Is Mexico doing more than Congress to help with the crisis at the border?
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd says Mexico understands that it has to do something in order to avoid crippling tariffs.
Breaking the law must have consequences.
Aside from legal matters, this statement holds true for nearly anything in life. As a parent, if my children know a rule isn’t backed up by a consequence, they will most likely ignore the rule. As a student, if an assignment due date wasn’t enforced, I very rarely turned the assignment in on time. At work, if a policy isn’t enforced, the policy may be routinely ignored. And on and on it goes in nearly every aspect of life.
Back to the rule of law.
TRUMP: DEMS COULD HELP SOLVE BORDER CRISIS IN '15 MINUTES TO AN HOUR' WITH ONE WH MEETING
Having worked in law enforcement for the past 22 years, I have firsthand experience observing that laws are ignored when there are no consequences. If a speed limit sign is placed on a road and nobody enforces the limit, drivers are very likely to ignore it.
We are the most generous nation in the history of the world and we take in more legal immigrants by far than any other nation. It’s past time we start implementing some law and order with our immigration system.
Illegal immigration and drug smuggling are no different. Consider these examples.
- In the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector during the early 2000s, the United States Attorney's office implemented a "threshold" on the prosecution of marijuana smugglers. If smugglers weren't carrying at least 500 pounds of marijuana, they wouldn't be prosecuted. That ill-informed decision quickly became common knowledge and the Border Patrol started seeing almost all smuggling loads just below 500 pounds. Oftentimes the loads would be exactly 499 pounds. The smugglers would simply walk out the door to do it all over again.
- Illegal immigrant-smuggling "thresholds" were also an issue during this time. If a smuggler wasn't transporting at least seven illegal immigrants, he wouldn't be prosecuted. As with the drug loads, shortly after the time that disastrous decision was made, we began to see smuggling vehicles with six people in them — over and over and over again.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He stated that 90 percent of illegal border crossers who claim asylum do not show up for their court hearings. Because they don’t show up in court they are ordered deported "in absentia." Even after their appeals have been exhausted, these individuals are very rarely removed from the country. Instead, they continue to ignore our laws and "disappear into the shadows of society" by the millions while often being held up as heroes and victims by many politicians, media outlets and activists.
President Trump's recent announcement simply states that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will find the people who are breaking our laws and remove them pursuant to a judge’s order. There has never been any political will to follow through and actually deport these people before, unless they commit "serious" crimes while they are here illegally.
Even then, activist judges often do everything they can to shield them from deportation. This lack of political will has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. Even worse, it has even cost many Americans their lives when they become the victim of a “serious” crime committed by an illegal immigrant.
Illegal immigrants and their families hiding from the law have to be housed, fed, clothed and educated — all services that are being stolen from Americans who also need them. For example, we have a tremendous homeless problem in the United States. Many of these homeless people are veterans. We have overcrowded classrooms in our schools. Many of our jails are beyond capacity. Our resources need to be directed to helping Americans, not to lawbreakers from other countries who crash our border.
President Trump continues to demonstrate why the American people elected him. He is not your average "politician." He is not afraid to buck the open border establishment elites who have gotten their way for decades.
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Americans need someone to champion our causes, to look out for our best interests and to secure this country for us, our children and future generations. We simply cannot afford to continue allowing border crashers in by the millions.
We are the most generous nation in the history of the world and we take in more legal immigrants by far than any other nation. It’s past time we start implementing some law and order with our immigration system. Yes, this includes enforcing the consequences of lawlessness and deporting people who are not supposed to be here.
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