Free Republic

<p>DONALD JOHN TRUMP Coalition forms to back Trump rollback of major environmental law Canadian CEO blasts Trump over downed plane in Iran: 'I am livid' Business groups worry they won't see a Phase 2 Trump-China trade deal MORE plans to divert $7.2 billion from the Pentagon to go toward border wall construction this year, an amount five times greater than what Congress authorized in the budget, the Washington Post reported.</p>

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott became the first in the nation to refuse to host refugees in his state, flexing the new veto the Trump administration created last year to give state and local officials a say in whether they become a destination for the migrants. More than 40 other governors, both Democrats and Republicans, have said they will accept refugees. But a swath of conservative states from Texas to Florida had held out, ahead of a deadline later this month. Mr. Abbott, a Republican, becomes the first to refuse — a major statement for a state that has accepted more...

As the Trump administration continues to make strides in reducing the number of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States through its southern border, they may face a new problem as news broke on Wednesday of a new migrant caravan headed for the U.S. According to the Center For Immigration Studies, a person by the name of Jason Pena posted the update on Wednesday night which indicated that Mexico has confirmed yet another migrant caravan — this one originating in the Honduras — is on it’s way north, toward the United States.

The riverbanks along the City of Rio Bravo (South of Laredo) are planned to be surveyed and assessed by U.S. personnel and contractors. A letter from Washington was sent mid-November to Rio Bravo officials... According to the document, the surveying could start at any moment after the document is signed.

Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ordered a review of state laws that allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses and restrict data sharing with federal immigration authorities. Wolf on Tuesday ordered all of the components of DHS to conduct a department-wide review of the state laws to determine how they affect their day-to-day operations, according to a memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The DHS chief’s directive indicates he is prepared to take aim against the state laws. “Accordingly, I am instructing each operational component to conduct an assessment of the...

Now that it is officially 2020, illegal alien adults in California are now eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's health care system for low-income families. Starting January 1 – today – Medi-Cal is now extended to illegal aliens ages 19 to 26. Before today those under the age of 19 were able to receive Medi-Cal benefits, the Modesto Bee reported. Before the new legislation took effect, quite a few illegal aliens were receiving limited Medi-Cal benefits (basically emergency services). Now they are able to receive full-scope Medi-Cal benefits, which include preventative and primary care on top of emergency services. Those who...

If these predictions come to pass, their fulfillment will have lasting effects upon America in the 2020s and beyond. In 2008, as the Obama administration prepared to take control in Washington, retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey offered a list of bold predictions for the coming five years. Some of them bore out: The economy performed well globally despite the Great Recession, relations with Russia became more hostile without devolving into outright dysfunction, and the United States withdrew from Iraq right at the 36-month mark, which McCaffrey specified. Other predictions, such as a North Korean collapse, improved prospects for success in...

Denver officials do not plan on fully cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if they release an illegal alien who was deported six times before getting arrested for fleeing the scene of a deadly hit-and-run accident. Juan Sanchez, a Mexican national living in the U.S. illegally, is accused of striking a pedestrian in the Denver area with a vehicle and immediately fleeing the scene. If Sanchez — who lives in a state that largely limits cooperation with ICE — is able to make bond, his release back into the community could pose another showdown between local officials and federal immigration authorities....

Police identified the man they say fatally stabbed his girlfriend in front of children, also injuring the woman’s 14-year-old son, in their Olney home Christmas morning. Josue Quino was arrested Wednesday at about 3:25 a.m. and charged with murder, attempted murder, terroristic threats, aggravated assault, simple assault, corruption of minors, endangering welfare of children, recklessly endangering another person and possessing instruments of crime. There was no attorney listed in online court records for Quino.

by Brian Hayes An illegal alien was arrested on Saturday for the fatal hit-and-run of a Native American grandmother in Denver. Annette Conquering Bear, a mother-of-six who was due to celebrate her 52nd birthday December 19, was walking home from the supermarket with her husband when Mexican national Juan Sánchez struck her with a SUV he had borrowed the afternoon of December 17. The 2007 GMC Sierra was abandoned by Sánchez down the road and traced to a friend, who identified him to police investigators. As the DailyMail reported, Sanchez had been previously deported multiple times, but took advantage of sanctuary...

by Gina Cassini Former second lady Dr. Jill Biden, whose husband former VP Joe Biden is running for the 2020 Democrat nomination, handed out tamales and Christmas gifts to migrants in Mexico as part of a visit with local leaders on Sunday -- and many Americans were not pleased with her choice of venue. Biden toured a migrant camp across the border from Brownsville, Texas, home to over 2000 asylum-seekers. Many of the migrants, often referred to as MPPs, have remained in Mexico as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Migrant Protection Protocols program as they await hearings before U.S. immigration officials....

