illegal immigration
Biden/Harris made empty promises to stop migrants in Panama — but the flood continues
A sign at the end of the notorious Darien Gap in Panama — where 1.5 million migrants have traveled since 2021.Photo by LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images
From the New York Post
By Todd Bensman
On July 1, Panama’s new President José Raúl Mulino took office on an unprecedented promise to close a major route of illegal immigration — through which at least 1.5 million foreign nationals have poured through since 2021.
Mulino said he would close the infamous Darién Gap, a 70-mile roadless jungle wilderness that South American migrants traverse on their way north to the United States.
He secured a promise from the Biden-Harris administration to help accomplish this: money and possibly even planes to carry illegally arriving migrants back to their countries.
A map of the 70-mile route that migrants take on the Darien Gap while passing through Panama.
But nearly two months after the US pledged a “removal flights program” to support Panama, the aid is nowhere to be found and the immigrants, after sheltering in place at home or in Colombia to see if Panama might actually deport people, are starting to flow once again through the Darién Gap.
‘We need support’
“We’re waiting,” said a senior Panama government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the topic. “We are [ready] to do our part of the agreement but we need the resources. We don’t have the airplanes to move the big numbers we need to.”
The official said the lack of American follow-through is probably “political” but has become more urgent to counter a new wave of Venezuelans — long among the most numerous nationalities crossing through Panama — who are now fleeing a fresh round of political violence.
Panama wants to dramatically increase air expulsions of Venezuelans back to Colombia to “change their mindset” so that fewer will want to make the dangerous trek.
But the Panamanian official said his country can’t afford to go it alone much longer.
Migrants boarding a boat in Colombia to head to the Darien Gap.CIS.ORG
A group of migrants sailing from Colombia to Panama.CIS.ORG
Migrants arriving in Panama.CIS.ORG
“We understand that we need logistical support to reinforce the expulsion of migrants . . . so we can avoid the movement and the normal flow to the United States,” the official said. “We need to change the migration politics of the border of the United States so we can send a very clear message to the migrants.”
His comments follow a similar public nudge from Panama’s presidential palace.
“The ball is in their court; we have done everything we can do,” President Mulino said at an Aug. 9 press conference in Panama City, referring to the Biden-Harris White House. “The border is in Panama, not in Texas.”
Catch-&-release logic
The American delay in following through, given the latest Venezuela unrest — and also the paltry $6 million the White House reportedly offered Panama for air expulsions — is inexplicable, given that Panama’s newfound willingness to reduce US-bound immigration on its territory represents a golden opportunity for the administration.
Polling shows the border crisis figures large as a political liability for Harris.
But it is in keeping with a Biden-Harris administration that has worked overtime to increase illegal-border crossing.
Rather than discourage passage through the Darién Gap, the US worked with the previous Panamanian government to make it easier to get through.
Migrants walking along a jungle path while traveling from Colombia to Panama on May 9, 2024.AP Photo/Ivan Valencia
Migrants riding a small boat on a river in Panama’s Darien province on Oct. 6, 2023.AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco, File
In 2022, for instance, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken pressured the Panamanian government to open a shorter sea and river route, built larger and new hospitality rest camps, and arranged for dozens of United Nations and nonprofit migrant advocacy groups to provide all manner of aid and assistance.
These moves induced hundreds of thousands more border crossers per year to make the trip.
As a direct result of Biden-Harris catch-and-release policies, the Darién Gap passage became a major factor in the worst mass migration crisis in US history, funneling millions of illegal immigrants north.
A woman carrying a child as she crosses the Acandi River in Colombia on Sept. 15, 2024.AP Photo/Fernando Vergara
A migrant camp at the Reception Center for Migrant Care in Lajas Blanca, Panama on June 27, 2024.Photo by MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images
Election pressure
Fewer than 20,000 economic immigrants per year ever passed through the Colombia-Panama passage before the Biden-Harris administration, yet 250,000 passed through it in 2022, 520,000 last year and a projected 800,000 by the end of 2024.
With the election looming, Biden did pressure Mexico to try to reduce the all-time-record border crossings of 10,000-to-14,000-a-day.
Panama’s then-president-elect Jose Raul Mulino visiting the Reception Center for Migrant Care on June 28, 2024.Photo by MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images
The outreach has helped ebb the tide slightly and avoided some of the more shocking pictures and videos from overwhelmed border checkpoints.
So why the delay with Panama?
Perhaps it’s because the border has been “solved” just enough for optics sake ahead of the election. But Kamala Harris has absolutely no intention of following through with tougher border policies if elected.
If Harris wins in November, she won’t have to unravel a commitment to actual deportations in Panama that neither she nor her progressive liberal base authentically support or want, and the Darién Gap superhighway that they support can remain wide open.
Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, is the author of “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.” Follow his progress through the Dairen Gap and Panama at CIS.org.
illegal immigration
Trump to declare national emergency on border, issue executive orders
From The Center Square
By
After being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, President Donald Trump said he will sign “a series of historic executive orders … to begin the complete restoration of America and the ‘Revolution of Common Sense.’”
The first action he will take will be to declare a national emergency at the U.S. southern border, he said. Trump did not mention the northern border, which saw an unprecedented number of illegal crossings, record number of terrorists entering the U.S., and increased national security threats under the Biden administration, The Center Square reported.
