EXCLUSIVE — Rep. Reschenthaler: Biden’s ‘Continued Weakness’ Destabilizes National Security
President Joe Biden’s “weakness” in signaling he would not respond to any “minor” Russian incursion into Ukraine is destabilizing to the world as well as American national security, and emboldens others to do similar acts, according to Pennsylvanian Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler.
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Thursday following President Joe Biden’s apparent surrender to a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) called out the president’s “continued weakness” and warned of the consequences of such policies.
The congressman began by slamming the president’s credibility to lead the United States.
“Most Americans do not believe [President] Joe Biden is fit to run our country, and during his first year in office, he proved them right time and time again,” he stated.
Reschenthaler, who served in the Navy Judge Advocate General Corps and volunteered for duty in Iraq, then accused the president of far-reaching destabilization.
“Biden’s latest security blunder, signaling he wouldn’t act on a ‘minor incursion’ in Ukraine, further destabilizes Eastern Europe, Asia, and American national security,” he continued.
He then warned that the president’s “continued weakness” would have further dire consequences.
“Biden erased all leverage in negotiations with the Russians by signaling what he would wrongly accept,” he concluded. “Biden’s continued weakness on the international stage gave [Russian President Vladimir] Putin a greenlight on Ukraine and now [Chinese President] Xi Jinping looks on, emboldened, eyeing Taiwan.”
On Wednesday, at a special press conference to mark the first year of his presidency, President Biden appeared to give up the idea of stopping Russian President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine, telling reporters that the U.S. may not aid Ukraine, a longtime ally, in the event of a Russian invasion as long as it is a “minor incursion.”
He did not define the term “minor incursion.”
Biden also predicted that Putin would invade the country and that he could colonize it, but not without significant losses, and insisted Moscow would “be held accountable” but provided no details as to how.
Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and remains there; Russian troops have already performed incursions into eastern Ukraine.
In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Biden’s remarks that appeared dismissive of a potential Russian invasion of his country, affirming in a statement to social media, “There are no minor incursions.”
Reschenthaler’s comments come as a majority of respondents to a Politico/Morning Consult poll this week said they believe President Biden was incapable of leading the country.
Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein
Why Was Texas Synagogue Jihadi Allowed Into U.S. Two Weeks Ago Despite ‘Long Criminal Record’?
Giving the American people any answers doesn't seem to be a priority.
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The family of Malik Faisal Akram, the Islamic jihadi from Britain who took hostages in Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, Saturday, has “demanded to know how he was allowed into America despite a long criminal record,” says the UK’s Daily Mail. More than just his family should be asking this question. How was this man able to storm a synagogue in Texas and take people hostage at gunpoint when he shouldn’t have been allowed into the United States in the first place? If anything shows how broken our immigration system is under the regime of Biden’s handlers, it is this entire episode.
Malik Faisal Akram’s brother Gulbar asked: “He’s known to police. Got a criminal record. How was he allowed to get a visa and acquire a gun?” Yeah. U.S. immigration law states that “any alien convicted of 2 or more offenses (other than purely political offenses), regardless of whether the conviction was in a single trial or whether the offenses arose from a single scheme of misconduct and regardless of whether the offenses involved moral turpitude, for which the aggregate sentences to confinement were 5 years or more is inadmissible” to the United States.
It has not been revealed how many convictions Malik Faisal Akram has, but presumably a “long criminal record” involves more than two. Does Akram’s “long criminal record” involve no convictions, or only one? Or did he get admitted to the United States by some official who was skirting the law? Is Old Joe Biden’s immigration system so broken at this point that essentially anyone, anyone at all, no matter what kind of criminal record he has, can get into the country?
In light of what he did when he got here, Americans need an answer to those questions, but it is not likely that any will be forthcoming and the Leftist establishment media sycophants certainly cannot be counted on to ask any administration officials any probing questions.
Old Joe Biden offered a vague and partial explanation of how Akram got the gun but said nothing about how he was allowed to enter the country in the first place: “I don’t have all the facts and neither does the attorney general, but allegedly the assertion was he got the weapons on the street, that he purchased them when he landed. And it turns out there were apparently no bombs that we know of, even though he said that there were bombs there as well. He apparently spent the first night in a homeless shelter — I don’t have all the details, so I’m reluctant to go into much more detail, but allegedly he purchased it on the street. What that means, I don’t know if he purchased it from an individual in the homeless shelter or a homeless community.”
Thanks, Joe. That was characteristically unhelpful and non-illuminating. Biden added a hint that his handlers will try to make this incident into a gun-control issue while continuing to ignore the immigration questions it raises, as well as questions about Islamic anti-Semitism and jihad violence in general: “The idea of background checks are critical, but you can’t stop something like this if someone is on the street buying something from somebody else on the street.”
We can’t even get straight answers about whether or not Akram acted alone: the FBI’s Dallas field office claimed that there was “no indication” that he worked with anyone else, yet the Greater Manchester Police in Britain on Sunday night arrested two Muslim teenagers as part of their investigation into the hostage-taking incident.
