Yearly Archives: 2021

(The Center Square) – Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, met with Republican lawmakers this week to explain the nature of the problem Border Patrol is facing on a daily basis.

“I would argue that it’s the biggest surge that we’ve ever seen in the history of the Border Patrol,” Judd said during a roundtable with members of Congress, Texas landowners, and law enforcement.

The two-day trip to McAllen, Texas, was spearheaded by Ohio U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, and included several Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee. Jordan said House Democrats were invited to come but declined to participate. Jordan says what he saw is a “catastrophe.”

“In all my years in Congress, this has been the most disturbing field tour that I’ve ever taken," California U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock told reporters at a roundtable.

Judd says Border Patrol is overwhelmed by a surge of 18,600 unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors, family units that comprise nearly 53,000 individuals, and 96,600 single adults in March alone.

CBP projects more than 1 million unaccompanied minors will enter the U.S. illegally this year.

During the month of March, Southwest land border encounters and apprehension totaled 172,000 illegal immigrants, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported. An additional 1,000 people per day are evading capture, CBP estimates. These numbers are up compared to February, when border agents apprehended 101,000 illegal immigrants and unaccompanied minors.

However, Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller argues the surge at the border “is not new” and that encounters have “continued to increase since April 2020.”

He added, “our past experiences have helped us be better prepared for the challenges we face this year.”

Judd disagreed, arguing, “this surge is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.”

“Even though we were making 1.5 million arrests, we were actually dealing with about 400,000 to 500,000 individual people – we were just arresting the same people over and over again,” Judd said. Most were single males from Mexico, whereas the types of people crossing today are different, he said. “Today … if we make 1.2 million arrests, we’re actually dealing with about 800,000 to 900,000 different people.”

Taking care of family units and unaccompanied minors requires a great amount of resources, including housing, food, transportation and health care, all paid for by taxpayers. Taxpayers also foot the bill for the processing of and subsequent transfer or release of the individuals into the United States.

“You could cross the border illegally one day and be in Virginia the very next day,” Judd said, referring to the “catch-and-release” program implemented by the Biden administration.

“I personally have apprehended groups from China, from Bangladesh, from Russia, from Poland, from Brazil. And these criminal organizations are allowed to go into these countries, and they’re allowed to advertise their services and make billions of dollars off of human misery. And it’s based upon our policies,” he said, referring to the Biden administration policies that reversed Trump-era policies.

Last month, President Joe Biden appointed Vice President Kamala Harris to oversee the border crisis, however, she has yet to visit the border.

Judd says the current policy of “catch-and-release” only incentivizes illegal immigration. A better alternative is to detain individuals while their immigration case is being adjudicated, he suggested, pointing to the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, known as the Remain in Mexico program, which sought to do this.

McClintock said the group of lawmakers “watched literally hundreds of illegal migrants crossing the border and turning themselves in to the Border Patrol," he said. "Groups who were in the company of children under seven had their basic biometric information taken down, and then [they were] dispatched to bus stations to continue into the United States.”

McClintock said the children are held for an average of 24 days and the situation is "getting worse by the day." Mexican cartels net roughly $500 million per month through human trafficking, he said.

“We are feeding the Mexican crime cartels," he added. "The crime cartels are taking in roughly a half a billion dollars a month through this human trafficking network."

Indiana U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz blamed “perverse incentives and lack of leadership" for the border crisis. “Perverse incentive and lack of leadership from this administration [have] created a real serious crisis at the border. And it has really escalated," she said.

“Forty percent of our Border Patrol agents are busy processing people and changing diapers," she continued. "It means that they cannot do their job protecting the border. It means that Mexican cartels are controlling the border. This is a national security and humanitarian crisis.”

Utah U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens recounted sobbing children and a young woman who was gang raped.

“We have an administration that does not have the backbone to come down here and encourage these great men and women who are doing a job but being overwhelmed right now,” Ownes said.

Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs said the situation was “horrific to see."

The White House said a new executive order will create a presidential commission composed of experts to study current practices of the Supreme Court, most notably the “membership and size” of the court itself.

