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illegal immigration

Texas triples razor wire barriers, continues building border wall

Published

5 months ago

6 minute read

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley 

“Democrats want walls to protect them at their convention. But they are AGAINST walls to protect Americans from an unprecedented onslaught of more than 11 million illegal immigrants, including criminals and terrorists.”

Texas is continuing to expand razor wire barriers and building its own wall along its border with Mexico through Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star.

The Texas National Guard has tripled erecting razor wire barriers along the Texas-Mexico border since soldiers began expanding them last year in key illegal border crossing points on state land.

“Texas is tripling razor wire barriers to STOP illegal immigrants from crossing the border,” Abbott said. “As Joe Biden and Kamala Harris turn a blind eye to the border crisis, Texas will deploy every tool and strategy to deny illegal crossings into our state.”

The governor also responded to social media posts about barriers being put up outside of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, saying, “Democrats want walls to protect them at their convention. But they are AGAINST walls to protect Americans from an unprecedented onslaught of more than 11 million illegal immigrants, including criminals and terrorists.

TCS border crisis operation lone star razor wire Eagle Pass
Members of the Texas National Guard erecting razor wire barriers on state land in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s X feed

“An onslaught created by Kamala. Hypocrites.”

Texas has been expanding border wall construction every day, most recently installing more panels in Zapata and Val Verde counties last week.

“Texas is the first and ONLY state in U.S. history to build our own border wall,” Abbott said. “Texas continues to take historic action to protect Texans and Americans.”

By doing so, “Texas upholds our nation’s sovereignty and defends our constitutional right to protect our border,” he added.

In June 2021, Abbott announced Texas would build its own border wall after illegal border crossers began inundating south Texas communities. Record numbers in the thousands a day began pouring through after President Joe Biden halted border wall construction and reversed many other existing border policies on his first day in office.

By October 2021, Texas and Missouri sued, arguing it was illegal to halt border wall construction that Congress allocated funds for and it was still costing taxpayers $3 million a day because of contractual obligations. By that time, Texas had sued the administration seven times over the border and immigration. Since then, Texas has sued the administration over 75 times on a range of issues.

Roughly two and a half years later, a federal court ruled in May that halting federal border wall construction was illegal. The administration didn’t appeal, handing Texas a huge win.

Other litigation between the Biden-Harris administration and Texas over border barriers is ongoing.

Last October, Texas sued after Border Patrol agents cut concertina wire barriers Texas installed on state land in Eagle Pass, Texas. Texas argued they were destroying state property and facilitating illegal immigration. Despite numerous court rulings, Texas has forged ahead building its razor wire barriers. A final ruling has yet to be issued on the case.

Two other lawsuits were filed over marine barriers Abbott ordered be installed in the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass. Texas’ border security efforts have also been enhanced with the support of 25 governors who are sending law enforcement resources to the Texas border on rotation.

Since Abbott launched OLS in March 2021, law enforcement officers have apprehended more than 517,900 illegal border crossers and made more than 46,000 criminal arrests, with more than 39,900 felony charges reported. They’ve also seized more than 518 million lethal doses of fentanyl, enough to kill the combined populations of the United States and Mexico.

The Texas legislature allocated more than $11.6 billion to fund OLS over a four-year period, which is larger than many state’s budgets, The Center Square reported. A Texas congressman filed a bill requesting Congress to reimburse Texas for OLS costs, which has gone nowhere.

Texas’ efforts have paid off, pushing illegal entry west to New Mexico, Arizona and California, The Center Square first reported.

Regardless if the federal government reimburses Texas or not, Texas will continue to secure its border, Abbott said. He has the support of 25 governors, and according to several polls, support from the majority of Texans and Americans.

Multiple polls continue to show that voters overwhelmingly oppose Biden-Harris administration border policies, oppose illegal immigration and want troops sent to the border to secure it, The Center Square reported.

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illegal immigration

Trump directs feds to target cartels that threaten homeland security

Published on January 22, 2025

By

ICE agents remove Mexican drug kingpin and leader of the Arriola Marquez Cartel, Oscar Arturo Arriola Marquez, from Texas to Mexico.                          US Immigration & Customs Enforcement

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

President Donald Trump is directing federal agencies to target Mexican cartels and other foreign groups that are a threat to American citizens and national security.

Trump’s executive order designates Mexican cartels, the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, Salvadoran La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and specially designated global terrorists (SDGTs) under the U.S. Constitution, Immigration and Nationality Act and International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

“International cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime, with activities encompassing convergence between themselves and a range of extra-hemispheric actors, from designated foreign-terror organizations to antagonistic foreign governments; complex adaptive systems, characteristic of entities engaged in insurgency and asymmetric warfare; an infiltration into foreign governments across the Western Hemisphere,” the order states.

“The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” Trump’s order states. “They functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States. In certain portions of Mexico, they function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society.”

TdA and MS13 gang members also pose similar threats, engaging in “campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” presenting “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

In response, Trump said, “I hereby declare a national emergency, under IEEPA, to deal with those threats.

“It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures” to protect Americans and the territorial integrity of the U.S.

He directed the secretary of State, secretary of the Treasury, attorney general, secretary of Homeland Security, and director of National Intelligence to take all appropriate action to implement his order.

He also instructed them to “make operational preparations regarding the implementation of any decision I make to invoke the Alien Enemies Act … in relation to the existence of any qualifying invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States by a qualifying actor, and to prepare such facilities as necessary to expedite the removal of those who may be designated under this order.”

Trump’s order comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and 21 Republican attorneys general for years called on the Biden administration to do so.

In September 2022, Abbott designated Mexican cartels as FTOs, issuing an executive order designating the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as foreign terrorist organizations,” The Center Square reported. He twice asked former President Joe Biden to do so and received no response.

Roughly one year ago, a coalition of 21 Republican attorneys general led by Virginia AG Jason Miyares also made the same request, argued an FTO designation was imperative because cartels are “assassinating rivals and government officials, ambushing, and killing Americans at the border, and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican government,” The Center Square reported. “This dangerous terrorist activity occurring at our border will not abate unless we escalate our response.”

They also received no response – until Jan. 20, 2025.

The Center Square first reported on cartels using asymmetrical and nontraditional warfare targeting Americans as a reason for Texas to declare an invasion in 2022. No official state declaration was issued and the Texas AG’s office refused to issue a legal opinion on the matter despite numerous requests to do so. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was the only one to declare an invasion before a state legislature and 55 Texas counties declared an invasion, The Center Square exclusively reported.

On Trump’s first day in office, he declared an invasion at the southern border, the first president in modern history to do so.

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illegal immigration

Trump to declare national emergency on border, issue executive orders

Published on January 20, 2025

By

From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

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.

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