Free Republic

A U.S. company is offering to build 234 miles of President Trump's border wall for just $1.4 billion, a fraction of the $8 billion the Trump administration is hoping to use for that project. Fisher Sand and Gravel Company's President and CEO Tommy Fisher said the government is overpaying and said that for $4.31 billion, he can build the wall and incorporate paved roads and border technology plus warranty. "Our whole point is to break through the government bureaucracy," Fisher told the Washington Examiner. "If they do the small procurements as they are now … that’s not going to cut...

The Washington Post reports the number of migrants detained after entering the United States along the southern border was up sharply in February, possibly setting the stage this spring for the highest number of migrants seen crossing the border in a decade: A group of 64 parents and children had waded through a shallow bend in the Rio Grande to turn themselves in to the agent on the U.S. side…Groups like this arrived again and again in February, one of the coldest and busiest months along the southern border in years. U.S. authorities detained more than 70,000 migrants last...

Violent criminal aliens, gang members, and drug smugglers continue to exploit gaps in border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley Sector to move into the U.S. from Mexico. Agents assigned to the Rio Grande City Station patrolling near Roma, Texas, came upon a Salvadoran national who had just crossed the border illegally last week. The agents transported the man to the station where they conducted a biometric background investigation on the subject, according to information provided by Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials. The background investigation revealed the man to be a previously deported criminal alien who is a...

President Trump is facing a potential revolt among Senate Republicans over his decision to declare a national emergency to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) public announcement over the weekend that he will oppose Trump’s declaration ensures a resolution blocking it will be approved by the Senate after already passing the House — unless Senate Republicans can find some kind of last-minute way out of the showdown. Republicans have been hunting for a way out of a fight over the declaration that has badly fractured the caucus, but Paul’s decision underscores the difficulty leadership faces in finding...

SNIP It was the summer of 2014, and Melvin, a 36-year-old mother of three, had just completed the journey from her native Guatemala, crossing the Rio Grande on a raft before being led to the house in the Texas border city of McAllen. For weeks in that locked room, the men she had paid to get her safely to the United States drugged her with pills and cocaine, refusing to let her out even to bathe. “I think that since they put me in that room, they killed me,” she said. “They raped us so many times they didn’t see...

Ranching on the Border The U.S. border with Mexico is just under 2,000 miles. Look at a land ownership map of New Mexico and Arizona and you will see that much of that land is federally owned, which automatically involves federal lands ranchers in the many border issues currently being discussed. What is it really like to ranch on this border today? In a recent interview Russell Johnson, a fourth-generation rancher from near Columbus, New Mexico explained the problems he has experienced: ° People have broken into buildings and homes ° Cattle theft is a big issue since much...

As government funding has been so closely tied to this issue over the past few months, I would like to reiterate that keeping the government open is a good thing. However, my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle continue to ignore their responsibility to secure our borders and keep the American people safe. It is no secret that their hatred for our president now drives the policy-making decisions of those on the left, no matter how beneficial the policies are for families across the country. I support the president’s usage of a national emergency to take the responsible...

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told state lawmakers Friday that he hasn’t made a decision on joining a Congressional resolution opposing President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the nation’s southern border. Lee objected to Trump’s use of executive authority to divert funding for the construction of a border wall. But he said he’s less concerned with that particular declaration than the underlying question of whether and when a president can sidestep Congress on government spending. “It’s probably not a good idea to give presidents that much power,” Lee said. Lee said while he supports the president’s goal of...

House Democrats on March 12 will reintroduce the Dream Act with new language providing protections for Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure recipients. California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard will reintroduce the measure - which provides permanent legal protections and a path to citizenship for so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children - as the Dream and Promise Act of 2019, according to her office. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reserved the bill number HR 6 for the legislation, which has long been a top priority of House Democrats. Millions of Dreamers would benefit from the legislation, including the...

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., has been deployed to the southern border as a member of the Air National Guard four times now, and says he's never seen more drug smuggling and human trafficking than he did on his most recent deployment this month. “There were a lot more drugs. You’d see people drop bundles,” the Illinois Republican told the Washington Examiner. He was referring to large bags of narcotics that had been carried from Mexico and dropped from planes flying over Arizona or by groups on foot for the next smuggler to move further north. Kinzinger, a lieutenant colonel with...

