Tag Archives: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)

Walking His Own Path

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On Sunday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a recent statement by Senator John Fetterman. If someone had told me when Senator Fetterman was elected that he would be the only reasonable Democrat in the Senate, I would have thought they were crazy, but here we are.

The article reports:

Democrat Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman criticized his party Saturday over the ongoing partial government shutdown and its impacts on federal employees and operations.

Multiple agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), are being subjected to “emergency measures” due to the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to a release by DHS.

Fetterman said he spoke with TSA agents during his frequent travels about the effects of the shutdown.

“I am the only Democrat that has refused to vote in shutting down DHS, literally the only one,” Fetterman said during Saturday’s episode of “The Big Weekend Show.” “And now all agree that this would not have any impact on ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. They already have their funding, and it doesn’t push or force ICE to do any of those kinds of reforms that people think are necessary now, too.”

“Why would you want to punish all of these workers that are under DHS? The only thing that it can do is just make us less safe, and that also makes people have to go without getting paid,” Fetterman continued. “I’m at the airport virtually every week of the year, and I ask all those TSA agents, and I said, ‘Hey, do you like not to get paid for your work?’ I haven’t met one saying, ‘No, it’s no problem.’”

This shutdown makes no sense unless the Democrats believe that illegal votes combined with their extreme left wing are the only way they can win the midterms. Aside from the inconvenience to Americans who travel, there is a serious risk to shutting down the Department of Homeland Security during a war. I don’t believe the majority of Americans support this shutdown.

Unless the number of illegal voters in the midterm elections is enough to swing the election, the shutdown makes no sense.

Planting Minefields For The Incoming Administration

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President Trump has stated that he will close our southern border to illegal immigration. Obviously, that will include finishing the parts of the border wall that were left unfinished when he left office. Evidently President Biden does not want the wall finished (at least he does not want it finished quickly).

On Thursday, The Daily Wire reported:

The Biden administration is using its final weeks to haul a massive amount of border wall materials away from the southern border to be sold off in a government auction, an apparent effort to hinder President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to secure the border, The Daily Wire has learned.

Videos obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire from a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent show unused sections of the wall being hauled away on the back of flatbed trucks from a section of the border just south of Tucson, a hotspot for illegal crossings during the Biden administration. The agent estimates that up to half a mile per day of unused border wall is being moved.

“They are taking it from three stations: Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points,” the border patrol agent, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told The Daily Wire. “The goal is to move all of it off the border before Christmas.”

The article notes:

Video of the GovPlanet auction site where the material is being taken shows seemingly endless piles of unused border wall material. Another video, taken from one of the construction sites on the border, shows DP Trucking LLC trucks passing through with the same style of unused border wall stacked up the back of their flatbeds.

The auction website shows that sales occurred as recently as December 4 for precisely the types of materials being pulled off the border. GovPlanet has online auctions set for Dec. 11 and Dec. 18 for more of the border wall material, which is listed on the company’s website as “32.91’ X 7.91’ Steel Bollard Wall Sections w/Grout.”

The bidding for each section of wall panels is set to begin at only $5.00, according to the website.

The taxpayers will pay for buying the supplies to replace the supplies that the Biden administration sold. What total disrespect for taxpayer dollars. The sale needs to be stopped immediately.

UPDATE:

It has been reported that Texas plans to buy the supplies and donate them to the Trump administration. I can’t confirm that, but it’s a great idea.

Something That Should Cause You To Lose Sleep

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On Friday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

Border Patrol agents recorded a roughly 800% increase in Chinese migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, according to federal data updated Friday.

There were roughly 17,678 illegal migrant encounters of Chinese nationals between October 2022 and July, compared to 1,970 in all of fiscal year 2022, according to the data. In March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sent a memo exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation to agency officials warning of a surge in Chinese migrants.

“The loosened COVID protocols in China have allowed Chinese nationals to flee repressive rule in China and begin their journey to the United States seeking better living conditions,” CBP’s earlier memo stated of the reasons for the looming surge.

“According to CBP, custodial interviews indicate that Chinese citizens are requesting asylum claiming religious persecution by the Chinese Government due to their Christian faith. Additionally, Chinese nationals reportedly make their own smuggling arrangements for most of their journey, only utilizing elements of smuggling networks to cross the border,” the memo stated.

