Without principled leadership from congressional leaders, it may not have a snowball’s chance in a Tegucigalpa summer. But legislation to fund and build a wall on America’s southern border makes more sense than ever.
So now comes the “Fund and Complete the Border Wall Act” that:
- Creates a border security trust fund from revenue streams it generates.
- Incentivizes foreign governments to cooperate with U.S. border security efforts by requiring the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to yearly tally illegal apprehensions on the southern border by nationality. This figure would be used to deduct by $2,000 per alien the amount of foreign aid provided to the countries of those border-crossers.
- Assesses a 5 percent fee on all outbound international remittances. This will generate significant revenue. In 2016, the latest year for which figures are available, some $138 billion was sent out of the United States. More than $28 billion went to Mexico alone. That’s a $6.9 billion a year revenue stream for DHS.
- Raises the fee for obtaining alien admission form I-94 from the outdated and wholly inadequate amount of $6 to $25.
- Removes exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act for Border Patrol agents, restoring the overtime pay they received prior to the Border Patrol Pay Reform Act.
In addition to wall funding, H.R. 6657’s “Secure the Southern Border Fund” would help pay for the 5,000 new Border Patrol officers President Donald Trump has requested, as well as covering the cost of 10,000 new interior Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
If anything, ICE may be shortchanged in the bill, since the agency provides detention services for all detained border-crossers and its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division handles detention support. Given that ICE rounds up visa overstays and others who enter the country by ways other than the border, ICE deserves a share of the funding stream earmarked for Border Patrol vehicles and equipment.
Though President Trump was elected two years ago on his pledge to build a border wall – and a restive public is anxious to see action on that promise — the sensible and straightforward legislation by U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., faces plenty of political barriers. The Republican-led Congress has, so far, offered only $5 billion toward the wall. If the GOP loses the House in the midterm election, H.R. 6657 dies in the mud.
Biggs’s bill dovetails with Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s call for $25 billion to build the wall (H.R. 7059). Even so, the House majority leader (and presumptive House speaker if the GOP holds the chamber) will encounter tough sledding in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to overcome filibustering Democrats.
And so there it is: Caravans of Central American migrants are getting across borders more easily than border-enforcing bills can get down Pennsylvania Avenue. Welcome to America.
10 Comments
I think for everyone that thinks we should let them all in, they should go to the border and pick out which ones to let in. Then they can sign a contract to support however many they want to save for the rest of their lives. They can live in their homes and take responsibility for all the costs that we the taxpayers are now paying for all of them. They come here, break out laws and then have the gall to protest our treatment of them. We all need to lay this issue at the feet of all of our congressional leaders. These issues should have been dealt with long ago. It is not just Democrats or Republicans, it’s both. I have said for a long time to make these countries these illegals are coming from pay the price in aid that we give them and they may find a way to stop some of this bs. They are not assimilating in this country. They want us to change and let them make a mess out of our country. I’d suggest some of these bleeding hearts take their butts down on the border and stay a couple of months. You would not even believe you were in the United States. They come across the border and have their babies in our emergency rooms and guess what they have their meal ticket and we will pay for the rest of our lives for their care. We also will have to pay for the cost of delivering that baby. They won’t pay, so our medical costs go up. The American people and the legal immigrants in this country better wake up before we no longer have a country. Let them go home and protest their treatment there. What do you think would happen to us if we entered these countries illegally? I don’t think they would put us up in a home, buy our food, educate our children. We would be locked up and it would cost us a pretty penny to get us out of there or we would never be heard from again. All you hear is about going to the U.S. where you can get free stuff. It is only free for them, we have to pay every dime of that cost. We are so far in debt in this country I don’t know how anyone can think that we can afford to let this go on. I for one have paid enough in taxes and I don’t want to pay any more for people who should not be here in the first place. Let them go to their families for help. Let them change the laws in their country. They are supposedly so broke that they have no choice but to come here no matter what. Well how are they getting cell phones, how are they getting the money for the coyotes? They are getting money from somewhere. Just no money to pay their bills. And I don’t want to hear anymore about separating families. Do you know how many Americans are sitting in jails in this country that also have wives and children.? Nobody is giving them any sympathy or letting them out because we don’t want to break up families. Either we enforce our laws and take back our country now or we are going to cease to exist. I for one have had it up to my eyeballs about this mess. It makes me physically ill to see what is going on. End it now.