“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said. “We will reinstate my ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. I will end the practice of catch and release. I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”
Trump said he will designate Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The designation will also apply to violent transnational criminal organizations including the violent Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, which is now operating in at least 22 states, The Center Square reported.
By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, Trump will direct the federal government “to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” he said.
The act will be used to remove all cartel and gang members in the country illegally.
“As Commander in Chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions and that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody’s ever seen before,” he said.
Trump is expected to issue 10 executive orders Monday to implement border security measures. They include ending the Obama-era catch-and-release policy Trump ended in his first term, which former President Joe Biden reinstated. The policy led to more than 14 million foreign nationals illegally entering the country, including more than two million who evaded capture known as gotaways under the Biden administration, The Center Square exclusively reported.
Trump will reinstate a policy he created in his first term, Remain in Mexico, or “Migrant Protection Protocols” (MPP). It requires asylum seekers to wait outside the U.S. while their claims are processed. After the Biden administration sought to end it, Texas and Missouri sued. A federal judge ruled that ending the MPP was unlawful, The Center Square reported.
Trump will also direct federal agencies to finish building the border wall along the southwest border, completing a project he began in his first term. Biden halted border wall construction on his first day in office. Texas and Missouri again sued and won that lawsuit as well, The Center Square reported.policy
Another executive order will end parole programs for illegal border crossers created by former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was impeached in part for creating them. Multiple attorneys general sued to stop them, arguing they were illegal.
The parole programs, including using a phone app, facilitated illegal entry into the U.S. for millions, including those with criminal records. Many released through the parole programs were later found to commit violent crimes against Americans, The Center Square reported.
Another will direct federal efforts to “crack down on criminal sanctuaries,” referring to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. More than 200 were identified and already given notice to comply with federal law or face prosecution. Sanctuary cities expected to be targeted first include Boston, Chicago, Miami and New York.
Trump’s massive deportation efforts will be led by his Border Czar Tom Homan, who has said the priority is to find and locate the most violent criminals to process for removal.
Another executive order will suspend the federal so-called refugee resettlement program through which local communities nationwide “were forced to house large and unsustainable populations of migrants, straining community safety and resources,” Trump’s transition team said.
Trump will also direct members of the U.S. military, including the National Guard, to engage in border security operations, deploying them to the border to assist existing law enforcement personnel. According to a poll ahead of the election last year, the majority of Americans support U.S. troops being sent to the border, The Center Squarereported.
Another order will direct the Department of Justice to seek the death penalty for illegal border crossers who kill U.S. citizens, including law enforcement officers.
Last year, criminal illegal border crossers made international headlines after brutally assaulting and murdering American women and girls, The Center Square reported. Their mothers and family members endorsed Trump for president.
Another order will direct the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to enhance vetting and screening processes after national security concerns were raised about the Biden administration flying illegal border crossers into the country who weren’t vetted, The Center Square reported.
Daily Caller
Sweeping Deportations to Begin in Chicago Day After Inauguration
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Hopkins
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to launch his promised large-scale deportation operation the day after he is sworn into office, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The incoming Trump administration will immediately begin mass deportation efforts in major sanctuary cities across the United States, with Chicago predicted to be first on the docket, according to The Wall Street Journal. The raid in Chicago is anticipated to begin Tuesday morning and last the entire week, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deploy 100 to 200 agents to execute the operation.
Incoming border czar Tom Homan — who led ICE during the first Trump administration — previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the White House will focus on the “worst first,” prioritizing illegal migrants who have criminal histories and orders of removal. However, Homan also made clear that any illegal migrant in the U.S is fair game.
“Like the first Trump administration, we’re going to prioritize public safety threats, national security threats and fugitives,” Homan stated to the DCNF, adding that gang members and other criminals would be their main focus. “Those that had due process at great taxpayer expense, were given orders of deportation, never left and became a fugitive – them too, they’re a priority.”
“The ones who pose the biggest threat to the country – they come first. The worst first,” Homan went on. “But let’s be clear, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table.”
The Chicago City Council recently slapped down an attempt by two moderate aldermen to scale back the sanctuary city laws currently in place.
Aldermen Raymond Lopez and Silvana Tabares, both Democrats, proposed amending Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance to allow for ICE cooperation when an illegal migrant has been arrested of certain criminal activities, arguing that such a policy would be a net benefit for the city’s immigrant community as it would allow deportation officers to better focus on criminals instead of making enforcement actions in the city at large. However, their proposal was quickly shot down by the council on Wednesday.
Other sanctuary cities in the U.S. have also expressed steep opposition to Trump’s enforcement agenda. Los Angeles passed its sanctuary law shortly after Trump emerged victorious in the presidential election, San Diego County doubled down on its existing law and Boston reaffirmed its sanctuary status in December.
Homan has said that city officials refusing to cooperate with ICE will not deter their agenda, and he added that those who knowingly harbor illegal migrants from law enforcement will be recommended for prosecution.
Along with large-scale deportation operations, Trump has also vowed to end birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil by illegal migrant parents, resume construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, bring back the Remain in Mexico program and implement other hawkish policies.
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