Additionally, Chinese migrants often pay between $15,000 and $30,000 to smugglers to reach the U.S. where they have been found with large sums of U.S. currency, Border Patrol agents previously told the DCNF.

Gordon Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its advisory board, previously told the DCNF that there are potential national security concerns associated with the latest surge.

Actually, I would love to see more Chinese migrants if they would swear allegiance to America and promise to teach their work ethic to Americans. However, considering the way the government  of China operates, there are serious security concerns about letting a large number of Chinese enter the country illegally. They will not necessarily be tracked by the American government (although they will probably be tracked by the Chinese government), and it would be very easy for them to engage in activities that would have a negative impact on Americans and America.

Avoiding Protecting Our Southern Border

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The stream of illegal immigrants coming into America has created numerous problems both for the immigrants and Americans in our cities and states. Our southern border is wide open while we are sending millions of dollars overseas to protect the Ukrainian border. But that’s only part of the story.

On Saturday, The New York Post reported the following:

The Biden administration is quietly auctioning off millions of dollars’ worth of unused parts from former President Trump’s border wall for peanuts – in an apparent end-run around pending legislation in Congress.

Since April, GovPlanet, an online auction house specializing in military surplus, has sold 81 lots of steel “square structural tubes” — intended for use as vertical bollards in the border barrier’s 30-foot-tall panels — hauling in about $2 million.

On Tuesday, GovPlanet netted $154,200 for 729 of the 28-foot-tall hollow beams, sold in five separate lots for an average $212 apiece.

Thirteen more lots are set to be auctioned on Aug. 23 and Aug. 30.

But just last month, as part of its annual defense appropriations package, the Democrat-led Senate passed a Republican-sponsored bill aimed at forcing Biden to stem the worsening migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border by extending the wall.

Up to $300 million worth of taxpayer-funded wall components have been left to rust since Biden came to office, Republicans have said.

The Finish It Act will make the feds use those materials on new wall construction — or hand the remaining stock over to states like Texas for use in their own border defense projects.

Now, the Biden administration is rushing to get rid of the wall leftovers before the GOP-led House can pass a matching version of the bill and make it law, critics told The Post.

The article concludes:

US Customs and Border Protection recorded around 1.7 million migrant encounters on the southern border in fiscal year 2021 and 2.4 million in 2022, an all-time record.

Nearly 1.8 million migrant encounters have already occurred in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, according to the agency — on track to break 2022’s shocking total.

An estimated 2.6 million asylum seekers and “gotaways” have actually made it into the United States during Biden’s presidency — swamping cities like New York, where more than 10,000 migrants continue to arrive each month to demand shelter, meals and social services, shredding the municipal budget.

“President Biden has no regard for taxpayer dollars — or how his open border is bankrupting communities across the country that are footing the bill for his failures,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-SI/Brooklyn), who is battling to bar migrant shelters from the city’s parks and military sites.

A lot of the blame for the mess at our southern border rests on President Biden, but we also need to realize that Congress is also guilty. Both political parties have controlled Congress at various times in recent years. Neither party has been willing to close the southern border and fix the broken immigration process.

The Scourge Of Fentanyl

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On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported that Joanne Marian Segovia, 64, the executive director of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, has been charged with attempting to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

The article reports:

Starting in 2015, Segovia had at least 61 drug shipments mailed to her San Jose home from India, Hong Kong, Hungary and Singapore with manifests that listed their contents as ‘wedding party favors,’ ‘gift makeup,’ ‘chocolate and sweets’ and ‘food supplement,’ according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.

In at least once instance she is accused of using her work computer and address and the police union’s UPS account to ship the drugs within the U.S.

Tom Saggau, a spokesperson for the police union in San Jose, said Segovia has worked for the union since 2003, planning funerals for officers who die in the line of duty, being the liaison between the department and the officers’ families and organizing office festivities and fundraisers.

He said that federal officials informed the union last Friday that Segovia was under investigation and that no one else at the union was involved or knew about Segovia’s alleged acts.

The revelation shocked her colleagues, Saggau said.

