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© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Speaker Johnson leads House GOP on trip to Texas border city as Ukraine aid hangs in the balance
By VALERIE GONZALEZ and STEPHEN GROVES EAGLE PASS, Texas©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
24 Comments
2020hindsights
JJE
Well, we haven't any seem policies of merit from the house on this. Why can't they come up with a bill of reforms that will work? This is their job.
JJE
Just the other day it was reported the administration is using legal action to take down concertina wire.
Johnson needs to play hardball and hold this administration's feet to the blowtorch over the disaster at the southern border - which they own.
The welcome mat - open borders, catch and release policies - this administration has unleashed has led to record high crossings. Yet they demand taxpayers secure someone else's border to the tune of over 100 of billions.
bass4funk
Well, this admin. has a ton of them.
Bob Fosse
The problem with telling so many porkies is that it’s difficult to remember them all.
nishikat
Reagan allowed millions with free greencards. Also Biden and Obama had more deportations per year than Trump. And what does seal the border mean? Because the illegals will just use ladders and shovels .
But especially with Regan it shows Republicans are softer on illegal immigration. And what happened to the Trump wall?
plasticmonkey
Har har
Bob Fosse
The link I proved has the numbers. You dismissed them as ‘Washington pen pushers’ because you didn’t like the numbers.
bass4funk
If you don't try (like Myorkas) and you don't have the incentive then it won't work. We can find Edward Snowden, we can stop and foil major terror attacks in the US, the left can stop so called far-right attacks, but they can't stop radical leftists or seal the border? Yeah, no one believes that.
One or ten, not a few thousand in a day, not a million in a few months, you can beak into someone's home, there is always a chance at that, but that doesn't mean, you compromise on home security,
Where, we have barely jobs for our people, let alone 4-5 million illegals, many are already sleeping in the cold and more are coming, most have no skillset or education, they are not employable.
No, many of them are disappearing as the nation becomes more automated. Chicago, NYC are already complaining they don't want them, in Texas we don't want them, so where will they go? California? Oregon?
They are already doing that, but that doesn't solve the growing crisis of illegals coming.
Or we could send them back, it is unfair to people like my grandparents that came to this country legally and proudly and that worked hard, blood, sweat and tears to achive the American dream and millions of people like them that followed all the rules, have to watch while this......ahem, admin. completely walks over US sovereign immigration laws?
lincolnman
The facts are clear that our Repub friends want nothing to do with fixing illegal immigration and instituting comprehensive border reform...
They had the opportunity back in 2007 with President Bush's broad immigration reform package but it was sunk by his own far-right Repubs...
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/washington/28cnd-immig.html
Then from 2017 - 19 Repubs held the WH and majorities in the House and Senate and could have implemented any immigration reform they wanted - they didn't, instead focusing on passing a huge unfunded $1.9 trillion tax break for their Top 1% fat cat globalist donors...clearly showing here their priorities were...
Now with the party firmly in the grip of the far-right crazies who adhere to the xenophobic "Great Replacement Theory", they won't do anything to fix immigration since it helps keep the manufactured outrage burning in their racist base...
This performance art stunt by Johnson just proves that...
bass4funk
I am just looking at the numbers, has nothing to do with me believing what I want to believe in.
While many people may assume that annual deportation figures refer to the removal of unauthorized immigrants living and working in the United States, in reality these numbers combine interior deportations with actions at the border — such as when asylum seekers turn themselves in to authorities or individuals are captured while attempting to cross the border without authorization. It is important to break down deportation statistics in order to get a clearer understanding of immigration enforcement inside the country. Relative to the late Bush and early Obama eras, the Trump administration removed a modest number of immigrants from the nation’s interior. Instead, the administration increased the visibility and unpredictability of enforcement activity directed at unauthorized individuals living within the U.S. and expanded the use of detention as part of immigration enforcement.
