The Democrat-Obama Open Border Era Is Over, and It Took President Trump's Courageous Stand to End It

THE NEWS IS ALL ABOUT THE CARAVAN AND US TROOP DEPLOYMENTS. The Trump administration's activity meant to prevent the caravan of Central Americans from illegally entering the United States is gaining momentum. • • • US TROOP DEPLOYMENT COULD INCREASE. Newsmax reported on Tuesday that 5,200 troops on their way to the US southwest border, but the Pentagon says that number is expected to swell. US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command head General Terrence O'Shaughnessy told reporters. “What I can confirm is there will be additional force over and above the 5,239,” O'Shaughnessy told reporters, according to The Hill. The final number is “undetermined,” he added, subject to change as officials “refine the requests” from the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol. And the cost is “unknown at this time,” he said, TheHill reported. • There are approximately 1,000 troops already in place in Texas, with more “moving in today,”according to O'Shaughnessy. Some 1,800 troops from seven different bases will reach Texas “in days,” 870 of which will be part of a headquarters in the state, TheHill said, and in addition, thousands of additional reserve forces are on hand to be sent to the border. O'Shaughnessy said Operation Faithful Patriot is meant to “secure the border.” • When asked for clarification, O'Shaughnessy noted that the Pentagon has viewed the caravan as “different than what we’ve seen in the past.” • Under the Posse Comitatus Act, federal troops are mostly prohibited from engaging in domestic law enforcement activities, and O'Shaughnessy insisted troops will support CBP agents already there : “CBP personnel are absolutely the primary and principle members that will be handling specifically the migrants. There could be incidental interaction between our military members and migrants and other personnel that may be in that area...we are making sure our soldiers, our Marines are going to be fully trained on how to do that interaction -- they are going to understand the rules for that interaction.” • • • THIS CARAVAN IS MORE VIOLENT. American Thinker's Monica Showalter reported on Thursday that : "To hear the press and its narrative allies tell it, the Honduras migrant caravan is little more than thousands of mothers and toddlers spontaneously fleeing violence in their home countries. The flight is little different from that seen in previous caravans. Any concern about crime or violence is a 'scare tactic,' or 'lying,' or 'racism,' and there's no evidence any of the migrants are criminals. President Trump's warnings about the matter are simply 'factually wrong.' " • BUT, says Showalter: "Actually, a different picture is emerging....the military-aged unemployed males dominating this wave of caravans are far more violent than reported. That's not a scare story from some rightwing militia group, but the actual view of the US military, whose 5,000-plus troops have been dispatched to meet the caravans and keep them from storming the US border and entering the US illegally as they already did in Mexico." • The Military Times states : "Publicly, the top commander in charge of homeland defense will only say the military does not yet have a full understanding of what threats will surface from the caravan. However, some violent acts that have taken place within the caravan and the way it has forced its way through the border between Guatemala and Mexico has raised concerns that the makeup of the population traveling differs from the past. 'We are working closely with [Customs and Border Patrol] to understand the makeup and the nature of this caravan,' said US Northern Command chief Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy. 'This caravan is different than what we’ve seen in the past.' ” • That, says Showalter, would certainly go for "not just the first caravan headed our way, but the chain reaction of the second, third and more groups following." Showalter quotes the UK Daily Mail : "The second migrant caravan, believed to be armed with bombs and guns, crossed into Mexico on Monday despite a huge police presence. Hundreds of migrants following in the footsteps of the first caravan heading to the US border crossed a river from Guatemala....The second group back at the Guatemalan frontier has been more unruly than the first that crossed. Guatemala's Interior Ministry said Guatemalan police officers were injured when the migrant group broke through border barriers on Guatemala's side of the bridge. Mexico authorities said migrants attacked its agents with rocks, glass bottles and fireworks when they broke through a gate on the Mexican end but were pushed back, and some allegedly carried guns and firebombs....The standoff at the riverbank followed a more violent confrontation that occurred on the bridge over the river Sunday night, when migrants threw rocks and used sticks against Mexico police. One migrant died from a head wound during the clash, but the cause was unclear." • And, Breitbart Texas reports : "Mexican authorities arrested two Hondurans who allegedly shot at federal police officers escorting the migrant caravan across the southern state of Chiapas. The attack follows shortly after government warnings about Molotov cocktail attacks around a second caravan near the border with Guatemala. The attack took place near Ignacio Zaragoza, Chiapas, when members of Mexico’s Federal Police were escorting the migrant caravan as part of 'Operativo Caminante' or 'Operation Walker' across the southern border state. According to Mexico’s Interior Secretariat, two men identified only as 22-year-old 'Jerson' and 17-year-old 'Carlos' spotted the group of police officers guarding the caravan and began firing at them. The attackers’ pistol jammed, allowing police officers to arrest them without any injuries. Federal authorities seized a .380 caliber Glock with nine rounds still in the magazine." • Showalter reported about the US Border Patrol