‘We didn’t have any reason to suspect her,’ he said, adding that the union’s board of directors has pledged to fully support the federal investigation.

Federal prosecutors said that in 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted a parcel being sent to her home address that contained $5,000 worth of Tramadol, a synthetic opioid, and sent her a letter telling her they were seizing the pills. 

The next year, the CBP again intercepted a shipment of Tramadol valued at $700 and sent her a seizure letter, court records showed.

But federal officials didn’t start investigating Segovia until last year when investigators found her name and home address on the cellphone of a suspected drug dealer who is part of a network that ships controlled substances made in India to the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the complaint. 

The article concludes:

Fentanyl has now infected almost every major city in America, turning once-thriving streets in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia into wastelands.

Scenes of zombified addicts shooting up or smoking the drug in front of children increasingly becoming a part of everyday life.

Many people who die of overdoses do not know they are taking fentanyl and the drug has partially been blamed for America’s sharp decline in life-expectancy.

Experts have described the drop in life expectancy from 78.8 in 2019 to 76.4 in 2021 as ‘dramatic’ and ‘substantial’.

Officials in Washington state have said that they’ve run out of space in morgues and crematoriums as the drug tears through local communities.

We need harsh penalties for drug dealers and treatment programs for addicts. However, the problem with treatment programs is that they don’t work unless the person is willing to let go of their drug habit.

Where Are They Coming From?

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According to a Western Journal article in August:

The illegal border crossings, which occurred between Oct. 1, 2021, and Aug. 6 2022, already exceed the 1,662,422 Border Patrol encountered in fiscal year 2021, which was already a record high for the force, according to the internal data.

The record number comes after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assured the public in July that “the border is secure.”

So where are these people coming from? On Friday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

Venezuela is deliberately releasing prisoners, among them violent criminals, and has them travel to the U.S. southern border, a development that prompted 14 House Republicans to write to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who is leading the Republican effort to have Mayorkas answer questions, said in the Sept. 22 letter that the decision by the Nicolas Maduro regime has put the United States “in grave danger.”

“We write you with serious concern about a recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence report received by Border Patrol that instructs agents to look for violent criminals from Venezuela among the migrant caravans heading towards the U.S.-Mexico border,” the letter says, citing a recent report from Breitbart.

The outlet reported on Sept. 18 that it had reviewed the DHS intelligence report from an unnamed source within the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The report warned that released prisoners—including those convicted of murder, rape, and extortion—had been seen within migrant caravans traveling from Tapachula, Mexico, to the southern border, as recently as July.

The article concludes:

The 14 Republicans want Mayorkas to answer more than 10 questions, including the precautions DHS is taking to prevent these Venezuelan criminals from entering the United States.

“Have any of the Venezuelan nationals encountered at the southern border this year been suspected to be released prisoners?” says one of the questions. “Does DHS have a projected headcount of how many released Venezuelan prisoners are expected to enter the U.S.?”

Another question asks, “Do you have reason to believe that the release of the convicts could be a purposeful geopolitical move specifically intended to impact U.S. national security?”

“We need transparency and accountability from this administration,” Nehls wrote on Twitter.

The open southern border of America is a national security issue. It is only a matter of time until that porous border results in a terrorist incident that leaves Americans dead.

An Awful Record

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On Monday, Red State reported that for the first time, migrant encounters at the border have surpassed two million in one year.

The article reports:

While Southern Border security under Donald Trump was a mixed bag — despite Trump’s protestations to the contrary — his plan to force Mexico to stem the flow of illegals into the U.S. was largely effective.

By contrast, Biden’s intentional illegal alien disaster, including planeloads of untold numbers of illegals shipped across the country in the dead of night, constitutes a clear and present danger to America’s security and that of the American people — millions and millions of deadly doses of fentanyl included.

Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) announced Monday that there were 199,976 migrant encounters in July, taking the total for this fiscal year to 1.946 million encounters. But CBP sources tell Fox that since then, the number has now surpassed the two million mark, a milestone previously unhit. 2021, the previous record-setting year, saw more than 1.7 million encounters. Clearly, the reality is dire and it continues to worsen.

Kamala Harris and Karine Jean-Pierre were unavailable for comment.

