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As expected, America’s left-leaning politicians and their media mouthpieces have erupted in outrage over former U.S. president Donald Trump‘s plan to launch what one media outlet referred to as an “assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history.”
Of course, that particular outlet left out one key word: Illegal.
As in the flood of illegal immigration that has created a border crisis unprecedented in our nation’s history.
According to The New York Times, if elected in 2024 Trump is “planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration” including plans “to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.”
Trump is also planning to “sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration,” according to the Times.
All of this, of course, in addition to resuming work on the border wall which was paused by his successor …
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According to the campaign of U.S. president Joe Biden – which actually reversed course and began building sections of the wall earlier this year – Trump’s envisioned policies are “extreme, racist (and) cruel” and are “meant to stoke fear and divide us, betting a scared and divided nation is how he wins this election.”
“This is the horrifying reality that awaits the American people if Donald Trump is allowed anywhere near the Oval Office again,” Biden’s campaign added.
Meanwhile, here’s how the über leftists at Daily Kos put it …
If Americans choose to reelect Donald Trump next year, they will be voting for what can fairly be described as a police state, the likes of which has seldom been contemplated in this country, and of a scale probably unimaginable to anyone who currently lives here. It will be a place quite literally redolent of Germany in the 1930s, in which millions of people considered “undesirable” are routinely rounded up and placed in camps by a government weaponized to serve a racist, authoritarian regime.
Wow …
Again, never mind that “illegal” word. I get that the left loves to fabricate definitions on hot button issues, but we are not talking about a segment of our citizenry being targeted for extinction – we are talking about sending home millions of people who have entered America illegally. This is not some religious or racially based purge of people who have every right to be here, it is a proposal to enforce the law of the land by deporting people who definitionally have no right to be here.
Moreover, aren’t all of these shrill, hyperbolic voices aware that Trump – for all his campaign bluster – didn’t exactly follow through on his border promises the last go-round?
Moreover, assuming Trump were to summon the political fortitude necessary to follow through on these proposals in a second term, isn’t it safe to say such a response is exactly what the current situation requires?
The border is in a state of abject crisis – as this news outlet has documented extensively. And as one of my favorite far leftists likes to say, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” Right?
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“Trump is formulating his plans at a time when we’re experiencing a crisis at the border and witnessing an unprecedented surge of illegal immigrants into the country because the Biden administration refuses to enforce the law,” noted Rich Lowery for National Review. “The scale and urgency of Trump’s plans are appropriate to the moment.”
Referring to Trump’s proposals as a “necessary corrective,” Lowry said they would, if enacted, “constitute a resumption of what should be considered the norm in immigration policy after years of Biden’s malign neglect.”
He’s absolutely right … and the men and women currently defending the border are begging for a return to those policies. I know, because I’ve met them.
“If there’s no consequence in terms of an enforcement posture, they keep coming,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent Job Figueroa said earlier this year during a briefing attended by this media outlet at the agency’s Yuma Sector headquarters.
And if you couldn’t read between the lines on that last quote, Figueroa’s next one left nothing to the imagination.
“We’ve had operational control of our borders in the past,” he said.
(Click to View)
According to the latest CBP data, the number of “southwest land encounters” surged to a record high of 269,735 during the month of September. Since February 2021 – Biden’s first full month as president – CBP has recorded a staggering 6.29 million border encounters (including a record 2.48 million encounters during the 2022 fiscal year).
Encounters under Biden have averaged 196,652 per month, according to the latest data. By contrast, there were a total of 458,088 encounters during Trump’s final fiscal year in office – an average of 38,174 per month.
For those of you keeping score at home, that is a staggering 415 percent increase in monthly “encounters.”
Take a look …
(Click to View)
And again, these recorded encounters do not include the millions of “got-aways” – or illegal immigrants whose crossings are observed but who are never detained. The official number also fails to include the number of undetected illegal alien crossings at the border.
Not surprisingly, the price tag associated with this influx is escalating unsustainably. According to a report (.pdf) published just this week by the U.S. House’s homeland security committee, the annual cost of housing and providing for “known got-aways and illegal aliens who have been released into the country (since Biden became president)” is a staggering $451 billion. Per year.
Can a nation drowning in $33.7 trillion of red ink really keep subsidizing such an expensive open borders policy?
Clearly not. But I’ve been saying this for years.
Will Trump fix the problem if he gets another term in office?
In campaigning for president in 2016, Trump promised his border wall would be 1,000 miles long – and would be paid for by Mexico. As his first term wound down, though, Trump cut that estimate in half – claiming in his 2020 State of the Union address that “substantially more than 500 miles” of the wall would be constructed by the beginning of 2021.
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RELATED | WHAT HAPPENED TO TRUMP’S WALL?
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Upon his turbulent departure from the White House in January of 2021, 453 miles worth of border wall was constructed during the Trump administration. Of that total, only 80 miles of wall was constructed in areas where no previous structures existed. Oh, and American taxpayers shelled out an estimated $15 billion on the wall – money routed from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Treasury.
