The Border & Illegal Aliens, And What We Are Doing About It.

[Bullheaded Texan]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.

“We are not going to let this country be invaded!

We will not be stampeded!

We will not capitulate to lawlessness!

This is NOT business as usual.

This is the Trump era!," the Attorney General said.
 

[Bullheaded Texan]

GOP Lawmakers Pressure Maxine Waters to Resign. 

 6/26/18  GOP Presidential Staff  

Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs on Monday introduced a measure that would censure Rep. Maxine Waters and ask her to resign for inciting people to publicly confront Trump administration officials.

 Biggs told The Hill that Waters’ comments do “not become somebody who’s in Congress” and warrant disciplinary action.

 “So we just introduced it, we have some cosponsors, but what she did was to basically incite people to come after and attack members of the president’s cabinet,” the Arizona Republican told The Hill. “And also spread that out to more people.”

 “Everybody agrees that it was just highly objectionable what she did,” he added.

The measure calls on Waters to apologize to Trump administration officials “for endangering their lives and sowing seeds of discord,” to release a statement making it clear that violence and harassment aren’t appropriate ways to protest, and finally to resign her House seat.

Tonight, I introduced a resolution to censure and condemn Maxine Waters for her recent comments, that encouraged actions that jeopardized the safety of government officials. Her rhetoric, as a Member of Congress, was unacceptable. STATEMENT: https://t.co/9GbZZyFk5p

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) June 26, 2018

“If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” Waters told a gathering Saturday. “And you push back on them. Tell them they’re not welcome any more, anywhere!”

(RELATED: Maxine Waters: God Is On The Side Of People Driving Trump...

 Earlier on Monday, Former George W. Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer called on Congress to censure Waters.

 “There’s enough in this society, you don’t engage in those types of practices. And, Maxine basically denied that she called on people to harass others. No peace, no rest. So she is still sticking by what she has done,” said Fleischer. “The press needs to have a feeding frenzy among the left as they always do on the right. It’s her turn now.

  Frankly I’m at the point where, if she continues to double down the house ought to take up a motion to censure her. Because this does lead to violence.”

(RELATED: Ari Fleischer Calls For Congress To Censure Rep. Waters ‘If She Continues To Double Down’ On Harassment Comments)

 So far, five members have agreed to sign onto Biggs’ measure.

[Bullheaded Texan]

Dems Introduce Bill to Abolish ICE.

 6/26/18  GOP Presidential Staff

Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan (Wis.) announced Monday he is introducing a bill to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

 In a tweet, Pocan called out President Donald Trump “and his team of white nationalists,” for misusing ICE so it can “no longer accomplish its goals effectively.”

 "DonaldTrump & his team of white nationalists, including Stephen Miller, have so misused IICE gov that the agency can no longer accomplish its goals effectively. I’m introducing a bill to #AbolishICE & crack down on the agency’s blanket directive to target & round up people." Rep. Mark Pocan 

 “During my trip to the southern border, it was clear that ICE, and its actions of hunting down and tearing apart families, has wreaked havoc on far too many people. From conducting raids at garden centers and meatpacking plants, to breaking up families at churches and schools, ICE is tearing apart families and ripping at the moral fabric of our nation,” Pocan said in a statement.

 His press office said his bill would create a commission to provide recommendations to Congress on how the U.S. can develop a more humane immigration system.

 Pocan joins three other congressional Democrats who have called for the law enforcement agency's abolition.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (Ore.), who wrote a post about abolishing the organization, said he voted against the formation of ICE 16 years ago and has been "concerned with the actions of the agency for quite some time."

 Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Jim McGovern (Mass.) also have said they want to get rid of ICE.

 Not all progressives are behind abolishing ICE, however, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).

           

[Bullheaded Texan]

US border agent chases 'human smuggler' back into river near Texas in dramatic video.

 By Ryan Gaydos | Fox News

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent was caught on camera Monday chasing after a smuggler who had just dropped off his human cargo – that included women and children – in Texas.

 The dramatic video, original captured by ABC News, shows Agent Robert Rodriguez coming across a man on a main road in McAllen where smugglers are known to traffic illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America into the U.S.