warning Texas landowners at the international line to prepare for armed conflict from the caravan : "The US Border Patrol this week reportedly told Texas landowners along the US-Mexico border to prepare for a possible influx of 'armed civilians' on their property as the migrant caravan moves closer to the US, a report said. The Associated Press reported that these civilians say they intend to support the National Guard and Border Patrol to prevent the illegal migrants from crossing into the US." • As Monica Showalter so rightly points out : "It's an astonishing departure from the picture the mainstream press has been painting for us about the supposedly harmlessness of the migrant caravans, and it's completely in line with the warnings President Trump has made about the possibility of criminals within the caravan ranks. If that's not reason to distrust the mainstream press's 'narrative' reporting, what is?" • But, we're used to the mainstream press acting as the propaganda arm of the Progressive radical Left, aren't we? • Newsmax reported on Tuesday on one incident concerning the more violent attitude of this latest caravan : "The migrant caravan slowly advancing through southern Mexico is demanding the Mexican government help its 4,000 participants reach Mexico City even as a smaller group of Central Americans entered the country, presumably with the intention of joining it. Worn down from long miles of walking and frustrated by the caravan's slow progress, some migrants have been dropping out and returning home or applying for protected status in Mexico. Conscious of that frustration, its representatives demanded 'safe and dignified' transportation to the capital Monday after the group arrived in the Oaxaca state town of Niltepec. The Mexican government has shown no inclination to assist, however, with the exception of its migrant protection agency giving some of the caravan's stragglers rides to the next town over the weekend. Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a group supporting the caravan, has said it hopes to hold meetings in Mexico City with federal lawmakers and authorities as well as representatives of the incoming government to discuss migrants' rights and the caravan's future. But Mexican officials seem intent only on seeing the caravan melt away as it travels toward the US border. The government regularly trumpets the number of migrants who have applied for refugee status or asked to return to their home countries. On Monday, the Federal Police aggressively tried to turn back hundreds more migrants who crossed the Suchiate River to enter Mexico from Guatemala. A low-flying police helicopter hovered overhead as the migrants waded in large groups across the murky river, apparently trying to use the downdraft from its rotors to discourage them. Guatemala's Noti7 channel reported that one man drowned and aired video of a man dragging a seemingly lifeless body from the river. Once on the Mexican side, the migrants were surrounded and escorted by dark-uniformed officers as sirens wailed. The standoff at the riverbank followed a more violent confrontation on the border bridge over the river Sunday night, when migrants threw rocks and used sticks against Mexico police. One migrant died from a head wound during the clash, but the cause was unclear. The group was much smaller than the first caravan. In the Mexican border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, they said they hoped to continue onward Tuesday morning....Migrants in the caravan planned to walk to Juchitan on Tuesday, a trek of some 32 miles to the west. They may have been emboldened Monday by the efforts of one small town to help them move. More than 100 migrants lined up at a gas station parking lot to wait for rides in Zanatepec. Mayor Ramiro Nolasco said locals organized a bus and several trucks to carry migrants. 'We are helping our brothers from other countries with food, water, and transportation,' Nolasco said. 'It is going to be very little, compared to what they need.' " • • • SOME CARAVAN MIGRANTS ARE TURNING BACK. Newsmax called it "waning enthusiasm," reporting that some migrants gathered at a checkpoint near Tapanatepec to ask for help returning home to Honduras, the origin of the great majority of those in the caravan. Exhausted from many days on the road, and disheartened by the many miles yet to go and misbehavior by some fellow travelers, people have been dropping out and the caravan has contracted from its peak of an estimated 7,000 participants." • The second group at the border with Guatemala has been more unruly than the first according to Guatemala's Interior Ministry, who said that police officers were injured when the migrants broke through border barriers on Guatemala's side of the bridge. Mexico's Interior Department confirmed in a statement that two Hondurans ages 17 and 22 were arrested Monday when one of them tried to shoot at police in the town of Ignacio Zaragoza, near the Hidalgo border crossing. It said the Glock failed to fire, and no agents were injured. El Salvador's immigration agency, meanwhile, said a group of Salvadorans including several dozen children and adolescents that crossed legally into Guatemala on Sunday numbered about 500. • • • WHERE DOES THE DEMOCRAT PARTY STAND IN ALL THIS? American Thinker published an article on Wednesday written by Robert Arvay, with the title "Would the American left suborn an invasion?" Arvay wrote : "Sometime in the 1960s, as I recall, a prominent person in the news made the sarcastic statement that if an enemy invasion army were to land on our shores, the ACLU would meet the soldiers on the beaches to protect their rights. The ACLU quickly protested, averring that, patriots all, they would do no such thing. Being a parody writer myself, I once wrote a fictional piece about the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941) in which an ACLU lawyer sought an injunction against American armed resistance. He stated, 'As soon as those Japanese aircraft entered American airspace, their