The commission will hold public meetings and present a report on its findings within 180 days. According to the White House, its stated purpose is to provide "an analysis of the principal arguments in the contemporary public debate for and against Supreme Court reform.”

That raised eyebrows, though, as a thinly veiled exploration of expanding the size of the court after many Democrats called for the court’s expansion last year.

What is also called “packing the court” became a contentious issue during the 2020 presidential campaign.

Liberal Democrats have called on Biden for months to add justices to the court, which has a majority of justices appointed by Republican presidents. Biden often avoided questions about the issue on the campaign trail, but did say he is “not a fan” of adding justices.

Former President Donald Trump appointed three justices during his term, giving conservatives a 6-3 majority on the court. Those victories for the former president prompted Democrats, particularly the more liberal wing of the party, to push for appointing more supposedly left-leaning justices once a Democrat was in the White House.

“Expand the court,” U.S. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, said just days before the November elections. “Republicans do this because they don’t believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they do. And for a long time they’ve been correct. But do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal but a response isn’t. There is a legal process for expansion.”

Democrats could outright expand the court and add justices, but another tactic may involve putting term limits on justices with the hopes of replacing them with Democratic nominees.

Republicans were quick to criticize Biden's commission, pointing to an overreach of executive authority.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, responded to the announcement immediately on Twitter, saying Democrats want to “close your schools, open your border, take your guns, raise your taxes, cancel your culture, pack your court,” hitting several lines of attack against the Biden administration.

“Why study something we already know? Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court,” he added.

The Republican leadership of the House Judiciary Committee, where Jordan serves as the ranking member, echoed that sentiment, saying in response, “President Biden promised he’d govern as a 'moderate.’ He lied.”

Congress has the authority to change the size of the Supreme Court, but the highest court in the land has remained at nine justices since 1869, over 150 years.

The president’s new commission will be led by two co-chairs. The first is White House Counsel and Yale Law School Professor Cristina Rodriguez, who currently serves as former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. The other co-chair is Bob Bauer, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law.

“The topics it will examine include the genesis of the reform debate; the Court’s role in the Constitutional system; the length of service and turnover of justices on the Court; the membership and size of the Court; and the Court’s case selection, rules, and practices,” the White House said in a statement. “In addition to legal and other scholars, the Commissioners include former federal judges and practitioners who have appeared before the Court, as well as advocates for the reform of democratic institutions and of the administration of justice. The expertise represented on the Commission includes constitutional law, history and political science.”

(The Center Square) – President Joe Biden announced a series of controversial gun control measures from the White House Thursday.

The president laid out several executive actions and made clear he thinks more gun control measures are needed and coming soon. He also urged Republicans to partner with him in passing gun control legislation, including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“Whether Congress acts or not I’m going to use all the resources at my disposal to keep people safe from gun violence,” Biden said during his speech from the Rose Garden. “There is more Congress can do to help that effort.

“This is just the start,” he said.

Joined by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden announced the Department of Justice must issue a proposed rule on what he called “ghost guns,” weapons created by 3D printers that are often without serial numbers, making them difficult to track.

“Individuals can buy kits that contain almost all or all of the parts they need to assemble a gun,” Biden said. “They can put together a working gun in as little as 30 minutes.”

Biden has also instructed the DOJ to release a proposed rule within 60 days focused on modified pistols, arguing they can in some cases be treated like small rifles. The agency also must issue an annual firearms trafficking report, he said.

The most substantive changes to gun policy, though, could come through Congress. Biden called on members to pass gun control legislation, and threw a jab at Republicans unwilling to sign on to his proposed measures.

“They have offered plenty of thoughts and prayers, but they have not passed a single federal law to reduce gun violence,” Biden said. “Enough prayers. Time for action.”

Gun control legislation

Biden's legislative proposals include a national “red flag law” and new language to shore up what the president calls background check “loopholes.”

“Congress should close those loopholes and go further, including by closing ‘boyfriend’ and stalking loopholes that currently allow people found by the courts to be abusers to possess firearms, banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability, and investing in evidence-based community violence interventions,” the White House said in a statement. “Congress should also pass an appropriate national ‘red flag’ law, as well as legislation incentivizing states to pass ‘red flag’ laws of their own.”