Speaking of the twin serial liars, not even NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd buys Kamala Harris’s “secure border lie.” And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, dropped a truth MOAB on Jean-Pierre after she delusionally claimed the fiery Texan doesn’t “truly care about border security.”

And Joe Biden? He likely has no idea what the hell is going on as he continues to lie.

God help us.

The price for an open border is being paid for in South American lives and in American lives. South Americans are being trafficked when they come to America (after having been lured here by the promise of the open border) and Americans are dying from the fentanyl being smuggled in by the Cartels. At this time, the Cartels are in charge of America’s southern border, and Americans have no one to blame but themselves. If those in Washington feared that they would not be reelected unless the border was closed, the border would be closed. Both Republicans and Democrats are keeping the border open. The only way to close it is to unelect anyone who fails to support laws that would close the border.

Inventing Charges When You Don’t Have A Case

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On June 17th, I posted an article related to the case against the border agents accused of using a whip on illegal immigrants. The charges were proven to be false, but the government decided to move forward rather than drop the case.

On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article explaining the new charges that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has proposed be used against the border agents.

The article reports:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has proposed two charges against the Border Patrol agents involved in the alleged “whipping” of migrants in Del Rio, Texas, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The first charge is for “poor judgment” for instructing noncitizens “to go back to Mexico, or words to that effect,” while the second is for “unsafe conduct” for maneuvering the agent’s horse “in a way that caused a noncitizen to fall backward into the Rio Grande River … thereby compromising the safety of the noncitizen, yourself, and your horse.”

These proposals are not yet final, and CBP is expected to announce the results of its investigation into the agents as soon as Friday, according to people familiar with the matter not authorized to speak publicly. It’s unclear how many agents will be charged.

The article concludes:

“From the beginning, they had been convicted by the White House and DHS, so we figured something was coming,” National Border Patrol Council President for the Del Rio border sector Jon Anfinsen previously told the DCNF (Daily Caller News Foundation).

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised to complete the investigation in “days, not weeks.” But, the results have yet to be shared nearly a year later.

“But for them to claim that it was going to be resolved in days and weeks was, frankly, a joke from the beginning to decide if these guys had done something wrong, despite no investigation having been done. So they’re trying to save face and propose some kind of discipline just so they can justify their claims from day one,” Anfinsen said.

Neither CBP nor DHS responded to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

We will never have a secure border if we keep prosecuting the people who are trying to defend it.

The Cost Of The Open Border

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On Saturday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the amount of fentanyl coming across our southern border.

The article reports:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reported a 1,066 percent increase in fentanyl seized in south Texas ports during fiscal year 2021.

Border agents at eight ports of entry extending from Brownsville to Del Rio said that between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, they seized 87,652 pounds of narcotics that would have commanded a combined estimated street value of $786 million, CBP reported on Jan. 5.

Of this, 41,713 pounds was marijuana, 8,592 pounds was cocaine, 33,777 pounds was methamphetamine, 1,215 pounds was heroin, and 588 pounds was fentanyl. That’s a 1,066 percent increase in fentanyl seizures, as well as a 98 percent increase in cocaine seizures, from the year prior.

They also reported having seized $10.4 million in unreported currency, 463 weapons—up 21 percent from FY 2020—and 84,863 rounds of ammunition.

The eight ports of entry comprise the Laredo Field Office. The CBP officers at these ports of entry also noted that in FY 2021, more than 20,701 non-U.S. citizens were inadmissible to the United States due to violations of immigration law.

Randy J. Howe, the Laredo Field Office’s director of field operations, said in a statement that despite significantly less traffic due to travel restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, “the drug and contraband threat remained the same.”

“Our significant gains in fentanyl and cocaine seizures underscore the deadly nature of the contraband we encounter, the need to utilize Personal Protective Equipment to protect our officers and our continued resolve to carry out our vital border security mission,” he said.

An unsecured southern border is a national security threat because we have no idea who is crossing the border and a national health issue–because of the coronavirus and because of the Americans who have died because of fentanyl use.

The article concludes:

China is “the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States,” the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said in its 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment report (pdf).

A record number of Americans—more than 100,000—died of drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in April, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and fentanyl was involved in almost two-thirds of those deaths, making it the largest cause of overdose deaths in the United States.

