Published January 27, 2024
The Biden administration rolled out a record-shattering border encounters report in a Friday afternoon news dump. The monthly Southwest Land Border Encounters report came out later than normal and revealed a shocking look at the apprehension of nearly 250,000 migrants in the month of December.
The report, released on Friday afternoon, shows that Border Patrol agents along the southwest border with Mexico apprehended 249,785 migrants who illegally crossed the border in December between ports of entry. This is up by 12 percent from the 222,018 migrants apprehended one year ago and more than 11 percent compared to the Biden-era record of 224,370 set in May 2022.
The December report brings the southwest border total for the first quarter of FY24 to nearly 630,000 migrant encounters. More than half of these encounters (325739) were classified as single adults. The remainder were family units (268,818) and unaccompanied minors (35,118).
“CBP has taken significant steps to surge personnel and resources to impacted areas and address challenges we are experiencing across the southwest border,” CBP officials said in a written statement late Friday afternoon. “Encounter numbers continue to fluctuate, as smugglers and bad actors continue to spread falsehoods and show complete disregard for the safety and well-being of vulnerable migrants.”
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SOURCE: www.breitbart.com
RELATED: Feds have legal ‘upper hand’ over Texas despite Biden creating ‘existential crisis’ at border, says Turley
Texas is going to have a ‘hard time’ making a constitutional argument in federal court, Turley said
Published January 26, 2024
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley told “America’s Newsroom” Friday that Texas will have a “hard time” mounting a constitutional defense in federal court over their border enforcement efforts, despite the Biden administration’s role in creating an “unprecedented” migrant crisis in the state. Turley weighed in on Gov. Greg Abbott’s contention that the state will prevail before a federal appeals court and the Supreme Court.
JONATHAN TURLEY: Well, I certainly agree with the governor [Abbott] that, this is a violation of the understanding between the federal government and the states. The language in Article 1 Section 10 really deals with that agreement that we made with the states and the federal government, to move from the Articles of Confederation to a constitutional system with a strong federal government. I don’t think anyone can honestly look at the southern border and say that the federal government has fulfilled its pledge. This is an unprecedented crisis brought about, I believe, by President Biden’s policies. So, on all that, I agree.
The federal government has the ‘upper hand’ legally over Texas: Jonathan Turley
Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley weighs in after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott argued the state has a right to defend its border.
The problem is that federal courts are unlikely to agree that this is the invasion referenced in the Constitution. There’s also a reference to imminent danger. And certainly looking at hundreds of thousands of people crossing and effectively open border presents an imminent danger. But the courts are likely to define that in the context of that provision, in the context of an invasion by it, as with a foreign state. So I think Texas is going to have a hard time making that constitutional argument in court.
The problem for the Biden administration, is that it has really created, an existential crisis here, by effectively having an open border. I think that many judges would be sympathetic to Texas, that they have a right to do something. They’re being overwhelmed. Even Democratic mayors are now objecting that this is overwhelming their cities. And so the idea of the federal government removing barriers, at this time is really otherworldly. But it’s – you have to keep in mind on this fight, the federal government has the upper hand, legally. They tend to get a lot of deference along the border.
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SOURCE: www.foxnews.com
RELATED: Republicans Push Greg Abbott to Go All Out in Border War With Biden
Republican lawmakers are pledging to back Texas Governor Greg Abbott as he defies the Supreme Court.
Published January 26, 2024
Republicans around the country are throwing their hats behind Texas Governor Greg Abbott amid his escalating border security standoff with the federal government, seemingly attempting to transform the dispute into a “civil war,” according to several conservative commentators.
On Wednesday, Abbott declared the influx of immigrants across the border an “invasion”—a status that Abbott claimed supersedes federal mandates—and issued a statement on the state’s constitutional right to defend itself.
That was just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of President Joe Biden by declaring that Texas went outside its jurisdiction by erecting makeshift concertina wire fences along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border, effectively preventing the U.S. border patrol from doing their job. Texas has continued building new wire barriers since that ruling.
At least 25 Republican governors have declared their support for Abbott, including Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.