Meanwhile, Malik Faisal Akram’s local Blackburn Muslim Community posted a statement on Facebook that contained nary a word of condemnation for his actions: “Faisal Akram has sadly departed from this temporary world and returned to his Creator. May the Almighty forgive all his sins and bless him with the highest ranks of Paradise. May Allah give strength and patience to his loved ones in dealing with their loss.” Akram’s family, while condemning the attacks, declared that their primary goal was to give him an Islamic funeral: “Obviously our priority will be to get him back to the UK for his funeral prayers although we have been warned it could take weeks.”
The feds will no doubt work with the family to expedite this. The FBI has its priorities, too. But on no one’s priority list is giving the American people any answers as to why this was allowed to happen at all. Malik Faisal Akram should never have been admitted into the United States. The fact that he was is yet another indelible blot on the sorry record of the Biden administration.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 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 The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Originally published at PJ Media
THERE IS NOTHING MORE DANGEROUS TO AMERICA THAN A PACK OF PARASITE LAWYERS GAMING THE LAWS.
Leftists like to keep criminals, rioters, and illegal aliens out on the streets where they can do damage to American society instead of behind bars where they belong.
HOW MANY LIES HAVE THESE TWO LAWYERS PERPETRATED AS THEY FLOODED AMERICA WITH UNSKILLED LABOR TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND VOTE DEMOCRAT FOR MORE. MOST OF THESE PEOPLE WILL END UP ON WELFARE OR IN JAILS.
Biden’s Homeland Security Dept Recruiting Journalists To Help Spin Border Crisis
With GOP poised to retake power in 2023, immigration agencies seek writers to draft 'responses to congressional inquiries'
The Biden administration is actively recruiting journalists to provide communications and public relations services on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security as it struggles to contain the illegal immigration crisis on the southern border.
This week, DHS posted three job openings for the position of "writer-editor"—one at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and two in the public affairs office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The timing and job descriptions suggest the Biden administration is already preparing for the onslaught of immigration-related congressional inquiries that will presumably occur if Republicans regain control of the House and Senate in 2023.
CBP, for example, is seeking a writer-editor whose duties will include drafting "responses to congressional inquiries on complex issues related to the enforcement of legislation." The position, which comes with a generous starting salary of between $89,834 and $116,788, will also involve "presenting information to maximize understanding and minimize controversy among the intended audiences."
ICE, meanwhile, is looking for two writers whose duties will include "creating talking points" for the senior agency officials who will presumably be called to testify before Congress if Republicans take power. According to the job listing, qualified candidates must have experience "following guidance from the leadership and adhering to the views of the organization's leadership." The position, which comes with an even more generous starting salary of between $126,233 and $164,102, requires a "secret" level security clearance and is classified as "high risk," which refers to its "potential to damage the public's trust in the Federal Government."
Despite the Biden administration's reluctance to address the border crisis, immigration remains a top concern among American voters. According to Gallup, immigration has consistently ranked among the top four issues Americans cite as the "most important problem" facing the country. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's top priority—so-called voting rights, or "election reform"—barely registers as a top concern for voters.
Just one in three voters approve of Biden's handling of immigration, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Perhaps they are turned off by Vice President Kamala Harris's egregiously flippant attitude toward the situation. Fiscal year 2021 saw the highest level of migrant apprehensions (1.7 million) at the southern border in U.S. history, but because the Biden administration is already dealing with several significant crises, and because the mainstream media are reluctant to cover the issue for ideological reasons, immigration has largely been absent from the political conversation.
That will presumably change in the increasingly likely event that Republicans are victorious in this year's midterm elections and take charge of the congressional hearing schedule in 2023. If the DHS job listings are in fact part of an effort to confront that eventuality, it would be a rare display of competence and preparation from an administration that has proven itself hopelessly inept when it comes to solving the problems Americans actually care about.
Following Free Beacon Story, DHS Reveals Report on Illegal Immigrant Population
Biden admin failed to produce report on visa overstays in 2021
President Joe Biden's Department of Homeland Security quietly released a long-awaited report on Tuesday evening detailing large segments of the illegal immigrant population that it had been keeping from the public, but backdated the report to make it look as if the agency had posted it online when it was expected last year.
The agency posted its 2020 Entry/Exit Overstay Report, which provides an exact accounting of foreign travelers with expired visas who are no longer legally allowed to be in the United States. The release comes two months after the Washington Free Beacon reported in November on the administration's failure to post the report, which the executive branch is legally required to produce annually to Congress and has in the past been promptly shared with the public. While the administration had released the report to select members of Congress, it had yet to be released to the public—a major departure from prior transparency standards.
Though the report wasn't released until Jan. 4, 2022, the DHS website backdated the release date on its website to show it was posted on Sept. 30, 2021, the date the report was submitted to Congress. In previous years, the release date on DHS's website reflects when the report was posted publicly and not when the report was first given to Congress.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment on the decision to backdate the report.
The failure to publicly release the report elicited anger from Republicans on Capitol Hill, who voiced concerns that the administration was withholding the report during negotiations over the White House spending proposals to hide the number of migrants who could receive amnesty under the president's Build Back Better plan. Sens. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) and James Lankford (R., Okla.) in December sent a letter to DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas demanding its public release.