Overall, during fiscal year 2021, CBP confiscated a total of 11,200 pounds of fentanyl—up from 2,150 pounds the year prior, signifying a 521 percent increase.

It should also be noted that some of the deaths from fentanyl have been because someone took a pill they believed to be Oxycontin or some other pain killer that had been laced with fentanyl. The lesson to all Americans should be that you should never take a pill unless it is from a pharmacist and in a bottle that has your name on it.

What Gets Reported…And What Does Not.

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Yesterday NewsBusters posted an article on two important stories the media is choosing to ignore.

The article reports:

On Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported another record number of apprehensions at the Mexican border in June: almost 190,000. This number does not include those who have been able to get away from Border Patrol.

But somehow, this is not an ongoing Biden border crisis. On Friday night’s newscasts, only ABC and NBC mentioned it. CBS and PBS did not.

NBC tossed just 19 seconds on the border.

Lester Holt threw this brief: “Despite scorching summer temperatures, the record migrant surge at the southern border is still growing tonight. Newly released numbers show customs and border patrol agents apprehended nearly 189,000 migrants trying to cross in June. That’s the highest number in 21 years. Over 1 million migrants have been apprehended this year.”

The article concludes:

On Friday morning, Politico had a new revelation on Hunter Biden. Ben Schreckinger reported that the Hunter probe had reached a point where they “could have issued grand jury subpoenas and sought search warrants that would have revealed its existence,” but Delaware’s U.S. Attorney David Weiss “decided to delay taking any actions that were likely to make the existence of the government’s Hunter Biden probe public. Concerns about affecting the presidential election loomed large when Weiss entertained arguments about advancing the probe, according to the person involved in the discussions.” It was supposedly apolitical to avoid anything that could help Trump. 

The networks all ignored it. As usual.

Is anyone surprised?

In America we live in a Representative Republic–we are responsible for electing our leaders. If you are unhappy with the direction our government is currently headed, you need to work to change that–learn to do your research on your own, learn what sources you can depend on for national and international news. Then go out and share that information with your friends. That is how we can reserve our republich

There Is A Humanitarian Crisis At Our Southern Border

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Yesterday Just the News posted an article about what is currently happening at our southern border. When the Biden administration opened the floodgates at the border, they created a humanitarian crisis of nightmarish proportions.

The article reports:

The Biden administration’s policies on the U.S.-Mexico border are inhumane to the illegal immigrants and harmful to America, says former acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Mark Morgan.

Regarding border protection, Morgan told the John Solomon Reports podcast, “This administration is absolutely — has dismantled everything, and everything that they’re doing is against the nation’s best interest, and I believe it’s for perceived political gain.”

The Trump administration’s border policy was working. There was no reason to change it other than it was connected to President Trump.

The article continues:

According to unofficial statistics of illegal border crossers, Morgan said, “I think within the last 10-11 days, they actually had a single-day encounter of over 6,000. Have you seen that officially? Has anyone in [the Department of Homeland Security] reported that? No. Six thousand! They’re averaging, now, anywhere between probably about 4,500 to 5,000 a day.”

“But here’s the truth, and here’s the stat they’re not presenting officially: 75% of the so-called unaccompanied minors are older teenagers — 15, 16, 17 years of age,” Morgan said. “They’re not being ripped from their parents. They’re making a tough decision on their own to leave simply because they want a better job in the United States.”

I don’t blame them for that, but they need to come legally. If that is too difficult, Congress needs to work together to improve America’s immigration policies.

The article concludes:

“In November of 2020, we had less than 800 in our CBP facilities,” he said. “Now the number is 10,000 and growing every day.”

The humanity of incentivizing illegal immigration is also concerning, Morgan said.

“What is humane about a United States actively participating in encouraging, facilitating illegal immigration, where independent studies have showed up to 30% of them are abused on their way up here, they’re traveled through COVID hotspots?” Morgan asked.

“They’re shoved in overcrowded, unsanitary stash houses and tractor trailers, left in the middle of the Rio Grande and desert environment by the coyotes to fend for themselves and they often die or have to be rescued by the Border Patrol. How is that humane? And the answer is, it’s not.”

This was a totally avoidable crisis.