 “Look, there's a smuggler,” Rodriguez said as he began to chase the man into the Rio Grande. “I cannot go in the river to apprehend him. As long as he goes back south, I'm all right.”

 The suspected smuggler was then seen getting into an inflatable raft and desperately rowing across the river back to Mexico.

 The agency has been given reports of a tour of the McAllen station’s area of responsibility along the snaking Rio Grande, the nation’s busiest station after the key drivers of illegal immigration shifted over the last decade from adult mexican men entering in Arizona to Central American families and unaccompanied children crossing the river on Texas' southern tip.

 On Monday, two Honduran women – one with a 12-year-old daughter and the other with a 1-year-old boy – and two teenagers turned themselves in to border agents a short distance from the river.

 The smuggler (coyote) escaped back to Mexico on a dirt road surrounded on both sides by a lush landscape of mesquite trees and thorny brush.

A mother migrating from Honduras holds her 1-year-old child as surrendering to U.S. Border Patrol agents after illegally crossing the border near McAllen, Texas.  

 It’s unclear if the women and their children are the same ones who crossed with the smuggler in the raft.

Additionally, Gerberht Charac, 19, was found by agents on the roof of a trailer with another illegal alien trying to hide from authorities. Charac said he paid the smuggler $12,000 to get from Guatemala to Houston. He swam across the Rio Grande and stayed in a smuggling organization’s house before being caught.

 “I had hopes of making it,” Charac said, explaining that he came to the U.S. to provide for his wife and daughter who stayed in Guatemala.

                                                                             

[Bullheaded Texan]

Big Brother Loses at Supreme Court.

 6/22/18 by GOP Presidential Staff  

The Justice Department suffered a digital-age defeat Friday at the Supreme Court, which sided with the privacy rights of cellphone users in a dispute over law enforcement tracking their movements.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court said law enforcement generally will need a warrant for such searches.

 Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote.

At issue is whether the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment requires a search warrant for the government to access a person’s cellphone location history. It is the latest foray by the justices into how laws should be tailored to keep up with technological advances.

 The Justice Department suffered a digital-age defeat Friday at the Supreme Court, which sided with the privacy rights of cellphone users in a dispute over law enforcement tracking their movements. 

 At issue is whether the Constitution's Fourth Amendment requires a search warrant for the government to access a person's cellphone location history. It is the latest foray by the justices into how laws should be tailored to keep up with technological advances.

 The stakes were enormous, since this judicial precedent could be applied more broadly, including government access to Internet, bank, credit card and telephone records.

 Roberts in his opinion said going forward, warrants are needed. 

“We decline to grant the state unrestricted access to a wireless carrier’s database of physical location information,” he wrote. “The fact that such information is gathered by a third party does not make it any less deserving of Fourth Amendment protection. The Government’s acquisition of the cell-site records here was a search under that Amendment.”

 Roberts was supported by Justices ruth bader ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, sonia sotomayor and elena kagan.

Civil rights and privacy advocates argued current rules open the doors to state abuse of a citizen's everyday activities in public and private spaces. An estimated 300,000 communications towers across the U.S. allow pinpoint accuracy as to where cellphones and those using them have been.

 But the U.S. Justice Department, supported by a number of states, said if consumers knowingly give their data to third parties -- including cellphone providers -- their privacy rights are diminished. That would permit police to request the transmission data without a warrant.

 The current appeal was brought by Timothy Carpenter, who was arrested for being part of a store robbery gang in Michigan and Ohio. He and a co-conspirator were convicted in part after police obtained archived cellphone records showing him near the scene of the crimes. Nearly 13,000 so-called "location points" from six months of Carpenter's movements were obtained without warrant.

 His 116-year prison term was upheld by a federal appeals court. He wanted the digital evidence dismissed, and his conviction overturned.

 In dissent, Justice Anthony Kennedy warned “the court’s new and uncharted course will inhibit law enforcement and ‘keep defendants and judges guessing for years to come.’”