So in other words, the deportations and detentions worked according to the BPA, this was another brilliant move as to why so many illegals choose not to attempt to cross, as I said, the border policies that were instituted worked like a charm and this admin is just....leaving the doors open, now that the lefts chickens have come home to roost, the Dems are now themselves in a panic and at a loss as to how to deal with this out of control quagmire.
Bob Fosse
The Border Patrol Agency’s own statistics corroborate that illegal deportation wasn’t reduced by the end of 45’s term. But you’ll believe what you want to believe anyway.
Desert Tortoise
It seems to me that no amount of border fortification is going to stop illegal immigration for the simple reason that over 60% of illegal immigrant arrive in the US by air and simply overstay their visas. And even if that were not the case, no matter how tall a wall you build, someone is going to make a ladder just a little bit taller.
It also strikes me that a major draw for these immigrants is work. There is an abundant demand for low skill, low pay labor in the US and it appears to be easy enough for them to find it and make money. With that in mind it seems the most effective way to reduce illegal immigration is to make those jobs as difficult to obtain as possible.
The solution would be to make use of eVerify mandatory for all employers for all paid work, period, full stop. Second, the penalties for using illegal labor should be severe. Focus the enforcement on the workplace, not the border. Put some executives in jail, not the asylum seekers. Seize their businesses and auction them off to their competitors. Take their homes too. Do enough of that and the US won't have an immigration problem.
bass4funk
Yes, it is.
Yes
I did
Then if you want to believe that, go for it, I’ll take the word of the BPA over any Washington pencil pusher.
Bob Fosse
No, it isn’t. The Guardian (lol) quote is only regarding asylum seekers.
Read the link I provided. It is proof that the policies he instituted didn’t work. Illegal immigration wasn’t reduced by 45.
plasticmonkey
That’s right. Everyone. The world is cartoonishly simple.
bass4funk
Many Central Americans arrive on the border fleeing gang violence in their countries. But it isn’t easy to qualify for asylum under US immigration laws, and the Trump-era policies made it that much harder.
More than half of asylum cases decided by the immigration courts in the 2020 fiscal year were denials, according to data from the department of justice’s executive office for immigration review. Four years earlier, it was about one in five cases.
-the Guardian.
Which is proof the policies he instituted worked. Everyone especially along the border want to go back to them. Rightfully so.
Bob Fosse
A highlight, but I’d recommend reading the whole thing.
“In 2020, the removal of illegal immigrants from the interior of the United States was the lowest as an absolute number and as a share of the illegal immigration population since ICE was created in 2003”
https://www.cato.org/blog/president-trump-reduced-legal-immigration-he-did-not-reduce-illegal-immigration
bass4funk
No, they’re not.
https://homeland.house.gov/2023/12/20/new-border-patrol-agents-stuck-processing-illegal-aliens-instead-of-performing-border-security-mission/
A staggering percentage of border agents have been shifted from protecting the U.S.-Mexico border to processing illegal immigrants due to the uncontrolled surge into America prompted by President Joe Biden’s policies.
Several border officials have revealed to House investigators that 12%-38% of Customs and Border Protection agents have at times been forced off the front lines to process, care for, and feed illegal immigrants.
As a result, officials said morale among the staff has declined and that border safety has been further jeopardized.
“Operations will suffer. Operation will be impacted. They will be lessened in order to do that other humanitarian mission,” Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Dustin Caudle of the Yuma Sector in Arizonawarned.
bass4funk
He is, he’s doing something Harris refused to do.
2020hindsights
bass4funk
They are doing that already.
2020hindsights
Stop your silly touring and get back to work, Mike.
bass4funk
You don’t need violence, why would you? Finish the wall, allowing the BPA to do their jobs, double the agents and apprehend and sent back illegals, go back to the Trump era return to Mexico policies, deport any visa, illegal border crossing.
That this admin is, no doubt about it.
John
Because nothing says “I'll look like I’m doing something (without doing anything)” like a trip to the border.
MAGA Mike doesn’t want a deal. He wants a campaign issue. And even if he got everything he wanted, he couldn’t get it up for a vote without being dethroned.