border

AUSTIN, Texas – In an unusual, scathing, and much-redacted public report, the Department of Homeland Security’s independent Office of Inspector General has released the results of an investigation into one of several U.S. releases of border-crossing immigrants who flagged positive on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist.

The report – titled “CBP Released a Migrant on a Terrorist Watchlist, and ICE Faced Information Sharing Challenges Planning and Conducting the Arrest” –describes a cavalcade of multi-agency mistakes that led to the April 19, 2022, release of an unnamed migrant who, after crossing two days earlier among the 30,000 a month then pouring through an unfinished, canceled section of Trump administration border wall near Yuma, Ariz., initially flagged – inconclusively – as a suspected terrorist.

But the report states that because border agents “were busy processing an increased flow of migrants” who were clogging the area’s central processing center at the time, agents released the suspect into the interior before the inconclusive alert could be resolved, which normally would happen quickly under established inter-agency routines.

Instead, under the pressure of processing historic numbers of illegal aliens pouring through the Yuma Sector all that spring (28,681 that April, compared to 298 the same month in 2020), Border Patrol released the suspect with most of the rest on personal recognizance, a GPS tracking device, and an honor-system promise that they voluntarily report in later to an ICE office in the cities they chose to settle in.

Mass releases of illegal border-crossers from central processing centers (CPCs), which as quickly as possible hand out “notice to report” or “notice to appear” authorization papers, sometimes with electronic monitoring devices, have been customary all along the southern border since President Biden took office in January 2021, without letup to the present day, and is commonly understood as the main cause of the border crisis.

Only after CPC officers released this suspect to board a commercial flight from Palm Springs, Calif., to Tampa, Fla. – where pre-check routines confirmed the watch list hit – did agencies eventually realize the alien was a positive match on the Terrorist Watchlist. But it was too little, too late.

Not until after two more weeks of foul-ups did ICE agents track down and, on May 6, 2022, finally arrest the suspected terrorist in Tampa.

Although the OIG report does not name the suspect for ostensible privacy reasons, the case details bear close resemblance to details in a May 23, 2022, Fox News report by Adam Sabes and Bill Melugin, which described how DHS border agents inadvertently released Colombian national Isnardo Garcia-Amado and then arrested him two weeks later in Florida.

Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 210,000 illegal immigrants at the southern border in October, according to preliminary numbers obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform that show yet another rise in the level of chaos along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

Agents tallied another 86,796 “known gotaways” — migrants that they spotted crossing, and know they weren’t able to apprehend. That’s believed to be the highest number ever detected and paints an even grimmer picture of what’s going on at the border.

In parts of Arizona, agents have reported missing roughly as many migrants as they managed to catch.

The 209,664 illegal border jumpers are up more than 30% compared to October 2021, when agents tallied 159,113 apprehensions. And it trounces the Trump years, when roughly 69,000 were caught in October 2020, and just 35,000 were nabbed in October 2019.

The numbers are labeled preliminary. Homeland Security usually waits until the middle of the month — or later — to release its data.

FAIR, which obtained the numbers, said voters deserved to see it now.

“Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas only releases border numbers extremely late because he doesn’t want the American people to see that he has created a lawless, greased-up turnstile into the United States. These are numbers the American people have a right to see in a timely manner, and we’re here to help,” said R.J. Hauman, director of government relations at FAIR.

Agents there reported catching 53,204 illegal border crossers and more than 20,000 others known to have evaded capture.

CBP released the September border numbers — which covered all of the fiscal year 2023 — just before midnight on Friday, Oct. 21.

Agents reported nabbing 207,597 illegal immigrants that month.

Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 210,000 illegal immigrants at the southern border in October, according to preliminary numbers obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform that show yet another rise in the level of chaos along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

Agents tallied another 86,796 “known gotaways” — migrants that they spotted crossing, and know they weren’t able to apprehend. That’s believed to be the highest number ever detected and paints an even grimmer picture of what’s going on at the border.

In parts of Arizona, agents have reported missing roughly as many migrants as they managed to catch.

The 209,664 illegal border jumpers are up more than 30% compared to October 2021, when agents tallied 159,113 apprehensions. And it trounces the Trump years, when roughly 69,000 were caught in October 2020, and just 35,000 were nabbed in October 2019.

The numbers are labeled preliminary. Homeland Security usually waits until the middle of the month — or later — to release its data.

FAIR, which obtained the numbers, said voters deserved to see it now.

“Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas only releases border numbers extremely late because he doesn’t want the American people to see that he has created a lawless, greased-up turnstile into the United States. These are numbers the American people have a right to see in a timely manner, and we’re here to help,” said R.J. Hauman, director of government relations at FAIR.

Agents there reported catching 53,204 illegal border crossers and more than 20,000 others known to have evaded capture.

CBP released the September border numbers — which covered all of the fiscal year 2023 — just before midnight on Friday, Oct. 21.

Agents reported nabbing 207,597 illegal immigrants that month.