Biden pointed to two background check bills that passed the House in March. He also advocated for removing liability protections from gunmakers.

“No matter how long it takes, we are going to get these passed,” Biden said. “I know that the conversation about guns in this country can be a difficult one.”

Sharp pushback

Republicans were quick to criticize Biden’s plan, arguing the president is abusing his authority and violating the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“The right to keep and bear arms is fundamental for preserving our liberty,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on Twitter. “The answer is not to restrict the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The answer is to go after violent criminals and come down on them like a ton of bricks.”

Critics argue Biden’s measures will do little to stop criminals but will hamper the freedoms of regular Americans.

“President Biden’s executive order on guns operates under same fallacy often committed by gun-control advocates: go after guns that look or sound scary ('ghost guns') but are rarely used in crime and, in the process, potentially turn millions of Americans into felons,” said Trevor Burrus, a constitutional expert at the Cato Institute. “Any gun control policy that doesn’t focus on inner city gun violence and suicides with handguns is not a serious attempt to mitigate gun deaths. But the presence of a gun is not the primary cause of interpersonal gun violence and firearm suicides, and we must broaden our search for solutions that do not focus on guns.”

Other critics pointed to the right to self-defense. Julie Gunlock, director of the Center for Progress and Innovation at Independent Women’s Forum, voiced opposition to Biden’s proposed measures, saying they make Americans more vulnerable to crime.

Crime rates have spiked in several cities around the country.

“As we’ve seen over and over again, these measures do nothing to reduce gun violence but they do make people more vulnerable to criminals,” Gunlock said. “People have a right to defend themselves, and the government should have no role in telling people how to do it. President Biden’s [executive order] will only embolden criminals and endanger law-abiding American lives.”

Any serious restrictions on gun rights are likely to face lawsuits. The Trump administration banned bump stocks in 2017, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an injunction against that rule last month, saying it was likely unlawful.

"We will take whatever actions are necessary, possible, and prudent to protect the rights and liberty of law-abiding gun owners and our members against illogical, immoral and unconstitutional laws, government agencies and policies, such as we did in the case of former President Trump’s bump stock ban," the Firearms Policy Coalition said in a statement.

Biden’s speech laid out the first in what will likely be a prolonged campaign for more gun control regulations and enforcement. As part of that effort, Biden also announced David Chipman as his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“Finally, none of these measures or any of the other critical law enforcement work the department does with respect to illegal guns can be effectively carried out without strong leadership,” Garland said in his speech following the president. “[Chipman’s] extensive experience as an ATF agent will prove invaluable, and I look forward to working with him.”

Republican lawmakers in Madison are preparing to spend the next week approving nearly a dozen changes to how they want Wisconsin to spend its billions in federal stimulus money.

Gov. Tony Evers is promising to veto any and all of the 11 pieces of what Republicans are calling the Responsible Stimulus Plan.

Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, on Wednesday announced their committee, the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, will hold hearings and approve the 11 pieces of legislation that would spend Wisconsin’s $3.2 billion in stimulus money on their priorities.

“We do not know how – or when – the Governor will allocate the massive amount of Federal funding available to Wisconsin in the most recent stimulus plan,” Marklein said. “Our legislation provides specific plans based on the real priorities of citizens statewide. We need to dedicate these funds in a meaningful way that will support the people of our state who are working to recover and move forward after the last unprecedented year.”

The list includes paying down debt, creating a statewide public safety communications system, setting money aside for Wisconsin’s unemployment trust fund, and sending grants to small businesses, nursing homes, and tourism operations across the state.

“The people of Wisconsin deserve to have their voices heard through their elected Representatives and Senators on how all of this federal money is spent,” Born said. “As I’ve said before, this money should not be unilaterally allocated by one person.”

But it will be spent by just one person. Congress gave governor’s the power to spend the money, and Gov. Evers in March vetoed legislation that would have granted lawmakers some say over the money.

The governor’s office on Tuesday reminded lawmakers of that veto.

