Free Republic

There is a running debate, do we secure the American border, counter Chinese worldwide influence operations, or do we deter China from launching the more overt, kinetic phase of World War III in the Western Pacific? The answer is clear and intuitive – yes. All must be done simultaneously. Borders matter, countering influence operations are important, and visible, demonstrative deterrence actions (which sometimes include dramatic teaching points through direct action) around the world are also the priority. When defending our incredible Constitutional Republic, we must walk and chew gum at the same time. I give my best national security advice...

As migrants pour into the U.S. illegally, Mexican cartels are using smartphones to facilitate their smuggling, making payments to drivers and manipulating the Customs and Border Protection app to get more people in. The CBP One app allows entrants to the United States to schedule appointments to appear at U.S. ports of entry. Ostensibly, its users must be in northern Mexico to schedule an appointment, though reporting from the Washington Examiner suggested that users have turned to virtual private networks (VPN) to evade the geographic requirements. House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, R-Tenn., confirmed to the outlet...

President Biden proclaimed January as Human Trafficking Prevention Month on Friday — outraging critics who say he’s to blame for record-breaking levels of people-smuggling along the US-Mexico border, where monthly illegal crossings hit an all-time high this month. Biden’s statement decreeing the annual recognition was issued by the White House press office while he vacations in St. Croix and calls for “safe, orderly, and humane migration” despite chaotic scenes at the southern border — words notably absent from last year’s similar edict. “It’s just disgusting that he wants to declare human trafficking awareness month,” Tom Homan, former acting director of...

The situation at the U.S. southern border continues to worsen (except not according to the Biden White House): NEW: Lukeville, AZ right now. Only 2 Border Patrol agents here to move this mass of hundreds of illegal immigrants from around the world to a processing area. We continue to see enormous numbers of men from Africa who tell us they are going to sanctuary cities around the US. pic.twitter.com/zTSVLJFTGp — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 22, 2023 Looks like another mass illegal crossing is taking place in Eagle Pass this evening. https://t.co/lcj7ZdY4aa — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 21, 2023 Yep, they...

With everything going on in the world, the border is still a major issue that the Biden Administration refuses to address. There are immigrants, wait no, terrorists, crossing the border daily. Texas Senator Ted Cruz explained the issues at the border. Border Patrol agents are “frustrated” because “they risk their lives catching dangerous people, and they turn around and their political superiors just let them go.” “And the next day, they go back and catch the same people all over again,” he said. Minors are often accompanied by older men, and it is unclear whether they are actually related to...

Mexican industry leaders call for end to Texas state inspections forcing drivers to spend the night outside ports of entryMexican industry leaders are calling for an end to Texas border truck inspections given they are hindering components assembled in Juarez from reaching U.S. distribution centers. They also are concerned that limited operating hours at smaller ports of entry outside the El Paso-Juarez urban sprawl are jeopardizing drivers and their trucks. “The cargo vehicles that spent the night (waiting to cross the Santa Teresa, New Mexico port of entry) had their tires slashed,” said Manuel Sotelo, president of the Juarez Transportation...

Child sex trafficking is said to be the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprise, with an estimated two million child victims being abducted and sold into sexual bondage annually. The true numbers may be even higher; the dark world in which child traffickers operate does not lend itself to easy quantification. And despite occasional acknowledgment of this massive crisis by the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, and the FBI, relatively little has been done to bring the trafficking kingpins to justice or to break up the trafficking networks.According to a 2012 UNICEF report, around 30 million children were trafficked globally...

Tim Ballard, the former Homeland Security agent whose experience rescuing child sex trafficking victims inspired the film "Sound of Freedom," accused the U.S. government of helping to facilitate cartel-led child trafficking rings in the United States by releasing young migrants who crossed the southern border into their care. "It is shameful that I have to say this, but I spent 12 years working for the U.S. government to rescue children. Now, thanks to these policies, I have to rescue children from the U.S. Government," Ballard said Tuesday on "The Story." "This is dangerous," he warned. "This is a crisis." Moments...

Ballard spoke about a woman who was "sold and raped for money up to 30 to 40 times a day for five years." Tim Ballard, former DHS agent, founder of Operation Underground Railroad and the man depicted in the hit anti-trafficking film Sound of Freedom, told Congress on Wednesday that Biden administration's handling of the crisis at the US border has essentially made it a "child-trafficking delivery service." The comments came during a Committee on Homeland Security meeting, to assess the human cost of Biden's border crisis. "Our federal agents who work in the southern border are women and men...

