The Caravan, US Border Patrol, Mattis's Military, Barbed Wire, the Ninth Circuit, and President Trump's New Asylum Executive Order

THE HONDURANS ARE HERE, THE HONDURANS ARE HERE. And, WNDF took it up a notch last night with the headline "They're HEEERE!" That may seem a bit over the top, but in reality, it is just pointing out the ProgDems are in favor of giving an absolute right to remain in the United States to whoever arrives at a US border and scales a fence or wall to gain illegal entry. • • • A BORDER IS A BORDER IS A BORDER. The Fox affiliate in San Diego reported that after part of the caravan that began in Honduras arrived in Tijuana, the US Border Patrol reported that people on the Mexican side of the border at Playas de Tijuana could be seen Tuesday climbing the fence near Friendship Park, a half-acre bi-national park. WND reported that a few people who made it over the fence or through openings onto US soil quickly ran back as Border Patrol agents approached, according to the Fox affiliate that quoted a man on the US side of the border, Greg Boldner, saying he was “very surprised how many people are here and how many different officials are here,” adding, “It seems like there’s something going on; it’s not normal to have this many resources tied up.” Ryan Saavedra tweeted : "@RealSaavedra. Hundreds of migrants from the caravan reach the US border and scale the small fence that separates Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California. They're almost all young men, little to no women and children." Two videos are available at < https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1062514239741591552 > and < https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1062599675532865536 >. • Breitbart News reported an estimated 400 migrants with the caravan were escorted through the northern border state of Sonora as the busloads of Central Americans head to the US-Mexico border. More than 5,000 US military personnel have been deployed by President Trump to assist the Border Patrol. Breitbart noted that many of the Central American migrants have admitted they are seeking jobs and would be ineligible for asylum. Asylum seekers must demonstrate they are fleeing persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group. Some members of the caravan have confessed they previously were deported from the US as illegal aliens. As of last month, Breitbart noted, nearly 400,000 illegal aliens have crossed into the US this year. • Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border arrested 23,121 migrant family members, the highest one-month total on record and a 38% jump from September, arresting or deeming inadmissible nearly 61,000 along the Mexico border in October, far more than any other month since President Trump took office. • • • TIJUANA RESIDENTS ARE NOT HAPPY. American Thinker's Monica Showalter wrote on Wednesday : "If you'd like to know what real Mexicans think of the Central American caravan snaking through their country, the San Diego Union-Tribune's Sandra Dibble actually went out to Tijuana, their final destination before entering the US, and asked one : 'Why do they have to come to this completely residential area,' asked Gloria Martinez, who lives across the street. 'Why did they have to come here? Just now, I saw one in a bikini taking out the trash.' The residents of Tijuana, where the organizing group, Pueblo Sin Fronteras has a base, and where the migrants are camping out in an upscale Playas de Tijuana apartment or condo, are actually organizing a neighborhood group against the coming mess : 'Just the prospect of the arrival of large numbers of Central Americans already has fueled opposition of some Tijuana residents. A Facebook group, Tijuana en Contra de la Caravana Migrante (Tijuana Against the Migrant Caravan) -- counted more than 1,000 members. It calls for deportation of caravan members without legal status in Mexico, a measure necessary 'to avoid their causing a collapse of our region.' ” • Showalter went to Tijuana herself and talked to Dibble : "Now, I've been to Tijuana, and that includes Playa del Rey. That area is a normal place, and doesn't look all that different from San Diego. Language schools to teach English are advertised, condos and loans and mortgages are advertised on street signs, the grocery stores look normal, there are travel agencies, car repair shops, and shopping malls. The people follow traffic laws, the cafes serve normal food, the gas stations are normal, and the little Protestant churches feature Gospel singing on Sunday. It's not crime-free, given the bars on some of the windows, but there's very little graffiti, there's no trash, and you don't see idle young men standing around looking menacing. It's actually a pretty nice, pretty normal place. I've actually been to Tijuana with Sandra Dibble, who wrote the piece, and can tell you she's by far the best border reporter there is, and is to be applauded for not trying to shield readers from unpleasant facts or inconvenient narratives." • Showalter says that the caravan migrants draped the Honduran flag outside their bus, and she pointed out that this is "a detail you'd never see CNN or the Washington Post report. What we are seeing here with this is that the whole migrant caravan isn't just people fleeing persecution, but an organized political stunt, one that will create quite a bit of cost and mess for those caught in its tracks. The Mexican locals are onto it, they know they're going to bear most of the burden and get zero benefit from it, while others stand to reap big. No wonder they don't want it around." Showalter says it's "Time for a little cross-border solidarity with the people of Tijuana." • • • RAZOR WIRE IN PLACE. Reuters reported on Tuesday that as the migrant caravan was drawing closer to the US border : "Hundreds of Central American migrants planning to seek asylum in the United States moved toward the country’s border with Mexico on Tuesday as US military reinforced security measures, laying barbed wire and erecting barricades." • Reuters showed a photo of a US Marine helping to make a concertina wire barricade at the US-Mexico border in preparation for the arrival of a caravan of migrants at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego, California. Some 400 migrants who broke away from the main caravan in Mexico City arrived in the border city of Tijuana on Tuesday by bus, according to a Reuters witness. Larger groups are expected to arrive in the coming days, human rights organizations said. The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement that it would close lanes at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa crossings from Tijuana to allow the Department of Defense