"We are concerned that DHS did not publish the FY 2020 Entry/Exit Overstay Report on a public website out of concerns that this report would complicate the conversation around the ‘Plan C' amnesty proposals in the Democrats’ partisan reconciliation package," Hawley and Lankford wrote. "Plan C" amnesty refers to the third attempt by Democratic lawmakers to get the Senate parliamentarian to allow the inclusion of immigration reform in their budget reconciliation bill.
The now-public 2020 report documents the "highest ‘suspected in country overstay rate' of all the public reports out there," one immigration expert who viewed the report told the Free Beacon. According to the data provided by DHS, 584,885 foreign nationals overstayed their visa, compared with 497,272 in 2019.
That record-breaking overstay rate is due to "the COVID-19 outbreak," Mayorkas says in the report, calling it "an anomaly when compared with the prevailing trend" of declining overstays over the years. He wrote that DHS "will continue to publicly release this report, at a minimum, on an annual basis," ignoring the fact that no report was published publicly last year.
Those identified as potential visa overstays in the report are not necessarily targeted for removal by immigration authorities. Congress mandated that the report be released annually to the public due to the belief that "the large number of annual in-country alien overstays threatens national security and the integrity of legal immigration."
Trump targeted visa overstay rates in an April 2019 executive order that directed DHS to "engage with the governments of countries with [high] total overstay [rates]."
The 2021 fiscal year saw more recorded illegal border crossings than at any time in U.S. history. November saw an increase in border crossings after a three-month downward trend.
Biden's handling of the visa overstay report is part of a broader culture of secrecy from the White House on the topic of immigration. The Free Beacon reported on Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has yet to release its annual report detailing the number of illegal immigrants removed from the United States in 2021.
Biden Admin Unable To Locate 50,000 Migrants Released Into US in 2021
Numbers contradict testimony by DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas
Nearly half of all migrants that Border Patrol released into the United States in 2021 cannot be located, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.
More than 100,000 migrants were released into the United States from the southern border between March 21 and Aug. 31, 2021, and given a notice to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement within 60 days, according to the data. Nearly half of those—47,705—did not check in, making their status and location unknown to immigration authorities.
The release of the data comes after Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) in August pressed Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for an accounting of all migrants released into the United States. Mayorkas responded to the letter on Jan. 11, nearly three months after Johnson’s request.
Following a March 2021 policy directive from President Biden, migrants were given "Notices to Report" to an immigration office rather than "Notices to Appear" at an immigration court. Proponents of the change in policy say it was necessary due to the 1.5 million backlogged cases at the nation's immigration courts. But critics say report notices made it easier for migrants to dodge Homeland Security.
The distinction between a "Notice to Report" and "Notice to Appear" is crucial, with the latter holding "real legal effect," according to Center for Immigration Studies immigration expert Andrew Arthur. Should a migrant miss an order to appear in court, an immigration judge could order that person's immediate removal. "Notices to Report," however, effectively operate on an honor system, with little recourse for the federal government to punish the offender.
According to the data provided by the Department of Homeland Security, just 15.6 percent of the over 100,000 migrants released into the country were issued removal proceedings.
The migrant numbers released contradict statements by Mayorkas in September, when he appeared in front of the Senate. During an exchange with Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), Mayorkas said that a vast majority of migrants given "Notices to Report" had checked in with immigration officials following their apprehension.
"Approximately 75 percent have indeed reported within the time frame or within their reporting time frame," he said. "And as to those who have failed to report, that would qualify as an enforcement priority of ours."
The Department of Homeland Security earlier this month released a report that details the number of foreigners who overstayed their visas in 2020. That report found that 2020 saw the highest number of suspected visa overstays on record, with 584,886 foreign nationals living in the United States longer than federal law allows.
The Washington Free Beacon revealed earlier this month that the Biden administration has yet to release a report that outlines the number of illegal immigrants removed from the United States in 2021.
Illegal Alien Gets 20 Years in Prison for Murdering 24-Year-Old Alabama Woman
An illegal alien has been sentenced to just 20 years in prison after murdering a 24-year-old woman in Marshall County, Alabama.
Edgar Almanza-Zarazua, a 25-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, had fled back to Mexico after having murdered 24-year-old Gloria Stephanie Palomec in June of 2016. Months later, in October 2016, Zarazua was hit with murder and attempted murder charges though police searched for him for years.
A break in the hunt for Zarazua came after he was accused of murdering an individual in Mexico and placed in a local jail.
The Marshall’s County Sheriff’s Office worked with the United States Marshal’s Service to extradite Zarazua to the U.S. in January 2020 where he was flown to Birmingham, Alabama, and held on a $3.5 million bail.
Though Zarazua was initially charged with murder in the death of Palomec, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter this month and was given a 20-year prison sentence by Judge Tim Riley — the maximum sentence for such a charge.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has a detainer on Zarazua so that when he completes his prison sentence, he will be turned over to federal agents for arrest and deportation.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE DANGEROUS TO AMERICA THAN A PACK OF PARASITE LAWYERS GAMING THE LAWS.
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