Meaning Mexico didn’t pay for it …
Do I believe Trump would do better if given another chance? I don’t know. But I do know whoever takes the oath of office in January 2025 must finish a border wall, dramatically de-incentivize illegal immigration and deport illegal aliens en masse. There is simply no other option if we hope to maintain the integrity or solvency of the American Republic.
Just as importantly, the next president must end the Biden administration’s ludicrous war on legal immigration – both with respect to the migrant workers currently feeding our families as well as the skilled workers currently feeding our technological advancement as a society.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
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13 comments
Have you not figured out yet that Trump is a con man and liar who has never followed through with any of his policies, except for the $2 trillion tax cut for the über rich?
If he gets elected he’ll need the wall to keep Americans in.
Good point, Nanker! I almost forgot that “big tax cut” he gave us. The one that nobody I know realized much if any benefit from. But then, I don’t personally know any billionaires.
I thought he figured it out when the Trump campaign checks stopped coming.
Trump was a failure and a fraud. He says one thing, then does the other, often the opposite. I voted for him in 2016. He was one disappointment after another for four years. He promised to make the wall a priority. His first budget signing in late 2017, he signed a budget with no provision for his priority wall. When called out on this he called it “an oversight” and said it would not happen again. One year later, Trump was once again, about to sign a budget with no provision for a wall in it. Pundit Ann Coulter called Trump out on this. He became angry with her, because she was right. He sputtered and pretended to try and find funding. Remember, at that time the Republicans controlled BOTH houses of Congress. Trump refused to sign the budget and the longest GovCo shutdown in history followed. Just as the RINOs and Democrats seemed ready to work with him, Trump folded like a piece of cheap lawn furniture and signed the budget bill, again with no provision for a wall. He diddlefarted around for weeks and months, ostensibly searching for funding for a wall. By the time he had procured funding for this “priority” wall he made so much political hay with in 2016, his term was over halfway through when construction began in earnest. This ensured not only that the wall was just a fraction of what was promised on the campaign trail, but that Joe Biden got to decide whether or not it was completed.
I recall the massive “caravans” making their way through Mexico towards our southern border. Trump sent unarmed military to the border, not to stop them, but to “observe” them as they came across. Instead of tear gas, active denial electronic crowd control, or even lethal force; Trump had military “observing” as these invaders came in, as well as processing, medically treating, and arranging transport for them throughout our country as they awaited deportation hearings that most would never show up for. The invaders could use their deportation hearing papers to board airliners and fly around the USA, while us citizens needed a “REAL ID” driver’s license, passport, or other heavy duty documentation that we are really citizens.
Trump never wanted a wall, probably because his handlers, working for the same people as Biden, did not want a wall either.
Still, the Trumptards and Trumpanzees will make endless excuses for his every betrayal.
Those of you morons who bought a Trumpy Bear could expect the stuffed toy to come to life and build a wall, by itself, with its own plush hands, before Trump ever will.
Trump is a neo-Nazi. He doesn’t even try to hide it anymore. If elected there will be concentration camps for Hispanics and Muslims. There will be routine stops and requests for papers for dark people in general. Trump has promised to fill the Justice Department and FBI with loyalists who will go after all of his political enemies and former supporters who were not sufficiently loyal to him. He plans to jail or kill anyone who has stood up to him or stood in his way. He will never voluntarily leave the White House again. If people protest his actions, he plans to suspend the Constitution and invoke the Insurrection Act to put down those who protest by using the US Military against our own people.
He will abandon Ukraine and let Russia have that country. He will pull us out of NATO and tell the Russians they are free to attack the Baltic States, Poland, and everyone in Eastern Europe. In the end, he and a power-mad Republican Party will turn this country into an isolationist Nazi Germany or fascist Italy.
This is not an exaggeration. This is what Trump says he is going to do. In the end, all will suffer. Conservatives will fair no better than anyone else. Trump will destroy the market-based economy as he turns America into a Russian-style Kleptocracy, where he and his Oligarch buddies steal everything not nailed down and some that is. Crony capitalism will run amock as anyone who wants to do business with the US government and probably red state governments will have to figure out a way to cut in Trump or Trump-affiliated Oligarchs.
While many Trump cult members will believe they are protected from what they see all around them, and that they will benefit from the hate, anger, and carnage; in the end they will realize all too late that they are just as much a victim as those they hoped would be the victims. They and their children will have the same dark, oppressed future as the Russian people do today.
Don’t let this happen to us people. Stand up to this nonsense. Poor Hispanics seeking a better future are not going to destroy our country, any more than the poor Irish immigrants, the Italian immigrants, and the poor German immigrants (like Trump’s family) who came before them. Our economy is doing great. We have near-record low unemployment, near-record high GDP, and near-record corporate profits. The stock market is up and jobs are plentiful and manufacturing is returning to America. Oil production is even up.