pilots were entitled to the full protections of the United States Constitution, including the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.' Today, we are living parody. A massive parade of foreign nationals is marching toward our border, its members openly proclaiming that they intend to illegally enter our country. They have already stormed and breached the southern border of Mexico in a glaring preview of their defiance of law, so they are clearly to be believed. And where is the American political left? Are leftists decrying the violation of our national sovereignty? Are they demanding that our government protect its citizens from encroachment? Of course not. They are the parody. They of the left are seeking ways in which to prevent the administration from doing any of that." • Robert Arvay calls the caravan "President Trump's PATCO moment. Remember that? Soon after President Ronald Reagan took office, in 1981, members of the unionized left organized a strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. They were adamant that their demands be met, or else PATCO would shut down all air traffic in the United States. Reagan gave the union members 48 hours in which to return to work or be irrevocably fired. You can't do that, the striking controllers jeered. Twenty-four hours later, they were all fired, and not one of those who continued the illegal strike has been rehired. Shortly afterward, PATCO ceased to exist. Reagan's bold stance was noted by the USSR, our deadliest enemy at the time, and the Soviets were reminded of his tenacity when he walked out of the nuclear arms reduction talks, an act that the left screeched would start a nuclear war. Instead, the Russians relented, and the talks were concluded in our favor. Now it is Trump who is being told by the left that he has no right to defend the nation against invasion. Leftist lawyers are coming to the aid not of their country, but of the invaders. They are claiming that Trump is violating the Constitution, or at least their twisted interpretation of it. A former member of the Supreme Court, the late Justice Robert H. Jackson, in his dissenting opinion in Terminiello v. Chicago, made a statement that ranks among the most powerful ever made from the bench. He said, 'The Constitution is not a suicide pact.' " • • • DEAR READERS, Fox News says the Department of Homeland Security is sounding the alarm over what it calls an “unprecedented crisis” at the border, stemming from "catch-and-release loopholes" that allow some illegal immigrants to remain in the country -- as a migrant caravan of almost 4,000 people makes it way toward the US DHS Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen issued a statement Wednesday : “Knowledge of these loopholes has led to a dramatic transformation in the population of those seeking to enter our country illegally. Whereas previously, [US Customs and Border Protection] was primarily apprehending single adults, now CBP is experiencing an influx of minors and adults traveling with minors seeking to enter illegally.” • And, President Trump told reporters at the White House : “we’ll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border.” • The Pentagon said its initial estimate was for 7,000 troops at the border. When Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was asked by a reporter if troop deployment to border is a stunt, he replied : "We don't do stunts." Mattis emphatically denied a reporter's suggestion Wednesday that the deployment of thousands of active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border is part of a political stunt ahead of next week's midterm elections. Secretary Mattis added that the deployment was to provide "practical support" to the Department of Homeland Security and was based on a request from US Customs and Border Protection. The Pentagon said late Wednesday that it had identified 7,000 who will be participating in the mission at the border. Approximately 2,000 National Guard members previously have been dispatched to the frontier over the past six months. Under this plan, Mattis will deploy 1,800 troops to Texas; 1,700 to Arizona; and 1,500 troops to California. • The White House has repeatedly warned caravan members that they will not be allowed into the United States. In an interview with Fox News' The Ingraham Angle Monday night, President Trump vowed that the migrants "are not coming in" and said the administration would build "tent cities" to house asylum-seekers. "We're going to have tents, they're going to be very nice and they're going to wait and if they don't get asylum, they get out." • It is time to deliver a strong and unwavering message to Central Americans and anyone hiding in their caravan that the United States has turned a page, that there will no longer be open borders or wholesale fiat permission for illegal immigrants to sneak into the US and then disappear into the interior, find jobs and housing, educate their children, use US medical and welfare services -- and in the worst cases deal drugs, traffick young children and women, and be permitted to re-enter multiple times after an initial deportation -- all at the expense of American taxpayers who have always opposed these Obama policies. • If President Trump is being forced to deliver this message just before the mid-term elections, it is because the Progressive and globalist Left orchestrated the caravan in an effort to make President Trump, the GOP, and all conservatives "look like racists" -- the goal was to win the mid-terms for the Progressive Democrat Party. That goal has backfired as Americans rally to the President. Now, these ProgDems are silent and sulking, hoping that border confrontations will be photo ops for their open border agenda. That will not happen. General Jim Mattis and his US troops will be polite and orderly, but firm. They will not disappoint America or their Commander-in-Chief. The Open Border Era is over. It took President Trump's courage and love of America to end it. Remember that when you vote in the mid-terms.