The House Homeland Security Committee released the findings of the second part of their probe Thursday into Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, finding he “enriched the cartels,” according to a copy of the report obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Under Mayorkas’ leadership as DHS secretary, cartels have gained more control over the southern border and smuggled more individuals and contraband across it, according to the report. The first phase of House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green’s probe focused on Mayorkas’ alleged “dereliction” of his duty as secretary of DHS.

Section 3, 14th Amendment - “ No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, OR GIVEN AID OR COMFORT TO THE ENEMIES...

Border Patrol agents in the Del Rio Sector found three migrant children who had been abandoned last week by human smugglers along the Rio Grande. Earlier in the week, agents apprehended a large group of migrants that included 26 additional unaccompanied migrant children. Del Rio Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Juan G. Bernal posted a photo on X, formerly Twitter, showing three unaccompanied migrant children found by his agents. Human smugglers abandoned the three children after crossing them through the Rio Grande from Mexico into Texas.

Algerian officials claim that “multiple” warning shots were fired before its military directly shot at a group of jet skiers who had crossed over from Morocco, killing two of them. The deadly encounter occurred Tuesday after five jet skiers drifted into Algeria territory while exploring the waters around the Moroccan resort town of Saidia. “Given that the maritime border area is witnessing intense activity by drug smuggling gangs and organized crime, Coast Guard members fired warning shots,” Algeria’s defense ministry said in a statement. “After multiple attempts, shots were fired on a jet ski,” officials added. One of the survivors,...

Global wildlife trafficking is on the rise, adding a dimension to transnational crime and increasing the risk that U.S. corporations could unwittingly become entangled in the illicit trade. A new white paper by Moody’s Analytics highlights the growing risk for private enterprise, and the growing involvement of transnational crime in wildlife smuggling. “Brands sometimes are involved in supply chains and they might not truly know who their supplier is,” said Richard Graham, Third Party Risk Management lead at Moody’s Analytics. “If you’re doing business with someone that is a supplier that is involved in some sort of wildlife trafficking, via...

A Mexican national illegally present in the U.S. allegedly assaulted a Texas Department of Public Safety following a vehicle and foot pursuit. The man is alleged to have been smuggling three migrants who were also illegally present in the U.S. Texas DPS spokesman Lieutenant Chris Olivarez, posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, showing a trooper engaging in a high-speed pursuit after the driver failed to yield near Sullivan City, Texas, on August 29. After the driver stopped and fled on foot, a trooper and Texas Military Department soldiers stopped him from returning to Mexico. The trooper struggled with the...

CBP officers detained female carriers on consecutive days at pedestrian lanes of El Paso's Ysleta port of entryTwo women face multiple federal charges after allegedly trying to smuggle fentanyl from Mexico inside their bodies through the pedestrian lanes of El Paso’s Ysleta port of entry. One indictment returned last week charges Angelysse Swink Gonzalez with the importation of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. Gonzalez on Aug. 5 stated at the port of entry she was returning from visiting her grandmother on her birthday in Juarez, Mexico, but had no identification on her,...

Migrant smugglers are growing increasingly desperate and violent — heavily arming themselves, donning body armor and even firing at US border agents — to get their illegal customers from Mexico to California. The recent uptick in drastic tactics by coyotes, or people-smugglers for hire, includes an Aug. 18 incident in which a Border Patrol agent tried to stop a group of migrants crossing into California through the Otay Mountain Wilderness, US authorities said. A suspected smuggler fired multiple shots at the agent, US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement, claiming the criminals’ desperation is being driven by the...

The flight of money from Egypt has become a growing concern as many wealthy individuals seek to move money out of Egypt and keep their fortunes out of the eyes of the authorities. The Zambian Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) intercepted an aircraft carrying five million dollars in cash and over 100kg of suspected gold at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport near the capital Lusaka on August 14, according to several sources. Found on the plane were $5,697,700 in cash, five pistols, seven magazines, 126 rounds of ammunition, 602 pieces of suspected gold weighing 127.7 kg, and equipment for measuring gold. Later,...

(Photo by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash) It’s shocking, though in no way overstated, to conclude that Americans today are living through a time of total spiritual warfare, when virtually all of the most contentious and consequential issues are neither political, ideological nor psychological. They are flat-out spiritual – good versus evil. There’s the early sexualization of innocent children in the nation’s public schools. And the mass-hysteria transgender craze that seduces mentally fragile teenagers into undergoing mutilating and irreversible surgeries. And the love affair with killing human babies in their mother’s womb. And the massive foreign invasion of America, purposefully engineered...

Israel Ministry of Defense security personnel successfully apprehended a suspicious Palestinian vehicle at the Hotze Shomron Crossing this afternoon. Upon inspection of the vehicle, a firearm and several ammunition cartridges were discovered concealed within snack bags. The two Palestinian passengers and the seized weapons were transferred...