 “This case should be resolved by interpreting accepted property principles as the baseline for reasonable expectations of privacy,” he added. “Here the government did not search anything over which Carpenter could assert ownership or control. Instead, it issued a court-authorized subpoena to a third party to disclose information it alone owned and controlled. That should suffice to resolve this case.”

 Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch also dissented.

The government argued that under a 1986 congressional law known as the Stored Communications Act, it does not need "probable cause" to obtain archived customer records kept by the phone companies for business purposes.

 Separately, police surveillance tracking of real-time movements -- or wiretapping the actual conversations of a criminal suspect -- still typically requires a judge's authorization.

 The high court has been grappling with the so-called "third party" doctrine since 1976, when it ruled bank records obtained without a warrant could be used to prosecute a Georgia moonshiner. The justices extended it three years later to include phone numbers used by a robbery suspect, though not the actual conversations themselves.

 In 2012, the Supreme Court unanimously said police could not attach a GPS device on the car of a suspected drug dealer to track his movements.

Two years later, the justices separately and unanimously ruled police need a warrant to search a cellphone that is seized during an arrest.

 But unlike those cases, in the Carpenter appeal, there was no "physical intrusion" of the device, raising questions whether one's privacy was in fact being violated.

[Bullheaded Texan]

Big Win for Texas Republicans Ahead of Midterm Elections.

 6/25/18  by 

A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday, kept in place most of a controversial Texas redistricting plan enacted by the GOP-led legislature, despite lawsuits from civil rights groups claiming it was discriminatory.

 The case involved claims of racial gerrymandering — that election maps had the effect of harming the voting rights of black and mexicano voters.

 The 5-4 decision kept in place all but one challenged district, striking down the conclusions of a special three-judge federal panel that had ruled against the state.

 That judicial panel, though, initially had approved the voting maps on an interim basis, boundaries that were subsequently enacted by the state legislature.

 That, said Justice Samuel Alito for the conservative majority, showed a presumption of good faith.

The lower court, said Alito, "enacted, with only very small changes, plans that had been developed by the Texas court." He added, "All these facts gave the Legislature good reason to believe that the court-approved interim plans were legally sound."

 But the four liberals on the high court strongly disagreed.

 "The Court today goes out of its way to permit the State of Texas to use maps that the three-judge District Court unanimously found were adopted for the purpose of preserving the racial discrimination that tainted its previous maps," wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

 The state had objected to earlier court-imposed plans, while civil rights groups had asked the justices to resolve the extent partisan gerrymandering claims can be litigated. 

 The lower court had ordered two congressional districts and statehouse districts in four counties be redrawn in time for the 2018 elections, but the high court blocked that mandate last year.

 Primary elections were held in March under the existing, challenged maps.

The Supreme Court did find one state district, HD90, was an "impermissible racial gerrymander." 

The cases are Abbot v. Perez (17-586 and 17-626).

[Bullheaded Texan]

How Congress Can Stop Family Separation at the Border, Without Allowing Amnesty.

 6/26/18  David Inserra

The Trump administration is struggling to figure out how to enforce U.S. laws and keep keeping families together. 

 The matter is made more complex and difficult because of loopholes and restrictions in current law.

But it doesn’t have to be difficult and confusing. Congress can and should ensure that families are kept together and U.S. laws are well-enforced.

 How so? Here’s a checklist for Congress:

Step 1: Close the Flores loophole. In 1997, the clinton administration entered into the Flores Settlement Agreement, which allowed the government to hold unaccompanied children in detention for only 20 days, after which they must be released into the “least restrictive” environment possible. In 2016, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided this settlement also applied to accompanied children.

 When a family crosses the border illegally today, the U.S. government must release the child from detention after 20 days, even if the parents are still being detained. After being caught sneaking across the border, some parents claim asylum to avoid being deported, and these asylum claims can take months to assess.

 So the choice for the government is to detain the parents until their case is completed but release the child after 20 days, or to release the entire family, knowing many will never show up at their immigration court hearing.

 A simple fix here is for Congress to allow families to be detained together by overriding the Flores settlement. Congress should provide money for appropriate detention facilities.