My teenage son is a law-abiding American citizen. To obtain his driver's permit this year, he brought his birth certificate, Social Security card, passport and verification that he completed an approved driver's school course. It took a half-dozen trips back and forth between various government agencies to clear all the paperwork hurdles. Every American citizen who has navigated such bureaucratic hurdles at a local Department of Motor Vehicles should be outraged at the open borders spectacles in New Jersey and New York this week. With the impeachment charade absorbing all the national media's oxygen, however, you probably didn't see more...

Investigative journalist Huey Freeman has written a compelling book challenging the notion that Border Patrol Agent Nick Ivie was killed by friendly fire. In Who Shot Nick Ivie?, Freeman lays out the case that contrary to the government’s claims, smugglers, probably from the Sinaloa cartel, shot Ivie in an ambush of him and two other agents. And he explains why the Obama administration put that spin out there. While working one night in October 2012, Ivie was dispatched to check out a sensor alarm that had been tripped near the border between Arizona and Mexico. Two other agents followed him...

The quiet migration of around 17,000 Brazilians through a single U.S. city in the past year reveals a new frontier in the Trump administration's effort to shut down the legal immigration pathway for people claiming fear of persecution. Like hundreds of thousands of families from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, known collectively as the Northern Triangle, Brazilians have been crossing the border here and applying for asylum. They now make up a quarter of immigrants apprehended in El Paso, the most commonly apprehended migrants after Mexicans... Massachusetts officials and community leaders say they've felt the surge in Brazilian migrants this...

As many as 80,000 people statewide who are living in the country illegally, including 30,000 on Long Island, will be able to obtain valid New York State driver’s licenses beginning Saturday. The starting date follows years of conflict and a continuing divide among New Yorkers. Supporters say the law will make roads safer and help immigrant families prosper; opponents call the law nothing less than a tool for terrorists. The measure, referred to as the Green Light Law, was passed earlier this year and signed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, making New York the 13th state to provide driver’s licenses to...

Isn’t it a tad bit ironic that one of the most controversial conservative positions out there happens to be the one that, if implemented, would actually do the most to ‘conserve’ the United States as a functioning, liberty-respecting republic? In fact, to make a cogent case for that position - an all-out immigration moratorium - is to practically ask to be called every knee-jerk name in the book by the left and even by some on the right eager to distance themselves from a position the left has successfully managed to brainwash most of a gullible public into believing is...

Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Sunday told a Hispanic worker in South Carolina that illegal immigrants would have access to government-funded health care if he was elected president. Buttigieg was filmed by a supporter speaking Spanish to the fvcd worker, explaining who would be covered under his proposed plan.

Harvard's student government, the Undergraduate Council, has voted to support Act on a Dream, an activist student group calling for a boycott of The Harvard Crimson. The council's statement does not specifically endorse the boycott. But it does express solidarity with Act on a Dream, whose members want the student newspaper to apologize for seeking comment from representatives of U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement in articles. As I noted in my previous coverage of this kerfuffle, seeking comment from relevant parties is standard journalistic practice and ought to be commended. Instead, the activists have somehow convinced themselves that when The Crimson talks to ICE,...

Photos of three McMurtry College sophomores wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement costumes to the Halloween event at Willy’s Pub drew student outrage on Twitter last night, leading to responses from university leadership. The photos show the students in line for Willy’s Pub wearing police uniforms with “ICE” prominently displayed on the back and breast with white tape. Two of the students who held college leadership positions as committee heads agreed to step down and all three will participate in a McMurtry town hall facilitated by their Diversity Council, according to McMurtry president Joyce Chen. The event will be held...

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police announced Wednesday they will be suspending a program with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain persons on federal immigration holds. LVMPD said in a statement that LVMPD analyzed a recent California court decision regarding ICE detention policies and determined "it will no longer honor Federal immigration detainers for civil immigration violations." The program was known as 287-G. The California ruling specified that ICE was prohibited from issuing detainers in states with no explicit statute on immigration arrests, LVMPD said.  Nevada doesn't currently have a statute approving an arrest for civil immigration violations. LVMPD noted that the decision...