicle involved in a separate crash when he got out of the vehicle.

Then, Leal-Corona hit Hensley who was rushed to a nearby hospital and died hours later as a result of his injuries.

Leal-Corona was sentenced to five years in prison for the vehicular homicide charge and must serve 85 percent of his term before becoming eligible for parole. He also received a 3-year sentence for vehicular assault and 30 days in prison for the drunk driving charge.

Before the deadly crash, Leal-Corona had been arrested in Texas and New Jersey. Despite those arrests, Leal-Corona was never deported. New Jersey’s broad sanctuary state policy, which shields criminal illegal aliens from federal arrest and deportation, could prevent Leal-Corona from being turned over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency following his sentence.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here


Life in Prison for MS-13 Member Convicted in Murder of Texas Teen

Douglas Alexander Herrera-Hernandez (Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office)
Photo: Harris County Sheriff's Office
3:17

HOUSTON, Texas — A Texas jury rendered a sentence of life without parole to an MS-13 gang member convicted in the killing of a Houston-area teenager. The victim witnessed several gang-related murders before being lured to Missouri City, Texas, for his own execution.

A jury in Harris County, Texas, sentenced Douglas Alexander Herrera-Hernandez, an MS-13 gang member who illegally entered the United States in December 2014, to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of 16-year-old Estuar Quinonez. The victim suffered 15 gunshot wounds as he sat on a park bench in Buffalo Run Park on June 13, 2016, Fox 26 Houston reported.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officials confirmed to Breitbart Texas that Herrera-Hernandez, aka “Terror,” entered the U.S. illegally as an Unaccompanied Alien Child (UAC) by crossing the Rio Grande in December 2014. Officials reported the migrant was 17 years old at the time he crossed the border.

Border Patrol agents released him under President Barack Obama’s catch and release policies with a “notice to appear” before an immigration court. A Houston immigration judge issued a final order of removal against Herrera-Hernandez after he failed to appear for his hearing.

Just under one year later, Herrera-Hernandez murdered 16-year-old Estuar Quinonez in Missouri City, Texas, a suburb of Houston, Breitbart Texas reported. Quinones reportedly witnessed several MS-13 gang-related murders. Missouri City police, working with the Houston Police Department, identified the Salvadoran national as a suspect in the murder.

Herrera-Hernandez fled from Texas and was later arrested by police in Virginia in late July 2017, Breitbart Texas reported. In addition to the murder of Quinones, the MS-13 gang member also allegedly shot and killed 26-year-old Kevin Alvarez in southeast Houston on July 9, 2017.

During the trial, prosecutors told the jury that Herrera-Hernandez got permission from MS-13 gang leaders in El Salvador to kill Quinonez, the local Fox affiliate reported. The now-convicted killer gathered several gang members to carry out the execution of the victim. Herrera-Hernandez and another gang member picked up Quinonez and brought him to the park where the gang members fired multiple gunshots including one to the head.

“We are trying to break the back of this organization by sending their assassins to prison for as long as possible and we will remain unrelenting in our pursuit of these criminals who band together to terrorize communities,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg told reporters.