Step 2: Fix the asylum process. Violence in Central America and lax enforcement by the obuma administration encouraged individuals to come to the U.S. As a result, the number of asylum claims has increased dramatically. Credible fear interviews—Department of Homeland Security interviews of asylum-seekers before they get to an immigration judge—that were referred to an immigration judge increased from 5,100 in 2008 to almost 92,000 in 2016.

 Not only are claims increasing, but fewer claims are found to have met the definition of asylum—28,000 grants of asylum were made in 2012, but only 20,455 grants in 2016.

 There are several fixes to this. First, the U.S. should demand that asylum-seekers first seek asylum at our consulates in Mexico. Since they are not in the U.S., no one is detained and it’s also easier for legitimate asylum-seekers to make it there.

 Those who illegally cross into the U.S. and then claim asylum should have to explain why they didn’t seek asylum from other governments such as Mexico and why they didn’t apply for asylum at a U.S. consulate.

  The U.S. also should pursue safe third-country agreements with countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica, and Panama, so asylum-seekers do not bypass those countries on the way to the U.S.

Step 3: Fix crucial loophole. The well-meaning 2008 William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act contains a provision that requires unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico to be released and put into the standard immigration court system. Congress should close this loophole so unaccompanied children from any country can be quickly returned to their family in their home country.

Step 4: Support immigration courts and adjudication. Partly because of the broken process and loopholes discussed above, U.S. immigration courts have been overwhelmed. The average wait time for court appearances has increased from 438 days in 2008 to 721 days now. DHS asylum officers don’t have the time to get through pending claims, and the rest of the immigration court system is stretched to the breaking point.

 Congress should appropriate funds for more immigration court judges, prosecutors, and support staff as well DHS asylum officers. The system needs all these positions staffed appropriately if it is to function effectively. 

 Congress also should consider housing some of these new immigration officials closer to the border or detention facilities.

Step 5. Complete the Wall so they can’t cross our border.
Step 6. Remove all funding to Central American counties and Mexico until they fix the problems that cause migration.
Step 7. Get rid of all democrats since they are incompetent and self serving.

 The U.S. can enforce its laws and keep families together but only if Congress acts. Indeed, several bills, including one by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; another by Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.; and yet another from Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., tackle at least some of these points.

 The new executive order by the administration cannot solve this problem.

 Rather than getting stuck on amnesty bills, Congress should turn to solving these issues.

[Bullheaded Texan]

Supreme Court Rules 5-4 in Favor of Trump’s Travel Ban.
“The Government has set forth a sufficient national security justification to survive rational basis review."
6/26/18 Damon Root
A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of President Donald Trump's executive proclamation banning travelers from certain largely majority-muslim countries.
"Because there is persuasive evidence that the entry suspension has a legitimate grounding in national security concerns, quite apart from any religious hostility," declared the majority opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts in Trump v. Hawaii, "we must accept that independent justification."
This decision reverses a lower court ruling that had blocked the travel ban from going into effect.
At the center of the case is Trump's September 2017 "Proclamation No. 9645, Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry Into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats."
At issue before the justices was whether this proclamation represented an invalid exercise of federal immigration power and also whether it violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause by heaping official disfavor on a religious minority, particularly when the proclamation is viewed in light of Trump's long record of making anti-muslim statements.
Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch, ruled in Trump's favor on both counts.
"By its plain language," the chief justice wrote, federal immigration law "grants the President broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States. The President lawfully exercised that discretion based on his findings—following a worldwide, multi-agency review—that entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the national interest."
Roberts then had this to say about the Establishment Clause challenge:
Plaintiffs argue that this President's words strike at fundamental standards of respect and tolerance, in violation of our constitutional tradition. But the issue before us is not whether to denounce the statements.
It is instead the significance of those statements in reviewing a Presidential directive, neutral on its face, addressing a matter within the core of executive responsibility. In doing so, we must consider not only the statements of a particular President, but also the authority of the Presidency itself.
Writing in dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice elena kagan, argued that the Court should not have decided the case until it had the opportunity to hear additional arguments about the real-world implementation of the travel ban, particularly on how its "exemption and waiver" process is actually functioning. "If this Court must decide the question without this further litigation," Breyer wrote, "I would, on balance, find the evidence of antireligious bias."
In a separate dissent, Justice sonia sotomayor, joined by Justice ruth bader ginsburg, charged the majority with turning a blind eye to the president's blatant Establishment Clause violation. The Court "leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a 'total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the United States' because the policy now masquerades behind a facade of national-security concerns," sotomayor wrote. "Based on the evidence in the record, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by anti-muslim animus. That alone suffices to show that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their Establishment Clause claim."
At its heart, this case was about how much deference the federal courts owe to the executive branch when the executive is acting in the name of national security.
According to the Court's 5-4 ruling, the executive is entitled to significant deference in such matters. "The Government has set forth a sufficient national security justification to survive rational basis review," wrote Chief Justice Roberts. "We express no view on the soundness of the policy."