“The Biden administration has turned every state into a border state. We must stop the flow of fentanyl, save lives, and secure our southern border,” Youngkin posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Texas, you can count on Alabama to have your back,” Ivey said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also chimed in, roping the U.S. House of Representatives into the conflict by announcing that “the House will do everything in its power to back [Abbott] up.”
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SOURCE: www.newrepublic.com
RELATED:“Hold the line”: Republicans rally to Abbott’s defense in border standoff with Biden
From the Texas House to former President Donald Trump, Republicans around the country defended Gov. Greg Abbott’s challenges to the Biden administration’s border policies.
Published January 26, 2024
From the Texas House to former President Donald Trump, Republicans across the country are rallying behind Gov. Greg Abbott’s legal standoff with the federal government at the southern border, intensifying concerns about a constitutional crisis amid an ongoing dispute with the Biden administration.
At issue is concertina wire that the Texas National Guard has been using as a barrier between the Rio Grande River and Shelby Park, a 47-acre area in Eagle Pass. In a 5-4 decision earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Biden Administration when it vacated a lower court’s ruling that prevented Border Patrol agents from cutting the wire to apprehend people who had crossed the river.
On Wednesday — and as the Texas National Guard and state troopers continued to roll out the wire and prevent federal agents from accessing much of the park — Abbott continued to publicly challenge the ruling and “hold the line.” He declared that Texas was under an “invasion,” giving the state the constitutional right to defend itself and claimed that President Joe Biden’s practice of paroling migrants into the country amounted to a refusal to enforce current immigration laws.
“President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration laws enacted by Congress,” Abbott said in a statement. “Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent his lawyers into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to secure the border.”
Abbott continued, claiming the state’s right to defend itself “is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.” Abbott’s action is the latest effort by Texas Republicans who have been pushing back against the federal government and trying to take on the role of immigration law enforcement, which is under federal jurisdiction.
Abbott’s statement was quickly condemned by some legal scholars, who said it was blatantly unconstitutional and amounted to a usurpring of the federal government.
“By this logic, states could use their own determination that an ‘invasion’ exists as a justification for usurping control of whichever federal policies they don’t like,” Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas at Austin law professor, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Imagine blue states taking this approach: ‘We’re being invaded by drugs.’ ‘We’re being invaded by pollution.’ The right of states to defend themselves does not, and was never meant to, provide a hook for *supplanting* federal authority.”
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SOURCE: www.texastribune.org
RELATED:Texas Governor Asserts Right of State To Defend Itself Against Border ‘Invasion’ Because of Biden’s ‘Lawless’ Indifference
The framers of the Constitution ‘foresaw that states should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats,’ Abbott says.
Concertina wire along the Rio Grande on September 21, 2023, at Eagle Pass, Texas. AP/Eric Gay, file
Published January 24, 2024
The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, is ratcheting up his war of words with the White House over border security, setting the stage for a potential showdown with the federal government over states’ rights the likes of which haven’t been seen in America since the Civil Rights era.
In a letter to President Biden Wednesday, Mr. Abbott suggests that the president is ignoring his constitutional duties to enforce federal laws vis-a-vis immigration and in some cases violating them. He also accuses the president of sending federal lawyers to court to block Texas’ efforts to secure the border and instructing agencies to ignore federal statutes mandating the detention of illegal migrants.
“Under President Biden’s lawless border policies, more than 6 million illegal immigrants have crossed our southern border in just three years,” the letter states. “That is more than the population of 33 different states in this country. This illegal refusal to protect the states has inflicted unprecedented harm on the people all across the United States.”
Mr. Abbott says the framers of the Constitution, in Articles IV and I, sought to require the federal government to protect states from invasion and acknowledge the states’ “sovereign interest” in protecting their borders. He said the framers “foresaw that states should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border.”
The letter notes that Mr. Abbott has already declared the crisis at the border an “invasion” and mobilized National Guard troops so the state of Texas can “defend and protect itself” against the invaders.
Mr. Abbott’s letter comes in response to a ruling from the Supreme Court, requested by the Biden administration, stating that federal Border Patrol officers can legally remove razor wire strung up at several locations along the U.S.-Mexico border in order to deter migrants.
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SOURCE: www.nysun.com
