Free Republic

President Trump’s pick to be the nation’s first-ever “border czar” is a longtime former cop and immigration official who takes a hard line on illegal crossings. Former acting ICE Director Thomas Homan told Secrets early in the Trump administration, for example, that he views every unauthorized border crossing as a crime that can and should be punished. "If you are in this country illegally, and you committed a crime by entering this country, you should be uncomfortable, you should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried," Homan told Secrets. "No population is off the table," he told...

President Trump is poised to launch his 2020 reelection as popular with Hispanic voters as other Republicans, bucking predictions that provocative nationalist rhetoric and hard-line border policies would crater his support with this critical bloc. When Trump, four years ago Saturday, descended the escalator to the lobby of his iconic New York skyscraper and announced his first campaign, he riffed that Mexicans "with lots of problems," including rapists, were crossing the southern border. Many Republicans, establishment and otherwise, were mortified. They fretted that nominating Trump, never mind electing him, would permanently doom the GOP with Hispanics. It hasn’t worked out...

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge suggested in an interview that aired Friday on "Rising" that he did not believe President Trump's move to slap new tariffs on Mexico would solve the immigration issue at the U.S. southern border. "I'm not quite sure tariffs on Mexico are going to solve the problem for us," Ridge, who served under former President George W. Bush, told Hill.TV. "I have a great deal of support for the notion about securing the borders, but I think we politicize the issue instead of solving the problem," he continued. The Hill obtained a draft document on...

A Texas school district has fired a high school teacher who tweeted to US President Donald Trump to ask for help reporting illegal immigrant students. Georgia Clark, an English teacher in Fort Worth, complained on 17 May about "illegal students from Mexico", adding: "I need protection from recrimination".

Mexico is going to cave, and it's not just the tariffs. We've got the Mexicans over a barrel on energy, and if we want, we can wipe their economy out. Without American energy imports, the Mexican economy collapses. This actually doesn't make any sense. Mexico is awash in petroleum and natural gas. But the Mexicans just can't get it out of the ground. American petroleum engineers were critical to the early success of the Mexican oil industry. From 1918 to the late '20s, Mexico was second only to the United States in oil production, and it was number one in...

It hasn’t been China that has been the source of sudden escalation; nor Iran; nor North Korea; nor Turkey, who admittedly gave it a good go in announcing they may install Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles in the area of the Mediterranean they are looking for energy in despite protests from the EU’s Cyprus it’s their naval territory; nor even Italy, where Deputy PM Salvini is threatening new elections that would very likely strengthen his hand further has he prepares for battle with Brussels. No, it was Mexico. (Or rather US President Trump, which is less of a surprise.) Don’t get...

Pregnant Mexican national Isabel Lopez waits at BP checkpoint near Nogales, AZ by Brian Hayes For the first time ever, Border Patrol officers are returning pregnant migrants to Mexico -- most of them crossing the border in their 8th and 9th months of pregnancy -- and the media and Democrats are absolutely livid over it. Under the headline, “Pregnant women, other vulnerable asylum seekers are returned to Mexico to await hearings,” the Los Angeles Times described how President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy is reducing the ability of adventurous migrants to give birth in the United States: When Enma Hernandez crossed the...

Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) said at a Wednesday congressional hearing that she believes deaths of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border are "intentional." Her comments, made to Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan as he testified to the House Committee on Homeland Security, come days after the announcement that a Guatemalan teen was the fifth minor to die at the border since December. "With five kids that have died ... the evidence is really clear that this is intentional, it’s a policy choice being made on purpose by this administration and it’s cruel and inhumane," the freshman Democrat, who is...

Housing shortages are plunging New York City and Los Angeles into crisis. Affordable rental units are scarce, families are doubling up, shelters are jam-packed and tens of thousands are sleeping sprawled on the streets of these two cities. The wait-list for public housing is more than four years long in LA and would be even longer if officials hadn’t closed it to new applicants. Here in New York, the wait is a staggering 10 years. Nationwide, illegal immigrants take up some 32,000 public apartments. It’s a powerful reason why the Trump administration is giving them 18 months to get out...

Former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli is expected to take a top job at the Department of Homeland Security to help steer the administration's immigration policies, a senior administration official said. Cuccinelli is not expected to take on the role of "immigration czar," a position President Donald Trump had considered establishing to improve coordination between the agencies involved in handling the steep uptick in migrants crossing the US's southern border in recent months. But Trump and White House officials hope Cuccinelli, a politically savvy immigration hardliner, will ensure the White House's immigration priorities are being carried out at the Department...