[Bullheaded Texan]

New York Restaurant Posts Sign Stating Sarah Sanders Is ‘Welcome Any Time’
6/27/18 Scott Morefield
A New York restaurant posted a sign outside its front entrance letting White House press secretary Sarah Sanders know she is “welcome any time.”
Sanders’ father, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, posted a picture of the Kipps Restaurant sign on his Twitter feed along with the caption, “Kipps Restaurant in S Wales NY looks like my kind of place!”
“OPEN! BREAKFAST SARAH SANDERS WELCOME ANY TIME,” reads the message.
Sanders and her dining party were recently asked to leave The Red Hen in Lexington, VA because the owner and staff did not want to serve her, citing her employment with President Trump — a move her father called “bigotry.”

[Bullheaded Texan]

‘How Dare You’ — Jeff Sessions Drops The Hammer On Mexifornia Politicians’ ‘Radical, Open Borders Agenda.’
6/7/18 Justin Caruso
“Mexifornia, we have a problem,” he said while discussing the Justice Department’s newly launched lawsuit against Mexifornia. “A series of actions and events has occurred here that directly and adversely impacts the work of our federal officers.”
“For example, the mayor of Oakland has actively–has been actively seeking to help illegal aliens avoid apprehension by I.C.E.”
“Her actions support those who flout that law, and boldly validates illegality. There’s no other way to interpret those remarks. To make matters worse, the elected lieutenant governor of the state praised her for doing so. Bragging about and encouraging obstruction of our law enforcement, and, the law–I am afraid that this is an embarrassment to the proud state of Mexifornia.”
But what Sessions said next really put Mexifornia on notice!
“Here’s my message to Mayor Schaaf–how dare you!
How dare you needlessly endanger the lives of our law enforcement officers to promote a radical, open borders agenda.”

(RELATED: Mexifornia Gov. Channels Trump In Response To DOJ Lawsuit)
(RELATED: Justice Dept Sues Mexifornia For Using Sanctuary Cities To Skirt Fed Law.)

[Bullheaded Texan]

Foreign Creep Looking for Teen He Met Online Meets Armed Mom Instead.
6/26/18 by: AAN Staff
A Virginia mother acted decivisely by shooting the predator who traveled 9,000 miles from New Zealand to violently attack her teenage daughter. (WTVR-TV)
Troy Skinner, 25, flew to Virginia to meet the woman's teenage daughter after the two chatted online using Discord, a service popular among gamers, the Goochland County Sheriff said.
The 14-year-old girl's mother shot Skinner when he attempted to break into the family's home in the Holland Hills community, the sheriff said.
"He was not invited here, he was not expected here, he had been told in the past that the daughter no longer wished to communicate with him," Goochland Sheriff Jim Agnew said.
The violent encounter took place Friday when the mother was home with her two daughters.
When the mother called her husband, he told her to grab a gun. She then warned Skinner, who already smashed a window and was attempting to enter the house, that she was armed and the police were on their way.
That didn't deter the stupid Skinner.
When Skinner reached through the door again,
the mom fired two shots from her handgun, striking him in the neck.
Skinner attempted to flee the scene before collapsing in a neighbor's yard.
Police officers found a knife, duct tape, and pepper spray in Skinner's pockets. He remains hospitalized.
Authorities are expected to charge Skinner with breaking and
entering with intent to commit rape, murder, robbery, or arson.