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Smugglers Reportedly Telling Migrants To Hoof It Toward Border Before Trump Takes Office

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jason Hopkins

Human smugglers are reportedly urging migrants to rush into the United States before President-elect Donald Trump comes back into power, according to the Wall Street Journal

Migrants across Latin America are being told by smugglers that the time is now to reach the U.S. southern border before Trump enters office and embarks on his hardline immigration agenda,  according to a report by the WSJ. Officials on the U.S. side of the southern border told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they are bracing for the possibility of a last-minute migrant surge before inauguration day.

“I am deeply concerned about the potential for a surge at our southern border as we near the end of President Biden’s term,” San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who represents a district by the California-Mexico border, stated to the DCNF. “With the Trump Administration signaling that it will prioritize stricter immigration enforcement, many individuals seeking to enter the U.S. illegally are likely to try to do so before those policies are enacted.”

“Right now, we are already seeing 800 to 1,000 people entering our region daily, creating a massive strain on our resources, services, and communities,” Desmond continued. “The influx is overwhelming local infrastructure and endangering the well-being of residents.”

Close to the Darien Gap — a vast jungle region spread across the Panama and Colombia border where thousands of U.S-bound migrants cross every year — migrants were told by a smuggler that he anticipates more deportations under the Trump administration, according to a WhatsApp group message reviewed by the WSJ.

“There were four WhatsApp groups in which hundreds of migrants coordinated their departure on U.S. election day,” Luis Villagrán, a Mexican migrant advocate who helps organize caravans in Tapachula, told the WSJ.

“As soon as Trump’s victory became clear, messages spreading fear began to appear,” Villagrán said.

In a statement to the DCNF, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson said the agency is remaining vigilant to ever-changing migration patterns, and urged migrants to “not believe the lies” of smugglers.

“The fact remains: the United States continues to enforce immigration law. Individuals who enter the U.S. unlawfully between ports of entry will continue to be quickly removed,” the CBP spokesperson said.

Upon entering office, President Joe Biden undertook 296 executive actions on immigration, with 89 of those orders specifically reversing or beginning the process of reversing Trump’s immigration policies. The Biden-Harris administration went on to undo a number of major Trump-era initiatives concerning border security, such as ending border wall construction and shutting down the Remain in Mexico program.

The aftermath was a historic flow of illegal immigration across the southern border. The number of illegal border crossings in fiscal year 2024 were the second worst in U.S. history — only surpassed by fiscal year 2023, according to data tracked by CBP.

There were about 8.5 million migrant encounters along the U.S.-Mexico border during the four fiscal years of the Biden-Harris administration.

Trump, who is set to return to office in January, was very clear about his immigration enforcement platform while on the campaign trail.

The president-elect has pledged to continue building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, revive the Remain in Mexico program, hire more border patrol agents and embark on the “largest deportation program in American history.” He has also pledged to put an end to birthright citizenship for those born on U.S. soil by illegal migrant parents.

The incoming administration appears poised to follow through this hardline agenda given the picks so far to lead top immigration enforcement roles. The White House transition team has tapped former Immigration and Customs Enforcement  acting director Tom Homan to serve as border czar, Stephen Miller to serve as deputy chief of staff for policy and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

Human smugglers and migrants south of the border appear to be paying attention to the American political scene. At least some migrants are now reportedly ditching the idea of booking an asylum appointment with U.S. officials and joining northbound caravans to the border.

“More than 20 friends decided not to wait for an appointment and joined the caravan,” Alfonso Meléndez, a 24-year-old Venezuelan national who arrived in southern Mexico in late September, stated to the WSJ.

“I’m very worried that they will throw us out when Trump takes office,” he continued.

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Daily Caller

AI Needs Natural Gas To Survive

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

As recent studies project a big rise in power generation demand from the big datacenters that are proliferating around the United States, the big question continues to focus in on what forms of generation will rise to meet the new demand. Most datacenters have plans to initially interconnect into local power grids, but the sheer magnitude of their energy needs threatens to outstrip the ability of grid managers to expand supply fast enough.  

This hunger for more affordable, 24/7 baseload capacity is leading to a variety of proposed solutions, including President Donald Trump’s new executive orders focused on reviving the nation’s coal industry, scheduled to be signed Tuesday afternoon. But efforts to restart the permitting of new coal-fired power plants in the US will require additional policy changes, efforts which will take time and could ultimately fail. In the meantime, datacenter developers find themselves having to delay construction and completion dates until firm power supply can be secured. 