When U.S. politicians talk about what Hispanic voters want, they often bring up immigration. Many members of Congress, especially Democrats, assume Hispanic voters want less immigration enforcement and more immigration. In 2020, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led calls to cut the Border Patrol’s budget to punish them for “inflicting harm on our communities.” By “inflicting harm,” she apparently meant guarding the U.S.-Mexico border and arresting those crossing illegally.
 
Among Republicans, Rep. Mayra Flores symbolizes a new breed of Hispanic officeholders who stand for stricter border enforcement. Ms. Flores, who won a special election in June to represent the 34th Congressional district in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, is the first Republican to represent her area in 150 years, and the first woman born in Mexico to ever enter Congress. She recently called on Congress to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas for failing to enforce immigration laws and causing the border crisis.
 
Which of these women has a better handle on the immigration views of America’s 62 million Hispanics? According to two large new polls of Hispanic likely voters conducted by Rasmussen Reports, Ms. Flores wins by a mile.
 
Fifty-two percent of Hispanic likely voters believe the government is doing “too little to reduce illegal border crossings and visitor overstays.” Only 15% believe the government is doing “too much.” And 25% say the government’s efforts are about right, and 9% aren’t sure.
 
So more than three times as many Hispanic voters think the government is neglecting the border than feel the government is over-policing it. That’s significant!
 
Another question: Should the government require every business to use the federal E-Verify system to make sure new employees can legally work in the U.S.? By a huge margin, 73% to 18%, Hispanic likely voters say yes!
 
Should the approximately 12 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. get amnesty? Hispanics are split on that, with 46% favoring it and 51% opposing it. But when you look at just those who “strongly favor” or “strongly oppose” amnesty, the picture clarifies. Only 24% “strongly” favor such an amnesty, while 36% “strongly” oppose it.
 
Another hot-button issue is chain migration, which is one immigrant getting citizenship and then sponsoring extended family members. When these more distant relatives come in and get their citizenship, they in turn sponsor their siblings and parents, leading to never-ending chains. Rasmussen asked whether immigrants should be able to sponsor extended family members, or should they be able to sponsor only spouses and minor children. By 66% to 27%, Hispanic likely voters were clear: Immigrants should be able to sponsor only spouses and minor children.
 
While Republican members of Congress agree that illegal immigration should be stopped, they become a little more tongue-tied when it comes to legal immigration. Former President Donald Trump wanted to increase legal immigration, he sometimes said. What do America’s Hispanic voters say? Fifty-eight percent say they want to cut legal immigration numbers below the current 1 million a year. Only 15% want to increase the annual number!

Since the U.S. Border Patrol first began tracking migrant deaths in 1998, fiscal 2021 was the deadliest on record. Five hundred and fifty-seven migrants perished trying to illegally enter the United States through the Southern border, an increase from the two prior fiscal years when the mortality count was 254 and 300, respectively.

The 23-year deceased-at-the-border total is about 7,000.

Those tragic totals likely are an undercount because when state and local law enforcement find bodies near the border, they often don’t interact with federal authorities.

In their determination to reach the United States, migrants die from hypothermia and dehydration. Some lose their way and die alone.

But since Border Patrol began keeping an official count of those whose northbound journeys ended in heartbreak for their families, the White House under several administrations has been oblivious to the thousands of lives lost.

Also excluded from the official Border Patrol body count, but unquestionably attributable to President Joe Biden’s administration’s defiance toward border enforcement, are the 54 dead and 58 injured in a human smuggling operation that ended in a truck crash.

The truck carried people from Mexico, the Northern Triangle, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador. It crashed rounding a curve in southern Mexico, and sent 166 travelers bound for the United States tumbling to the pavement. Most of the dead were Guatemalans.

From the North, Canadian experts issued a “warning shot” that illegal immigration into the United States will inevitably spike.

White House Sees Border Policy Failure as Success

Getting a dinner reservation at Per Se, New York’s restaurant of choice for the city’s royalty, is more difficult than entering the U.S. illegally. The wait for Per Se, the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group dining experience, can exceed three months, but border crossers just walk right on in to the U.S.; neither reservations nor identification is required. Actually, Illegal aliens have it better than Per Se diners. Border surgers don’t have to pay a $2,000 tab, including wine and tax, for dinner for two. Just the opposite for aliens. The free ride begins once they step inside the U.S.

To get their new-in-America lives started, the aliens only have to peacefully surrender to immigration border officials. Although the agents are highly trained to defend and protect the U.S. border, the new normal under Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is for aliens to turn themselves in to Customs and Border Protection agents who process and release them into the American interior. Then, they become the responsibility of federal, state and local taxpayers who foot the bill for a bountiful array of affirmative benefits.

An extraordinary example of how the Biden administration has abdicated its border responsibilities occurred January 22 when federally charted buses dropped off dozens of illegal alien single adult males in Brownsville, Texas, where they were seen getting into taxis headed for the airport to travel to Miami, Atlanta and Houston. No one has the slightest idea who they are. The only certain thing is the taxpayers, who have no vote in federal immigration policy, are funding their trips. In December 2020, agents reported more than 178,000 encounters at the southern border, the highest December on record. Convicted sex offenders and other criminals were among the 2 million worldwide migrants who illegally entered in 2021.

