Free Republic

A North Carolina congressman is calling for a probe into a potential $418 million contract between Kenya and a major U.S. defense contractor announced on President Obama's last day in office -- a deal the lawmaker claims reeks of cronyism. Republican Rep. Ted Budd wants the Government Accountability Office to investigate a deal between the African nation and New York-based L3 Technologies for the sale of 12 weaponized border patrol planes. He said he wants to know why a veteran-owned small company in North Carolina – which specializes in making such planes – was not considered as the manufacturer. IOMAX...

MISSION — Hours before the president talked about “bad people with bad ideas” entering the country at a rally in Florida, a United States senator strapped on a vest, walked through the thick Rio Grande Valley brush as Friday night turned to Saturday and found what he, President Donald Trump and many discuss in Washington D.C. The senator linked the findings to organized violent crime. “There were more than one that were large, young men with a significant percentage of tattoos that might suggest gang affiliation,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Saturday afternoon, recounting an overnight ride along with...

On Friday morning that Associated Press sent out a series of tweets that were quickly shot down as completely false by the White House and Department of Homeland Security. The first tweet sent out said: “BREAKING: Trump administration considers mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants.” BREAKING: Trump administration considers mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants. — The Associated Press (@AP) February 17, 2017 That was followed up by a tweet saying “Memo obtained by AP shows Trump considering mobilizing the National Guard to round up unauthorized...

Union leader says some stations continue to follow Obama 'catch and release' directives Some border patrol stations have been slow to carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement executive order and instead have continued former President Barack Obama’s “catch-and-release” policies, according to a union official. Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told LifeZette that he raised concerns Thursday with U.S. Border Patrol Chief Ronald Vitiello. He said he is confident that issue soon will be corrected. But Judd said as recently as Thursday, some border patrol stations were still releasing border-jumpers, often without even issuing notices to...

A thick fog recently blanketed the U.S.-Mexico border along Imperial Beach, Calif., a prime opportunity for border crossers to probe vulnerabilities in both the fence and the beleaguered agency patrolling it. In SUVs or ATVs, Border Patrol agents with video surveillance equipment and binoculars spent hours, as they do every day, scanning the hilly and treacherous terrain that connects Tijuana, Mexico, to Southern California to try and prevent anyone trying to illegally cross the border. By the next morning, the processing rooms at the U.S. Border Patrol Imperial Beach Station were filled with men. They included two men from Turkey...

President Trump's decision to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and stop the free flow of refugees until they can be vetted better is reviving the morale of customs and border agents, according to the union representing both. "Morale amongst our agents and officers has increased exponentially," said a joint statement from the National Border Patrol Council and National ICE Council. "The men and women of ICE and Border Patrol will work tirelessly to keep criminals, terrorists, and public safety threats out of this country, which remains the number one target in the world – and President Trump's actions...

The chief of U.S. Border Patrol, Mark Morgan, left the agency on Thursday one day after President Trump signed an executive order paving the way for a wall to be built on the border with Mexico. Morgan said he was asked to leave his post and resigned to avoid a fight over his job, the Associated Press reported, citing a U.S. official. The official was on a video conference with Morgan and senior Border Patrol agents when the outgoing chief said that he was going to comply with the request.

The Department of Homeland Security has asked U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan, a former longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, to step down from his post. News of his departure, expected within a month, comes as the Trump administration moves toward tougher enforcement of immigration laws. Two sources familiar with Morgan's departure told Reuters that he held a morning phone call with employees to say that he was not resigning – but had been asked to leave by the Trump administration. Morgan's ouster also comes the day after President Donald Trump announced a broad plan to crack down on...

A stunning case of corruption inside the Department of Homeland Security was overshadowed by headlines about Russia and Israel this past week. Yet, federal employees accepting millions of dollars in bribes to avoid doing their job, is certainly worth a look. Hundreds of DHS employees have "looked the other way" as drugs crossed the border because cartels have made them offers they can't refuse. Other employees have sold green cards and other documents illegally. More from The New York Times: It was not an isolated case. A review by The New York Times of thousands of court records and...

Smuggling illicit drugs across the U.S border is a lucrative business. From hiding hundreds of pounds of cocaine or marijuana in vehicles, funneling it through tunnels under fenced areas or shipping it across the Florida coastline, drug dealers based in countries like Mexico and Cuba are pretty inventive in finding ways to get their contraband past border agents and into the United States. So inventive, in fact, that U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that over the weekend, drug smugglers in Mexico used an air cannon to launch a pile of weed across the border into the U.S. According to...