Datacenters specific to AI technology require ever-increasing power loads. For instance, a single AI query can consume nearly ten times the power of a traditional internet search, and projections suggest that U.S. data center electricity consumption could double or even triple by 2030, rising from about 4-5% of total U.S. electricity today to as much as 9-12%. Globally, data centers could see usage climb from around 536 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 to over 1,000 TWh by 2030. In January, a report from the American Security Project estimated that datacenters could consume about 12% of all U.S. power supply. 

Obviously, the situation calls for innovative solutions. A pair of big players in the natural gas industry, Liberty Energy and Range Resources, announced on April 8 plans to diversify into the power generation business with the development of a major new natural gas power plant to be located in the Pittsburgh area. Partnering with Imperial Land Corporation (ILC), Liberty and Range will locate the major power generation plant in the Fort Cherry Development District, a Class A industrial park being developed by ILC.   

“The strategic collaboration between Liberty, ILC, and Range will focus on a dedicated power generation facility tailored to meet the energy demands of data centers, industrial facilities, and other high-energy-use businesses in Pennsylvania,” the companies said in a joint release.  

Plans for this new natural gas power project follows closely on the heels of the March 22 announcement for plans to transform the largest coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania, the Homer City generating station, into a new gas-fired facility. The planned revitalized plant would house 7 natural gas turbines with a combined capacity of 4.5 GW, enough power 3 million homes.  

Both the Homer City station and the Fort Cherry plant will use gas produced out of the Appalachia region’s massive Marcellus Shale formation, the most prolific gas basin in North America. But plans like these by gas companies to invest in their own products for power needs aren’t isolated to Pennsylvania.  

In late January, big Permian Basin oil and gas producer Diamondback Energy told investors that it is seeking equity partners to develop a major gas-fired plan on its own acreage in the region. The facility would primarily supply electricity to data centers, which are expected to proliferate in Texas due to the AI boom, while also providing power for Diamondback’s own field operations. This dual-purpose approach could lower the company’s power costs and create a new revenue stream by selling excess electricity.  

Prospects for expansion of gas generation in the U.S. received a big boost in January when GE Vernova announced plans for a $600 million expansion of its manufacturing capacity for gas turbines and other products in the U.S. GE Vernova is the main supplier of turbines for U.S. power generation needs. The company plans to build 37 gas power turbines in 2025, with a potential increase to over 70 by 2027, to meet rising energy demands. 

The bottom line on these and other recent events is this: Natural gas is quickly becoming the power generation fuel of choice to feed the needs of the expanding datacenter industry through 2035, and potentially beyond. Given that reality, the smart thing to do for these and other companies in the natural gas business is to put down big bets on themselves. 

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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Scott Bessent Says Trump’s Goal Was Always To Get Trading Partners To Table After Major Pause Announcement

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

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Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told reporters Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s goal was to have major trading partners agree to negotiate after Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for many countries after dozens reached out to the administration.

Trump announced the pause via a Wednesday post on Truth Social that also announced substantial increases in tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, saying 75 countries had asked to talk. Bessent said during a press event held alongside White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that Trump had obtained “maximum leverage” to get trading partners to negotiate with the April 2 announcement of reciprocal tariffs.

“This was his strategy all along,” Bessent told reporters during an impromptu press conference at the White House. “And that, you know, you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position. They, they responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors. And, and we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate. It wasn’t a hard message: Don’t retaliate, things will turn out well.”

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China imposed retaliatory tariffs on American exports to the communist country Wednesday, imposing an 84% tariff on U.S. goods after Trump responded to a 34% tariff by taking American tariffs to 104%.

“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” Trump said. “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”

“They kept escalating and escalating, and now they have 125% tariffs that will be effective immediately,” Bessent said during the press conference.

Bessent said that China’s actions would not harm the United States as much as it would their own economy.

“We will see what China does,” Bessent said. “But what I am certain of, what I’m certain of, is that what China is doing will affect their economy much more than it will ours, because they have an export-driven, flood the world with cheap export model, and the rest of the world now understands.”

The Dow Jones Industrial average closed up 2,962.86 points Wednesday, with the NASDAQ climbing by 1,755.84 points and the S&P 500 rising 446.05 points, according to FoxBusiness.

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