There are also some questions about whether some of the Republican priorities are allowed under the American Rescue Plan that is providing the money. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau this week issued a report that said the plan to retire $500 in debt doesn’t appear to be allowed.

“Once again, the governor has chosen the go-it-alone approach,” Born said Wednesday. “But that won’t stop Legislative Republicans from advancing this package, which includes a number of items including grants to small business and tourism, funding for broadband expansion, and aid to households that will directly benefit the residents of Wisconsin.”

The plans will clear the Joint Finance Committee, then head to votes in the Assembly and Senate. Those final votes could come as early as next week.

(The Center Square) –There were almost no surprises on Election Day in Wisconsin.

Democrat Jill Underly won Tuesday’s election for state superintendent of Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction. She defeated Republican Deb Kerr. The state superintendent's race is officially nonpartisan, but it saw lots of political spending. Underly was the choice of Wisconsin’s teachers’ unions, and she attracted more than $800,000 in outside political money. Kerr’s campaign got off to a slow start with a number of missteps, and she was massively outspent.

In other races, southeast Wisconsin is sending a conservative to the state’s appeals court. Judge Shelley Grogan easily defeated Tony Evers-appointee Jeff Davis in Tuesday's election for the Second District Court of Appeals. Grogan currently clerks for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and is a part time municipal judge in Muskego. Davis was serving out the last of Brian Hagedorn’s term on the appellate court. The second district seat covers all of southeast Wisconsin, with the exception of Milwaukee.

Wisconsin Republicans will hold on to their majorities at the State Capitol by winning two seats in special elections yesterday. Republican John Jagler won the Senate seat that used to belong to Scott Fitzgerald in southeastern Wisconsin. Elijah Behnke won the Assembly seat north of Green Bay that used to belong to John Nygren. Both men were expected to win. The victories mean Republicans will retain majorities in the state legislature.

Most of the races on Tuesday’s ballots were local races for school board, city council, and local judges.

There is no official vote count for Wisconsin yet, but many local clerks say their turnouts were less than 20%.

(The Center Square) – More than 850 criminals have been encountered at the U.S. border with Mexico this year, including 92 sex offenders and 63 gang members, a U.S. Border Patrol agent tweeted this weekend.

Included among “the copious amounts of groups being encountered” at the Rio Grande Valley, Hastings said, are “a Salvadoran man with a prior conviction for murder” along with 862 criminals, Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings tweeted.

Hastings, who is taking to social media to write about the border crisis while the Biden administration has prevented access to the media, has been reporting the types of people who have been apprehended. Among them were five large groups of families, unaccompanied minors, and some adults totaling 539 people, including 93 unaccompanied minors.

Hastings said that so far in 2021, more than 18,000 unaccompanied minors have been encountered by agents at the border. Prior to March 23, over 16,500 of them were in the custody of either Customs and Border Protection or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Biden has received backlash from Texas border Democrats calling on him to reinstate Trump-era policies.

U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Texas, pointing to Border Patrol data, said that among those encountered at the border, 13 percent of unaccompanied minors are under age 12.

“One logical approach to this situation would be to return the older teenagers to their home country and provide funding for an effort supervised by the United Nations to properly care for those teenagers upon their return,” Vela said. “Then, once the pandemic is under control you could phase the program back in so that there would be some semblance of control over the process. I think that this would help relieve the current burden.”

Instead, in response to the surge of illegal immigrants flooding the Texas border, the Biden administration called on federal employees to volunteer for up to 120 days to assist border officials. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued a memo on Thursday to the heads of executive departments and agencies asking them to seek staff to volunteer.

Volunteers are needed in Dallas, San Antonio, and Fort Bliss in El Paso. Volunteers would be responsible for making contact with migrant children and coordinating with Border Protection, the American Red Cross, and FEMA.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, whose congressional district lies along the southern border, shared more photos with CBS News' Face the Nation on Sunday. The photos show unaccompanied minors sitting or laying on the floor with foil blankets in crowded conditions.