Border Patrol agents are reporting that they are overwhelmed by a massive uptick in illegal immigration of unaccompanied foreign children, leaving some members of the force stuck serving food to kids and ordering various supplies such as baby wipes, according to Mark Morgan, chief of the Border Patrol, which operates within the Department of Homeland Security. . . . During one recent trip to a border patrol outpost, “the supervisor in charge said, ‘Chief, we’re going to do whatever this country asks us to do, but I never thought in my 20 years that I would be, as part of...

Border Patrol agents in the remote Texas Big Bend Sector are sounding the alarm as Mexican cartels overwhelm them with illegal immigrants ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration. The sector has very few agents assigned and has remained one of the most open and unsecured regions along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Attacks against U.S. border agents have been on the rise in the last few weeks. In late October, an agent was assaulted in Calexico, Calif., when he tried to apprehend a man who had just climbed over a section of border fence between the U.S. and Mexico. And in late October, a border agent was injured when an illegal immigrant threw a block of concrete at him.

Throngs of Haitians, Africans, Russians, Armenians and Guatemalans are being admitted into the United States via the Mexican border with virtually no vetting for security or health risks, high level Homeland Security officials told Judicial Watch this week. Overwhelmed and understaffed border agents are bombarded daily with an onslaught of immigrants from these countries and have been ordered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to process them as refugees with “credible fear.” Most are camping out in Mexican border towns and going “port shopping” before gaining entry to the U.S., according to federal officials whose identities must be kept...

Mexican officials are quietly helping thousands of illegal immigrant Haitians make their way to the United States, according to an internal Homeland Security document that details the route taken by the migrants, the thousands of dollars paid to human smugglers along the way and the sometimes complicit role of the governments of America’s neighbors. More than 6,000 Haitians arrived at the border in San Diego over the last year — a staggering 18-fold increase over fiscal year 2015. Some 2,600 more were waiting in northern Mexico as of last week, and 3,500 others were not far behind, waiting in Panama...

Immigrants who want to enter the U.S. illegally can learn how and where to avoid the Border Patrol from an advisory on the agency's own website, which critics say is evidence of the Obama administration's "schizophrenic" approach to enforcement. Safety and sanctuary can generally be found at schools, churches, hospitals and protests, where Customs and Border Protection agents are barred under a "sensitive locations policy" from carrying out their duty of enforcing border security. In fact, the agency’s website states that actions at such locations can only be undertaken in an emergency or with a supervisor’s approval. “The policies are...

Have you lost that loving feeling? If so, the United States federal government might just be able to help. Before you swipe right on Tinder or update that eHarmony account, consider instead taking a quick trip out of the country. Because on your way back home into the Land of the Free, US Customs and Border Protection will have agents standing by ready with heaps of government stimulus. It happened to a Jane Doe (the name has been withheld to protect what little remains of her dignity), a 54-year old US citizen who had recently been on a trip to...

An FBI veteran has been named to head the U.S. Border Patrol, bringing in an outsider to run an agency traditionally led by agents who rise through the ranks. Mark Morgan, who briefly led the internal affairs department at the Border Patrol’s parent agency, has been chosen to oversee a multibillion-dollar annual budget and about 20,000 agents who patrol the nation’s land borders with Canada and Mexico and its maritime boundaries. …

Police in a U.S. town bordering Mexico have apprehended an undocumented, Middle Eastern woman in possession of the region’s gas pipeline plans, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. Authorities describe the woman as an “Islamic refugee” pulled over during a traffic stop by a deputy sheriff in Luna County, New Mexico which shares a 54-mile border with Mexico. County authorities alerted the U.S. Border Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) has been deployed to the area to investigate, sources with firsthand knowledge of the probe confirm. The gas pipeline plans in the woman’s...

Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, testified before the Senate this week and provided some remarkable clarity on subjects which probably strike anyone without a vested interest in electing Democratic candidates as blindingly obvious common sense. The subject at hand was the effect that lax immigration policy has on the illegal drug trade and continued border incursions. The long and the short of it was that when you make it ridiculously easy for people to break the law and provide them with every opportunity to face no consequences for it, they have every incentive to keep...