Free Republic

Lawmakers from both parties told Pentagon leaders on Wednesday that the Defense Department is undermining its own efforts to get military money by diverting billions of dollars for the construction of President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the committee’s top Republican warned Defense Secretary Mark Esper that overturning congressional funding decisions to shift money for the wall is an enormous problem that will have consequences. The plan to shift money has triggered rare Republican opposition to one of Trump’s priorities. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said the result may be that Congress...

It’s midday in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. As the sun beats down, saguaro cacti throw little shade over this part of the Sonoran Desert, where summer temperatures regularly top 37°C (99°F). Today though a very narrow segment of the park is getting a little more shade. It’s accompanied by the incessant whine of construction vehicles. President Donald Trump’s major campaign promise is taking shape — a rusty, nine-meter tall mix of concrete and steel. As of January 31, 185 kilometers (115 miles) of new wall had been built, according to the US Customs and Border Protection Agency. Depending on...

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders seems to have swept Latino voters in the Saturday’s Nevada caucuses, an affirmation of his months-long investments in outreach that could presage his success in primaries still to come in heavily Latino states. Sanders is counting on Latino voters, the largest nonwhite contingent of voters in 2020, to carry him to the Democratic nomination. In Nevada, where Latinos make up about 19 percent of eligible voters, they helped hand him a big victory. Entrance polls showed Saturday evening that just over half of Latino voters in Nevada had backed him, roughly four times as many as...

President Trump is "exactly right" to direct his efforts toward combatting sanctuary city policies, retired U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan said Saturday. Appearing on "Fox & Friends: Weekend" with host Griff Jenkins, Homan said he is glad the president is turning his attention toward the issue. "The Congress isn't going to fix it," he stated. "I asked them two years ago to fix it. They are not going to fix it. They want it to be a 2020 issue." Speaking in Washington on Friday, the president vowed to oppose sanctuary cities not complying with federal law...

Across the country, Saint Valentine’s Day is thought of as one of the great romantic date nights… unless you grow up as a Chicago Italian, in which case a very different kind of event comes to mind. At 10:30 AM on February 14, 1929, at a usually quiet garage located at 2122 N Clark Street, one of the most memorable and defining dates in Chicago history occurred, when seven mobsters of the North Side Gang were killed by four other mobsters from a rival gang who were impersonating Chicago police officers. The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre is remembered as a...

“I’m calling their bluff,” Andrew Cuomo told WAMC this morning, but who’s blinking first? Usually it’s the one seeking the negotiation, and the New York governor had to request the meeting after the Department of Homeland Security cut off the state’s residents from its trusted traveler programs. DHS argued that a new law barring access to the state’s DMV records made it impossible to verify eligibility for New York residents, along with their decision to issue licenses and IDs to those already illegally in the US.CBS News reports that Cuomo remains defiant, saying that he will “never give them...

The Pentagon is moving $3.8 billion from various weapons programs such as the F-35 fighter jet to pay for President Trump’s southern border wall, according to a notice sent to Congress on Thursday (13 Feb 2020)... Congress twice voted to overturn Trump's emergency declaration, which allowed him to reprogram defense funds for the wall, but were unable to override his vetoes. The money being reprogrammed Thursday is being taken under a different executive authority that allows counter-drug funds to be used on the wall. The notice says that $2.2 billion from the Pentagon’s base fiscal 2020 budget and $1.6 billion...

On Thursday, House lawmakers passed a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to be able to sue their employer for damages if their labor rights are violated but rejected a measure that would prevent the possibility of unions from recruiting other illegal immigrants.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is facing a barrage of criticism at home that he is doing U.S. President Donald Trump’s bidding after erecting a “wall” of security forces near the Guatemala border to keep out Central Americans. Mexico has bowed to demands from Trump, under the threat of punitive tariffs, to contain mass movements of migrants, most of them from Central America, who have been crossing through Mexico on their way to the U.S. border. Lopez Obrador was questioned at his daily morning news conference for a second day in a row about how the...