“Border Patrol does not want to keep people there longer than 72 hours,” Cuellar told CBS News. “But there’s two issues, two factors coming into play. One, there are so many, there’s a large number of people coming across every single day, groups of over 100 individuals coming into Border Patrol custody, number one. Number two, the flow through, that is through [Health and Human Services], they’re moving and they’re trying to get more shelters open.”

Cuellar said adult illegal immigrants have been “pretty much returned” to Mexico. “Those are being returned, expelled back. Some family units are turned back into Mexico depending on the age of the kids. Thirteen and above are being returned.”

However, Cuellar said that roughly 2,000 people who entered Texas illegally were released into the general population by federal officials under Biden's order without any notices to appear at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement court date in the future.

“They’re supposed to appear, show up, maybe in 60 days, report to an ICE office,” he said. “This is unprecedented.”

(The Center Square) – California’s two U.S. Senators, both Democrats, are calling on President Joe Biden to ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars in the United States.

Sens. Diane Feinstein and Alex Padilla sent a letter to Biden urging him to "follow California's lead and set a date by which all new cars and passenger trucks sold be zero-emission vehicles."

Last September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who now faces a potential recall election, signed an executive order banning the sale of gasoline-powered cars in California by requiring all new cars and trucks being sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035. Currently, electric vehicles account for less than 3 percent of all vehicle sales in the U.S.

"We urge your administration to take advantage of this effort and make real progress in coordination with states, like California, that share your goals to aggressively fight climate change by eliminating harmful pollution from the transportation sector," the senators wrote.

They said they “support aggressive national standards for greenhouse gas emissions, clean transportation technology, and sensible fuel economy for passenger vehicles.”

Feinstein and Padilla asked the Biden administration to require the auto industry to commit to shifting to primarily producing electric vehicles, something some in the industry, like General Motors, has said it “aspires" to do by 2035. Ford has announced its intention to shift its car models in Europe to be solely electric by 2030.

The Environmental Protection Agency said tougher emissions rules "will play an important role in confronting climate change and advancing economic and employment opportunities," and that it was “working with the Department of Transportation, California and other states, the automobile industry, labor, and other stakeholders to consider a range of views on how to set ambitious [emissions] standards."

On Jan. 27, Biden signed an executive order committing the federal government to purchase zero-emission vehicles for the US Postal Service, which is in the process of developing a next generation of delivery vehicles.

In California, one electric auto assembly plant exists, a former GM-Toyota plant in Fremont, California, near San Francisco, which is now being used by Tesla, the world's leading maker of electric cars.

The California senators said "at an absolute minimum" new federal emissions rules should follow California’s lead and agreement with automakers.

However, electric cars are worse for the environment per mile than comparable gasoline-powered cars, according to a report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Among its findings, the researchers concluded, “over ninety percent of local environmental externalities from driving an electric vehicle in one state are exported to others, implying that electric vehicles may be subsidized locally, even though they may lead to negative environmental benefits overall.”

According to the International Energy Agency, there could be 125 million electric cars in use worldwide by 2030, maybe double that if governments require it.

(The Center Square) – There will soon be a lot more questions about the 2020 election at the Wisconsin Capitol.

Legislative Republicans on Tuesday took the first step toward an official investigation into claims of voter fraud or voter malfeasance.

“Over the past year, year and a half, we’ve heard allegations of improprieties. Specifically, state laws not being followed,” Rep. Joe SanFelippo, R-New Berlin, said.

Sanfelippo is the second in command on the Assembly’s elections committee.

Republican lawmakers have been demanding answers since news broke about questions just what outside political activists Green Bay did for the city’s election office.

That report said the activists all but took over.

“I think it’s in everybody’s best interest to be open and forthcoming in how our elections are administered throughout the state,” Sanfelippo added.

Sanfelippo said he hopes that election managers voluntarily appear before his committee, and answer all of the questions they are asked. But he said lawmakers are ready to issue subpoenas if necessary.

“I can’t honestly see why anyone would not want to answer questions or provide documents,” Sanfelippo explained. “This just gives us the necessary tools to move forward.”

Sanfelippo and other Republicans say their goal with their investigation is to restore trust in Wisconsin’s election system.