New York state is failing to ensure that children and teenagers who come from families who don't speak English as the first language don't fall behind, according to a coalition that advocates for educational opportunities for people of color. A newly released report from the LEAD coalition, a group of 30 organizations, points out that the state has the nation's second lowest graduation rate among multilingual learners (MLLs) and English Language Learner (ELLs), as well as higher dropout rates and lower rates of proficiency in math and English as compared to the rest of the student population. In just the...

MEXICO CITY - For the thousands of Mexicans who’ve been deported from the United States and who’ve chosen to rebuild their lives in this massive capital city, America represents “el otro lado,” Spanish for “the other side.” On our side of the U.S./Mexico border, from Florida to Washington state, these repatriated Mexicans left behind jobs, loved ones and community ties. On our side, they experienced the chaos and coldness of America’s immigration and deportation system, one that has shown little interest in broken families and the loss of economic viability, or the relative unsafety and cultural hostility toward migrants of...

SAN DIEGO—Approximately 90 feet of secondary border wall has been built to replace an old fence in San Diego, California... The new secondary 30-foot-high steel wall will replace a 16-foot stamp-steel mesh fence... Construction began on Feb. 18. It is the fifth border wall section under President Donald Trump’s administration, according to news reports on Feb. 20. The construction project replaces 12.5 miles of existing barrier from the Pacific Ocean to the base of Otay Mountain in San Diego. A new one-and-a-half mile portion of the barrier will be added, making the entire 30-foot wall 14 miles long. The vertical...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Under pointed questioning from senators, the top U.S. general for homeland defense said Tuesday that he sees no military threat coming from the southern border with Mexico, but his focus is on “very real” threats from China and Russia.

RINO Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski will vote with Democrats to support a resolution to block President Trump’s national emergency declaration to secure border wall funding. The resolution is expected to pass the Democrat-controlled House Tuesday afternoon. The Senate will likely vote on the resolution later this week. Fox News has just confirmed that Murkowski will once again join Democrats to obstruct President Trump’s agenda.

Julián Castro, a Mexican-American, is running for president. Latin music is more popular than country music, and one of the most recognizable political faces in the United States is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., whose family comes from Puerto Rico. And yet, Latinos - even those whose roots in this land stretch back to before the nation’s origins - still face overt and subtle racism and discrimination. Hate crimes against them are rising, and they are underrepresented in film, in high-tech jobs and in the federal government workforce. And when they advocate for equal treatment and representation - or even when...

by Sheri Urban Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared to suffer some form of mental meltdown as she gave a Trump-bashing speech at the US-Mexico border over the weekend. The senior Democrat can be seen fumbling for words and stuttering her way through the address that was designed to undermine President Trump’s push for a wall along the United States Southern Border. A video of the speech shows Pelosi struggling to speak coherently during a border press conference in Laredo, Texas on Saturday. Pelosi was at the Southern Border to share a hug with a Mexican official and affirm her...

Beatrix Lestrange stood before a crowd of protestors near in a Brownsville park, ready to fire them up and ignite this demonstration against the border wall project. Catching their attention was not a problem. Lestrange wore a multicolored dress, a red wig, black pumps and a choker with studs.... ... Participants said the goal was twofold: to demonstrate to people that there is no border crisis and to oppose the border wall project.... “The vision was to perform in front of this wall and project our beauty and our glamour and our empowerment against this symbol that stands for hate,...

WASHINGTON - Fifty-eight former U.S. national security officials told the Trump administration in a letter on Monday that they are aware of "no emergency that remotely justifies" diverting funds to build a border wall. The officials, who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who served in the Clinton administration, and former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served in the Senate and the Obama administration. Others include Leon Panetta, former secretary of defense and director of the CIA; Gil Kerlikowske, former head of Customs and Border Protection; John Kerry, former secretary...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday took part in a ceremony with Mexican officials and dignitaries on a bridge connecting the U.S. and Mexico. Pelosi could be seen in footage of the moment sharing a hug with a Mexican official as part of the International Bridge Ceremony, which is hosted by the Washington’s Birthday Celebration Association of Laredo (WBCA), a Pelosi spokesperson confirmed to The Hill. **SNIP** As part of the bridge ceremony, officials and dignitaries from Mexico and the United States share “abrazos,” or hugs, to symbolize “the amity and understanding between two neighboring nation,” the website also states.