China doesn’t have to start a war with the US to take over Taiwan, etc. They just have to keep building their economy and military up and sit back and let us destroy and bankrupt ourselves from within before they make any big moves with their military in Asia.
Yep. Consider that our population experts say that in a few more years continuing on this path, we will have 100+ million Mex8csn citizens in our country and they will be the majority people in the US (already 50+ million, the largest miniority). Then consider that all the millions of brown peopke from other countries would certainly stand with the Mexicans, our country would then belong to them, no longer belonging to Americans. For all intents and purposes, at that time, Mexico would gave control over our government and could so easily take over our country, especially if someone like China was also part of the take over. Scary isn’t it? And to think, it all could have been prevented if our congresses for past decades had just done theur jobs of protecting our country and we citizens instead of refusing to do so.
The Invasion Army is Slowing Its Progress
Estimates I heard were about a month before the invasion marchers sore feet can get the next 1000 miles to America….they timed it wrong [Soros and his minions?]. After the mid-term results IOWs, plenty of time for Trump to mobilize a strong response and close the border with no political rhetoric used by the Open Border Party against laws currently on the books for immigration enforcement.
Rich Mexico takes Trump more seriously too [but what good?] and don’t want to get blamed for this tactical error….its a crisis in Mexico right now. IMO the United Nations is a complete joke for help to stop it.
Even CBS and the Washington Post are now acknowledging that most of these people are economic refugees. There is a writer for Associated Press named Mark Stevenson who repeatedly puts out the talking points that most of the people coming are removing their children from gang violence. First of all, most are not coming with families. The big majority are men and some women who are by themselves, which happened to be the case in Europe when the media insisted on showing families when it was overwhelmingly single young men. They say that they are coming “for work” so they can send money back to their families. That begs the question if it’s so violent back home why did you leave your family there. The answer is almost all are for economic reasons.
That was the case several months ago with the 2 year old and her mother who the media went on for a week about them being separated, when that was something made up by the reporter on the scene. When the real story came out, which was the father saying that the mother left solely to get a good paying job and the two were never separated and their other kids were at home, the media dropped it without addressing their days on end propaganda. Just like it’s all Trump’s faults about these packages when the media ignored months of Democrats and liberals urging harassment and even violence against Republicans.
The refugee children are the ones who perpetuate gang violence. I live in Escondido, CA, the gang capital of the world, and the members are not Irish. In addition, they live in garbage dumps in L.A. just like they do in Latin America and then our lawmakers are shocked to see it happen here. The key to keeping our own country nice and safe is keeping these freeloaders out.
I honestly don’t give a crap if they are fleeing gang violence or not. The gangs are the problems of these countries. Let’s beef up their security forces, and kill all the gang bangers.
But gangs, a job, violence, corruption, poverty, internal fighting, etc, are NOT acceptable reasons for breaking into a foreign nation nor for granting asylum. Every country has gangs and a certain amount of violence, corruption and poverty. But because their lives at home are not great does not give them the right to force themselves onto a better managed nation and demand to be taken care of for free forever at the expense of others.
I didn’t say they were acceptable reasons. I was simply pointing out that they are coming for economic reasons. The media likes to pretend that is not the reason.
Yeah, let’s get a tally of apprehended illegal aliens by nationality. My bet is that if they made BORDER JUMPING an Olympic sport, Mexico would be a lock for Gold, Silver, AND Bronze!