Democrats have been up to their old tricks, once again playing politics to torpedo border security talks with an outrageous demand aimed at curtailing the effectiveness of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
We know Democrats want to abolish ICE in the end, but over the weekend, we learned their negotiators were pushing for an arbitrary cap of 16,500 on the number of illegal immigrants that ICE would be allowed to detain at one time. In other words, if capacity exceeds that number for any reason, unvetted, unverified, undocumented illegal immigrants would essentially pour free into the United States and border enforcement would be powerless to stop them. Those with violent track records, gang ties, cartel ties would all be free to enter the country illegally and not face any kind of immigration detention.
In the last two years alone, 266,000 arrests of criminal aliens have been carried out, including approximately 100,000 on assault charges, 30,000 for sex crimes charges and 4,000 for murder. Right now, nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants live in the U.S. in defiance of court-ordered removal, including some of those violent felons.
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Suppose we cap ICE detentions at 16,500, and No. 16,501 turns out to be a murderer, a rapist or member of a drug cartel. Are Democrats really saying to let that person walk?
President Trump is calling for more funding, resources and security to tackle the scourges of drugs, gang violence, human trafficking, sex trafficking of the young girls and more, while Democrats fight to defund sensible border security. It’s a life-and-death issue, and your family's safety and security must come first.
We know what is driving Democrats. It is pure politics and their hatred of President Trump. That is more important to them, based on their actions, than your security, your family security, more important than DACA, Dreamers and even furloughed employees that they claim to care so much about.
Just a few short years ago, during Obama's second term, these same Democrats were advocating the same policies President Trump is now pushing. As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put it, in the Democratic Party's radical extremist wing is now running the show.
“This is a poison pill that no administration, not this one, not the previous one, would or should ever accept," McConnell said of the proposed cap on ICE detentions. "Imagine the absurdity of this. The House Democrats want to set a limit on how many criminal aliens our government can detain. This is where some Democrats are. A get-out-of-jail-free card for criminals because the radical left doesn't like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
For months, we have watched as the extreme left has consumed the Democratic Party. Now, their open borders agenda is playing out in real time. But Americans are waking up and waking up very, very quickly to how extreme this new Democratic Socialist party really is.
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Maybe that is why the president's approval rating has reached a two-year high. And why, after the State of the Union, a CBS Evening News poll found that 72 percent of the American people approved of the president's remarks about immigration.
Republicans, especially in the Senate, must take a stand. Do your job, fulfill your promises and stop being so afraid. If you cannot do that, then it's probably time for you to retire and let somebody who is willing to fight take your place.
If Democrats continue to stonewall, play politics with our national security and with drugs coming into the country, the president will have no choice but to declare a national emergency. As commander-in-chief, the president has a lot of perfectly legal options for building the wall, including statutory authority to complete the “construction of roads, and fences, and installation of lighting” to stop drug smuggling corridors across the international boundaries of the United States.
Congress has two options: Agree on a compromise that doesn't weaken border security, or do nothing. Either way, the wall is going to be funded and it’s going to be built by a president who is unrelenting, tenacious and who will do everything in his power to keep his promise, even if it means declaring a national emergency.
Adapted from Sean Hannity's monologue on "Hannity," Feb. 11, 2019
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