106 miles completed, 128 miles under construction, 342 miles in pre-construction. (as of Friday, 17 Jan, 2020)

A new caravan formed in Honduras with about 2,500 migrants traveling toward the U.S.- Mexico border. Saturday the Mexican National Guard stepped up and honored the “safe third country” agreement. The migrants were denied entry into Mexico at the Guatemala-Mexico border. Last November the Trump administration entered into a series of regional agreements with countries including Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The goal is to reduce the burden of Central American migrant caravans arriving at the U.S. border. Migrants are being returned to Guatemala, sent back to their home country, or allowed to enter the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)...

Latin American migrants eager to enter the United States but held in Mexico are praying for President Trump’s election defeat in 2020, believing that a Democratic president will open the borders again. “I want Trump out,” said Honduran Katherine Cabrera, who is being held in Tapachula, Mexico, with her baby. “Once Trump is defeated, and the Democrats take over, things are going to get better,” added El Salvadoran Brenda Ramos. The comments from Ramos and Cabrera and others were included in a Center for Immigration Studies border report on the attitudes held by migrants under the U.S.-Mexico initiative to stop...

The Department of Homeland Security has requested assistance from the Pentagon to build 270 miles of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to combat drug smuggling, senior U.S. defense officials said. The DHS request arrived at the Department of Defense Wednesday and will take about two weeks to assess its feasibility, the officials said. The officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, would not provide any cost estimates.

There are a lot of statistics Mark A. Morgan, acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, uses to show how Trump policies have helped to cut illegal immigration into the United States. But there are two that he feels really make clear the victory his agency has had in the past year, and he highlighted them in a small meeting Tuesday. First is daily apprehensions, a number that hit 4,600 at the height of the latest crisis in May. That has now dropped to 1,300. What's more, he said, the 21-daily average is below 1,000, a 78% cut. "That's a...

<p>DONALD JOHN TRUMP Coalition forms to back Trump rollback of major environmental law Canadian CEO blasts Trump over downed plane in Iran: 'I am livid' Business groups worry they won't see a Phase 2 Trump-China trade deal MORE plans to divert $7.2 billion from the Pentagon to go toward border wall construction this year, an amount five times greater than what Congress authorized in the budget, the Washington Post reported.</p>

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott became the first in the nation to refuse to host refugees in his state, flexing the new veto the Trump administration created last year to give state and local officials a say in whether they become a destination for the migrants. More than 40 other governors, both Democrats and Republicans, have said they will accept refugees. But a swath of conservative states from Texas to Florida had held out, ahead of a deadline later this month. Mr. Abbott, a Republican, becomes the first to refuse — a major statement for a state that has accepted more...

The U.S. government on Monday launched a pilot program to collect DNA from people in immigration custody and submit it to the FBI, with plans to expand nationwide. The information would go into a massive criminal database run by the FBI, where it would be held indefinitely. A memo outlining the program published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security said U.S. citizens and permanent residents holding a “green card” who are detained could be subject to DNA testing, as well as asylum seekers and people entering the country without authorization. Refusing to submit DNA could lead to a misdemeanor...

Last week, 18 people crossed the border illegally into Arizona hoping they could exploit a loophole in U.S. asylum policy to stay in the country. Instead, they found themselves shipped back to Mexico while their asylum claims are reviewed. In the midst of impeachment mania and the killing of an Iranian general, this event captured little attention. But it’s part of a broader campaign that the Trump administration has quietly embarked upon to crack down on illegal border crossings. And – even without the wall – these policies are having a huge impact. The 18 migrants were sent back to...

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration stepped up deportations of Guatemalans in 2019, doubling the number of migrants sent back from the United States a decade earlier, data from the Central American country showed on Friday. Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a major policy focus and has continued to press the issue in the run-up to the November U.S. presidential election. Last year, the United States deported 54,547 people to Guatemala on 486 flights, the highest since at least 2007, according to data from the Guatemalan Institute of Migration. In 2009, the year Trump's Democratic predecessor Barack Obama...

The riverbanks along the City of Rio Bravo (South of Laredo) are planned to be surveyed and assessed by U.S. personnel and contractors. A letter from Washington was sent mid-November to Rio Bravo officials... According to the document, the surveying could start at any moment after the document is signed.