The Daily Caller’s Amber Athey reported that multiple senior Trump administration officials said President Trump will soon invoke the “tremendous powers” of the act to get rid of illegal aliens leeching off the fat of the land. “We’re doing the Insurrection Act,” one official said. Under the Insurrection Act of 1807, the president has the authority to use the National Guard and military in order to combat “unlawful obstruction or rebellion” within U.S. borders. The act was last invoked in 1992 by George H.W. Bush to quell the Los Angeles riots, and was also used by Eisenhower in 1957 to...

President Trump is planning on invoking the Insurrection Act to remove illegal aliens from the Unites States. The Daily Caller’s Amber Athey reported that multiple senior Trump administration officials said President Trump will soon invoke the “tremendous powers” of the act to get rid of illegal aliens leeching off the fat of the land. “We’re doing the Insurrection Act,” one official said. Under the Insurrection Act of 1807, the president has the authority to use the National Guard and military in order to combat “unlawful obstruction or rebellion” within U.S. borders. The act was last invoked in 1992 by George...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday pardoned seven former felons, including two Cambodian refugees the Trump administration wants to deport, in his first acts of clemency since the Democrat took office in January. Newsom adopted a policy of his predecessor, former Gov. Jerry Brown, to use his state constitutional authority to issue pardons to shield immigrants targeted by federal immigration officials. The pardons are an unmistakable rebuke to President Trump, whose fiery anti-immigrant rhetoric and demands for giant wall along the U.S.-Mexico border have been central to the escalating political feud between Newsom and the White House. ... One of...

President Donald Trump has signed off on a new immigration plan being spearheaded by senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner that appeared to receive a positive reception from Republican senators briefed on it Tuesday. A senior administration official told reporters after the meeting that the president had approved the effort to overhaul America's immigration system and increase border security last week and that it should now be considered "the President Trump plan." Kushner is working to finalize a plan with two major components: Border security measures that would include efforts to secure ports of entry and a package of...

“DEA is dying.” So lamented to me recently an old friend, now a senior DEA official, whom I’ve known since we worked together in that agency in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. While our investigative careers took different paths, I’ve always held my brave former DEA colleagues in the highest regard. The patriotic men and women of DEA need and deserve our support and gratitude. Under Barack Obama, they received neither. President Trump can right this wrong. And he can do that very simply - by finally installing Mike Braun, whose selection has languished in the White House, as...

President Trump on Monday directed his administration to find ways to limit the number of foreigners who overstay short-term visas amid a broad push to curb immigration. In a presidential memorandum, Trump ordered the State Department to work with governments of countries with total overstay rates of more than 10 percent in order to reduce the number. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in consultation with the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is required to submit a report within three months that recommends policies that...

Immigration judges cannot release migrants who are caught sneaking into the United States, even if the migrants ask for asylum, says a binding legal decision by Attorney General William Barr. The decision will dramatically shift the migration-caused civic and housing crises from the nation’s blue-collar communities over to the Congress and the Department of Homeland Security, whose budget and detention centers only have enough resources to house about 50,000 people year-round. “The [text of the relevant] Act provides that, if an alien in expedited proceedings establishes a credible fear, he “shall be detained for further consideration of the application for...

Just out: The USA has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities. We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California, which is well known or its poor management & high taxes!

With the wall still in the works, President Trump isn't sitting idle as 1.5 million illegal migrants prepare to storm the U.S. border this year. He's moving swiftly to get some kind of handle on the migrant surge by strengthening the U.S.'s loophole-filled system of laws that have made immigrating here illegally more attractive to would-be migrants than following U.S. law. He's pulling up the drawbridge. OANN reports that Trump's new package of measures, which should be complete by this summer, may just be the invisible architecture to deter illegal immigration as effectively as a wall. With the migrant surge...

President Trump said Tuesday that his administration isn’t bringing back the policy of family separation for migrants and blamed former President Barack Obama for putting illegal immigrant children in cages. Asked by reporters about the policy of family separation, Mr. Trump pointed to the actions of his predecessor. “Just so you understand, President Obama separated the children,” Mr. Trump said. “Those cages that were shown — I think they were very inappropriate — were by President Obama’s administration, not by Trump. President Obama had child separation.” He challenged reporters in the Oval Office, “Take a look. The press knows it....