to install barbed wire and position barricades and fencing. Tijuana, in the Mexican state of Baja California, is at the westerly end of the border, around 17 miles (38km) from San Diego, California. CPB's San Diego director of field operations Pete Flores said : “CBP has been and will continue to prepare for the potential arrival of thousands of people migrating in a caravan heading toward the border of the United States,” citing a “potential safety and security risk.” • US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis traveled to the border area on Wednesday, his first visit since the military announced that over 7,000 US troops would go to the area as the caravan of mostly Hondurans has made its way through Mexico. News coverage of Secretary Mattis talking to a group of US Marines at the border showed clearly that the Marines view Jim Mattis not only as Defense Secretary but also as their General. • The Trump administration has taken a firm stance against the caravan, which began its journey north on October 13 and briefly clashed with security forces in the south of Mexico early on its route. Reuters noted that last Friday, President Trump "signed a decree that effectively suspended the granting of asylum for those who cross the border illegally, a move that could drastically slow claims at gates of entry. But migrants planning to seek asylum in the United States said they were undeterred by the crackdown. Several thousand more migrants in at least three caravan groups are making their way through Mexico toward the border." • • • MEXICAN CARTELS HAVE HARD TIME EXTRACTING PAYMENTS. Epoch Times reported on Thursday that the intense media focus on the caravans has hamstrung the Mexican cartels, which usually demand payment from migrants traveling north to the US border. Reporter Charlotte Cuthbertson quoted Robert J. Bunker, adjunct research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College : “With such an intense media spotlight, it is extremely toxic for the major cartels or the gangs to be involved with it -- from a kidnapping of some of its members or extortion perspective. Still, the weaker members of the various caravans and their stragglers are going to be shaken down or picked off as targets of opportunity from time-to-time.” • Cuthbertson says that cartels control the trafficking routes throughout Mexico and the entry points, or plazas, into the United States. Sheriff Andy Louderback of Jackson County, Texas, stated earlier : “Every day, every minute, some penetration of the Texas border, California border, New Mexico border, Arizona border -- every minute, someone is preparing to send a load in, or traffic humans in, or some type of criminal activity is going on. Every minute of every day. That’s their job, that’s what they’re committed to do, that’s how they get paid. And that’s what we’re up against.” • Different cartels control different areas along the southwest border -- the Sinaloa Cartel is dominant in California and Arizona, whereas the Gulf Cartel reigns supreme in southeast Texas. The 2017 US Drug Enforcement Administration report stated : “Cartels also maintain drug distribution cells in designated cities across the United States that either report directly to TCO leaders in Mexico or indirectly through intermediaries." • Bunker said that on top of the media focus, the caravans are being monitored closely by various humanitarian non-governmental groups and “we can assume” both Mexican governmental and security, and some foreign state, agencies. “If and when the caravan makes it to the US border with Mexico, I don’t view the cartel plaza bosses as likely to directly confront it or impede its progress. This is a highly politicized international spectacle that is now playing out,” Bunker said. “I think you may see ad hoc and disorganized or opportunistic criminality directed at some of its members, however, by low-level criminals or gang cliques but still this will only take place on the margins.” • • • THE NEW ASYLUM PROCESS. Using the same legal argument that prevailed at the Supreme Court on the order restricting visas from a handful of failed states, Donald Trump signed an executive order last week suspending all grants of asylum for those entering the country illegally. President Trump's proclamation Friday morning bans migrants who enter the country between official ports of entry from seeking asylum in the United States. Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department told reporters that the proclamation would go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 11, and be in effect for 90 days. • Last Thursday afternoon, administration officials released the text of an interim regulation outlining new restrictions on asylum seekers at the border to complement the President’s proclamation. The interim rule, published in the Federal Register and open for public comment as of Friday morning, establishes “a mandatory bar to asylum eligibility” for refugees crossing the southwestern border between official ports of entry. It contains a finding that granting asylum in those circumstances “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” During a call with reporters last Thursday, senior administration officials explained that President Trump would be exercising the same “use of authority that the Supreme Court upheld in Trump v. Hawaii,” better known as the travel ban case, to make such a determination about migrants who enter the US from Mexico. • The proper way to apply for asylum is to do it at an official border crossing, so that the US government can grant temporary entry while considering the application. Those who cross illegally have already violated the integrity of that system by denying that the United States has sovereign control over its own borders. President Trump's EO would eliminate the farce of people illegally entering the US and then insisting that they may apply lawfully for asylum. Caravan members will try to do that, with the support of their financiers, the Democrat Party, and the Progressive media, who have for years now been acquiescing in the tactic of thousands of people who have presented themselves at border crossings and demanded asylum improperly. • President Trump and his administration will certainly end in court over this EO. They’re preparing a defense based on alternatives available to migrants, but the New York Times reports that critics have already begun pushing back : "Lawyers for immigration advocacy organizations said they violated a founding principle of federal asylum : to judge each person’s asylum claim on its own merits. And the lawyers said federal and international law made it clear that the United States must provide immigrants the opportunity to