Congress can make things at the border much better by passing comprehensive immigration reform. We will need labor from Mexico over the coming decades. It will give us a competitive advantage over China. If we concentrate on making Mexico a less corrupt better place to live and do business, their people will prosper along with ours. The only way to disincentivize coming to America is to incentivize not coming to America.
Oh and for a so-called “Christian Nation” the policies Will and Trump espouse are decidedly non-Christian. In fact, they are a direct challenge to specific instructions given to Christians to welcome strangers, feed the poor, and minister to the sick. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t hold Trump’s beliefs and be a Christian. It’s not possible.
Gotta love these silly MAGA blogs.
Using very fiber of their being to pretend that their mango man-crush isn’t completely senile and headed to prison. Where we the people have built walls to keep life long criminals, like Trump, away from civil society.
What was that MAGA chant? “Lock who up, again?”
#winning
President Trump accomplished half of what he promised regarding the border wall, which is no small feat considering the opposition & persecution he endured from the Dems & establishment GOP. It took Biden a day to begin to undo all of the good Trump had done at the border-intentionally. If anyone CAN get this done, it is him. He is our only hope at the border. No one else on either side has the will or intestinal fortitude. In the past 3 years droves of ILLEGAL immigrants from many countries (most of which hate America) have crossed a largely unprotected border. It is sad & disgusting. Not only are bad people crossing, but they are bringing drugs, violent gangs & terrorism with them. It is pure evil what the Biden administration has allowed to happen at the border.
“It took Biden a day to begin to undo all of the good Trump had done at the border-intentionally.”
And there lies the problem with so much of what Trump “did”. Toilet paper promises and deeds, designed intentionally to melt away in the first rain (Biden) to come along after Trump left office. Trump is a Deep State Trojan Horse, controlled opposition at best. He works for the same people as Biden, the Clintons, Obama, the Bushes, etc.
The vast majority of people crossing the border are fleeing poverty and oppression, and they definitely do not hate America. You are listening to right-wing garbage. You don’t take your minor children and walk 2000 miles to come to a country you hate. Get a grip on reality. Yes, we need comprehensive immigration reform. So Congress should do it. But stop demonizing people as being the haters, when you are the hater. Trump did no good for anyone. He is the worst thing that has happened to this Country since the Great Depression and if elected again, he will do even more damage than he has already done; and all for his benefit and the benefit of his family. If there was ever a crime family the Trumps are it.
It’s fun to hear from people with Trump derangement syndrome here. I don’t think many politicians do what they promise and J Monday is correct, that he faced an uphill battle. Democrats had control of the house and/or senate. Next year, while casting your ballot, ask yourself if you were better off while Biden has been in office or when Trump was in office. For me, I could afford more groceries than I can now. We were not involved in two wars either. Don’t be stupid and vote for Biden just so you don’t vote for Trump….just DON’T vote!
FYI Katie, the House, Senate, and White House, were Republican during Trump’s first two years, yet he accomplished nothing lasting or of substance, except perhaps a useless bumpstock ban. It is hilarious how “conservatives” credit Trump with so much because of what he promised or said (but never accomplished) and the liberals hate him for the same reasons. If the liberals looked at much of what he actually did and did not do, rather than his words, they would love him like the best friend he was to them.
I can say I am definitely better off under Biden than under Trump. The stock market is up. GDP is Up, Wages are up, and unemployment is way down. Inflation is up, but lowest among first world countries and falling. Manufacturing is returning to the United States at a record pace, and we are more united with our democratic allies than we have been in decades.
Biden can’t control Russia or Hamas (or as your guy would say Humus) but I totally approve of the way he is handling the situation. In Ukraine, we are helping a pro-American democracy defend itself against an evil empire bent on taking over half of Europe. In Israel, we have sent warships, to make sure the Iranians don’t do anything. It costs us less than 5% of our defense budget to help the Ukranians and they are decimating the Russian army and making us all safer, from a brutal dictator.
I don’t have Trump derangement syndrome. I simply listen to what the man says, out loud. You can believe his words or not. I choose to. He has said he will weaponize the Justice Department and the FBI to go after his political enemies and former associates who were not loyal. He has said he will pull us out of NATO. He will never stand up to Putin or Xi, he likes them. He has called half of America vermin and vowed to root them out. He has said he will set up concentration camps and round up Hispanics suspected of being illegal. He has said he will ban Muslims from entering the US and he has said he will suspend the Constitution and engage the Insurrection Act to deal with people protesting his policies. The man is a dictator. He is closer to Hitler than any person who has ever occupied the office of the Presidency, and he does not care about anything except his money and his power. He even called our war-dead losers and suckers.
I am sorry you can’t see beyond how much bread costs at the grocery store this week. I am sorry that you don’t give a crap about the country or whether your children and grandchildren will live under a dictator. But I have to hope most Americans care about things that are important and lasting and not temporary inconveniences. Please America, don’t allow a cult leader to destroy everything we spent four centuries building.