Several think tanks, each doing independent research, calculated that taxpayers subsidize illegal immigrant health care costs annually to the tune of $18.5 billion, and public education, $60 billion. Unaccompanied minors crossing the border in record numbers from Mexico, and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, have created a budget-draining cost to public schools in the form of Limited English Proficiency classes the schools are federally mandated to offer.

Illegal immigrants refuse to social distance or wear masks and can’t be kept in quarantine even if they do contract the coronavirus, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general said in a report Wednesday that undercuts many of the Biden administration’s claims.

The audit said the policies established by Customs and Border Protection to handle the surge of migrant families is “not effective” because it relies on communities that don’t have the power to impose a quarantine even if an individual does test positive.

And the Biden administration is making less use of a pandemic border expulsion tool, which has led to “increased risk for CBP personnel, migrants in custody and local communities” from the virus, the inspector general said.

“Without stronger COVID-19 prevention measures in place, DHS is putting its workforce, support staff, communities and migrants at greater risk of contracting the virus,” the investigation concluded.

Investigators surveyed CBP agents and officers along the southwest border and said they received some worrying responses.

Migrants, despite being “constantly reminded” of coronavirus risks, refused to distance or wear masks.

And the surge of people meant migrants were in custody for extended periods of time in overcrowded Border Patrol stations, adding to the risks.

The report confirms many of the claims Republicans have made over the months, accusing the Biden administration of obfuscating the risks of COVID-19 from the unprecedented surge of migrants.

“While migrants crossing illegally are given a free pass, American citizens traveling internationally are required to present a negative result. The double standard is astounding,” said Rep. John Katko, the senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Thousands of family units that recently entered the United States illegally failed to appear before immigration judges between July 18 and October 7 of this year.

Documents from the Executive Office of Immigration Review provided to the House Judiciary Committee this week and exclusively obtained by Breitbart News offer a brief snapshot into the failure of certain undocumented immigrants who've been released into the United States to appear in immigration court. 

According to the EOIR documents, in that two-and-a-half month period from mid-July to early October, immigration judges across the country rendered 3,885 decisions on removal cases dealing with “aliens” in family units. Of those decisions, 94 percent (3,661) were made “in absentia,” or the alien’s failure to appear resulted in an order of removal. 

The document also showed that 9,874 cases were still pending over those months. 

The Obama administration will pay $9 million over the next two years to give taxpayer-funded attorneys to some of the illegal immigrant children who have surged across the U.S. border this year, the Health and Human Services Department said Tuesday.

About 2,600 immigrants will be able to be represented by lawyers thanks to the funds, which were awarded in two grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, according to a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

Advocates cheered the decision, which they'd been demanding for months, saying it will not only help the children get a fair hearing on asylum claims, but it will also make the court proceedings go faster, which will end up saving the government money.

But administration critics in Congress said the move could violate federal law and will most likely prolong illegal immigrants' time in the U.S., encouraging more children to make the dangerous crossing.

"To end the surge at the border, the Obama administration should instead focus its efforts on deterring future border crossers and enforcing the laws against illegal entry into the United States," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican. "Without such actions, the flood of people attempting to cross the border illegally will only continue."

The administration's move marks another effort to circumvent Congress.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have apprehended at least 474 aliens from terrorism-linked countries attempting to sneak into the country illegally this year alone, according to a leaked document obtained by Breitbart Texas.   

According to the document from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Intelligence and Investigative Liaison, of the 474 aliens, 76 are from terrorism-linked nations located in and around the jihadist Islamic State’s area of operation — Turkey (41), Saudi Arabia (13), Syria (7), Jordan (7), Iraq (4),Iran (3), and J Kuwait (1). 

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, controls areas inside Syria and Iraq, both countries are bordered by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Jordan.

The thousands of people flooding the U.S. border will eventually be granted amnesty to stay, says Gabe Pacheco, spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council in San Diego.

Appearing on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV on Tuesday, Pacheco said the children, mostly from Central America, will be absorbed into the population and it will morph into a form of "de facto amnesty" that leads to chain migration.

"Even if they come to amnesty or asylum, they've crossed the border illegally already," Pacheco said. 

"They've broken the law. Yes, there's going to come some time and point where the administration is going to have to say, yes, we're going to have to give these people amnesty out of necessity. And then you'll have the families come up with those children who are already here and have established residency."

Because the Border Patrol in Texas is so overwhelmed, every 72 hours the government sends groups of 140 people, mostly women and children, to San Diego, Pacheco said, adding that there is no end in sight.

"We don't know when it's going to stop; that's just part of the process right now," he said.

The job of looking after all of the illegal children is so vast that drug cartels and others are getting into the United States because there is no one at the border to stop them, he added.