claim asylum regardless of whether they entered the country legally or illegally." BUT, the problem for the critics is the same one they eventually failed to overcome in the travel-ban case -- the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the President very wide latitude to issue proclamations that suspend entry of aliens or impose “restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.” In Trump v Hawaii, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the INA “exudes deference to the President in every clause” : "It entrusts to the President the decisions whether and when to suspend entry, whose entry to suspend, for how long, and on what conditions. It thus vests the President with 'ample power' to impose entry restrictions in addition to those elsewhere enumerated in the INA. Sale, 509 U. S., at 187. The Proclamation falls well within this comprehensive delegation. The sole prerequisite set forth in §1182(f) is that the President 'find' that the entry of the covered aliens 'would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.' The President has undoubtedly fulfilled that requirement here. He first ordered DHS and other agencies to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of every single country’s compliance with the information and risk assessment baseline. He then issued a Proclamation with extensive findings about the deficiencies and their impact. Based on that review, he found that restricting entry of aliens who could not be vetted with adequate information was in the national interest." • Challenges to this new Executive Order are not likely to succeed, especially since this order focuses on aliens who have already violated the law. The only way to change this would be to rewrite immigration laws -- and the only way to do that would be to convince President Trump and the Republican majority in the Senate. • • • DACA AND THE SUPREME COURT. Make no mistake, the ultimate aim of the Trump asylum EO is not to stop migrant caravans. President Trump's ultimate aim is to pressure Democrats to agree to his four-pillar deal on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and the border wall. It may work, but the White House is also surely betting that its challenge to the recent DACA decision in the 9th Circuit will solve the DACA issue -- if the Supreme Court allows President Trump to dismantle DACA, then Democrats will have no choice but to cut a deal or to abandon Obama's “dreamers.” • Before the 9th Circuit ruled that challengers to the Trump administration decision to end DACA are likely to succeed in their argument that the planned phase-out is illegal and issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily preventing the Trump administration from ending the DACA program, the Trump administration appealed otthe US Supreme Court for an immediate resolution to its effort to end the DACA program, the Trump administration on made the unusual decision to ask the Supreme Court to take over three cases concerning pending lawsuits that seek to preserve DACA. The Obama DACA program, carried out under an Executive Branch memorandum, gives some illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children the opportunity to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a work permit. The Trump administration last year announced its plan to phase out the program, but federal courts have ruled variously that the phase-out could not apply retroactively and that the program should be restarted. The Justice Department wants the Supreme Court to use its authority to decide the matter without waiting for lower courts to rule. It is rare for the Court to grant such a so-called fast-track petition before all the lower courts have weighed in on the merits. But, the Trump DOJ argued in its petition : "The last administration started DACA without a mandate or even an authorization from Congress or the courts; this administration can therefore end DACA at any time. That is what we have done, and it was the lawful thing to do. Immigration law in this country -- and the status of DACA recipients in particular -- ultimately must be settled by our representatives in Congress. The Department of Justice should not have been forced to make this filing today -- the Ninth Circuit should have acted expeditiously, just as the Supreme Court expected them to do -- but we will not hesitate to defend the Constitutional system of checks and balances vigorously and resolutely." • The Trump administration's petition is based on three cases -- DHS v. Regents of the University of California (18-587) (CA9); Trump v. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (18-588) (CADC); and Nielsen v. Vidal (18-589) (CA2). The administration is seeking to convince the Supreme Court to consolodate those cases because they make the same substantive objections to the planned DACA recession, and toss them all out on the merits. The 9th Circuit's ruling is the latest in the string of court opinions siding with Dreamers, and the 9th Circuit injunction, which allows current DACA recipients to submit renewal applications, was put in place in January by a lower federal court until lawsuits against the Trump administration work their way through the courts. In its opinion on Thursday, the 9th Circuit panel noted the plaintiffs have some “likelihood of success” in their argument that the Trump administration’s decision to end DACA violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Beyond California, the decisions against the Trump administration come from US district courts in New York and the District of Columbia. And, a federal judge in Texas sided with the Dreamers in August after a coalition of seven conservative states sued to end DACA. BUT, last week’s 9th Circuit opinion brings the issue closer to the Supreme Court being interested to resolve the issue, since it’s the first time a federal appeals court has ruled on the issue. • • • DEAR READERS, President Trump has been fearless in his efforts to control US borders and put some reason into the immigration issue. He has had the audacity to tell the Democrat congressional leadership that America should be able to decide how many foreigners to admit to the US, who they are, and when. This may seem like common sense to most Americans, but the idea outrages ProgDems who want to fill cities and states, especially border states, with bands of non-citizens and then count them in the 2020 Census to shift congressional seats from other states. In fact, President Trump even wants to restore the basic question to the next Census : "are you a US citizen?" And, his insistence on building a wall is another part of his common sense approach to the immigration issue. • President Trump is right. Yet again.