US Politics Thread 2021-24

[Rockstar]

Democrats fomenting hate scoffed at the idea of a border wall. They don’t work they proclaimed. My only thought why that might be, is because they are all professional grave diggers and business is boomin’!

‘It’s Like a Graveyard’: Record Numbers of Migrants Are Dying at the U.S. Border
More men, women and children are trying to navigate dangerous waters and isolated terrain to evade authorities

By Santiago PérezFollow
and Alicia A. CaldwellFollow
| Photographs by Paul Ratje for The Wall Street Journal
March 17, 2023 at 10:45 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/illegal...eaths-c35cf892

EAGLE PASS, Texas—Local officials keep a refrigerated truck to hold the bodies of migrants who drown in the currents of the Rio Grande while trying to cross the border into the U.S.

Across the river, families having picnics or walking along the waterfront promenade of Piedras Negras, Mexico, say they sometimes see bodies floating by or bobbing among the reeds under a bridge. “We had times when we received four or five bodies a week,” said Hugo González, owner of Funerarias González in Piedras Negras. “At one point, there were a lot of corpses and there was nowhere to put them. We just didn’t have enough refrigerators at the funeral home.”

A spike in deaths along the most dangerous stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border reflects the escalating number of migrants seeking to cross into the U.S. from troubled home countries. At the same time, U.S. immigration policies are allowing fewer of them legal entry. Many migrants have turned to human smugglers and WhatsApp messages to help them navigate more lightly patrolled—and treacherous—sections of the border to enter illegally, U.S. officials said.

The bodies of more than 890 migrants, a record number, were recovered by U.S. authorities along the border in the 2022 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the Biden administration, a 58% increase over 2021. They drowned in fast-moving sections of the Rio Grande or, after successfully crossing, died falling from cliffs along mountain passes or from dehydration while lost, said U.S. border agents and police who recover the bodies. Hundreds more were reported missing. In July, 53 migrants were found dead inside the back of a sweltering tractor trailer found parked in San Antonio. U.S. and Mexican authorities estimate that dozens also died last year on the Mexico side of the border or were lost at sea.

U.S. Border Patrol agents made a record 2.2 million arrests along the 1,958-mile border in the 2022 fiscal year, up from 1.65 million arrests in 2021. In the 245-mile section of the border that federal authorities identify as the Del Rio Sector in Texas, which includes Eagle Pass, there were 481,000 apprehensions in fiscal 2022, an 85% increase over the previous year. Many of the arrests were in Eagle Pass’s Maverick County, population 58,000.

The Del Rio Sector is one of the most perilous places to cross the Rio Grande. Currents below the surface are strong enough to sweep away logs, cattle and people. Even experienced rescuers face risks in this stretch of the river, which claimed the lives of as many as 250 migrants last year, U.S. and Mexican officials said.

First responders in Eagle Pass have reported finding as many as 30 bodies a month in the river since March 2022, according to a federal government filing. “It’s like a graveyard,” said Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber, who grew up in the area. “I’ve been working on the border for almost four decades and never saw tragedies of this magnitude.”

There also was a surge in the number of dead and missing migrants who tried to cross the Caribbean to the U.S. from Haiti and Cuba, according to the United Nations migration agency, which tallied 256 deaths at sea last year. The U.S. Coast Guard recovered the bodies of 65 migrants in the Caribbean and off the coast of Florida in the 2022 fiscal year, compared with five in 2021. On the West Coast, the bodies of eight people were found in the sea and along the shore of San Diego last weekend, after a pair of open fishing boats suspected of smuggling migrants to the U.S. capsized. A Spanish speaking woman who called 911 from one of the boats said the vessel carried 15 people. No survivors were found.

Border agents, human rights advocates and local officials say riskier crossings were driven in part by Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed border patrol agents to quickly expel migrants. Previously, migrants who were apprehended were more likely to be released in the U.S. to await a court hearing on their request for asylum.


The Biden administration in January added more countries to the Title 42 restrictions and, in a separate measure, announced that migrants caught trying to cross the border illegally would soon be barred from requesting asylum in the U.S. if they didn’t ask for asylum in countries they crossed en route. The administration said it expected an increase in illegal immigration when Title 42 ends in May with expiration of the national emergency for Covid-19. The government said the new rule for asylum seekers is aimed at deterring migrants from using smugglers and taking more risky routes.

“These actions alone that I’m going to announce today aren’t going to fix our entire immigration system, but they can help us a good deal in better managing what is a difficult challenge,” President Biden said when unveiling the changes.

Human-rights groups are skeptical the policies will help. “Putting obstacles in the way of migration doesn’t stop it, but it does make it more dangerous,” said Dana Graber, who leads the Mexico unit of the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.

Republican lawmakers have said Mr. Biden has failed to properly enforce immigration laws, and many have pushed for more detentions and faster deportations.

Panama this week reported that more than 49,000 migrants from Haiti, Ecuador and China crossed into their country in January and February, compared with around 9,000 during the same period last year. Most said they were headed to the U.S., according to local officials.

Fatal crossing

Irma Huete, her 3-year-old daughter Sofía Caballero and Ms. Huete’s brother Nolvin Huete left Nicaragua on May 10, a month before Sofia’s fourth birthday. The girl’s father had reached the U.S. a few months earlier and was working at an auto body shop in Wisconsin. Once across the border, migrants often take a bus or a flight to meet relatives or acquaintances, largely in communities where low-skill jobs are available.

After traveling 2,000 miles through Central America and Mexico, Ms. Huete and her family stood in the dark with a group of migrants on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande, across from Eagle Pass. She sent a hopeful message to her mother-in-law in Nicaragua: They were only a few yards away from the U.S.

Migrants who had earlier made it across shared the riverbank location via WhatsApp with others heading north to the border, local officials and U.S. Border Patrol agents said.

Smugglers had promised a raft to Ms. Huete’s group for crossing the Rio Grande, but there was none when they arrived. Instead, the smugglers assembled a group of about 100 migrants, most of them from Central America, and formed a human chain to wade across a shallower stretch of the river, based on accounts survivors gave Mexican state authorities and Fundación para la Justicia, a Mexico-based human rights group.

Mr. Huete put Sofía on his shoulders, and Ms. Huete followed him into the waters, according to state authorities in Mexico. About 35 feet from the U.S. side, Mr. Huete lost his footing and passed Sofía to Ms. Huete before the current swept him away. The river carried him about 350 feet, and he was able to cross into the U.S., migrants who were with him told Fundación para la Justicia.

Ms. Huete and her daughter also were caught in the current and swept away. Ms. Huete’s body was found at dawn, on the Mexico side of the bank, officials said. Sofía remains missing.

“We’ve seen a sharp increase in the number of migrants who lost their lives in this area,” said Víctor Rodríguez, the chief prosecutor for the northern region in Mexico’s Coahuila state where Piedras Negras is located.

In April, a Texas National Guard soldier drowned trying to help rescue migrants across the river. Last month, Mexican officials sighted an Ecuadorean woman on an embankment under the bridge from Piedras Negras to Eagle Pass. She had her 5-year-old son in her lap. The child’s father, who had tried to cross with them, was taken by the current.

There also have been dozens of migrant deaths upriver in the Big Bend Sector of southwest Texas. It is another favored destination because it is isolated and more lightly patrolled than other crossing points. A walk from the border to the nearest U.S. town takes days, passing across craggy mountains and deep canyons. Summer temperatures reach 100 degrees with little shade.

Sean McGoffin, who leads the U.S. Border Patrol’s Big Bend Sector said his agents in recent years have been rescuing more migrants in remote, hard-to-reach areas and finding more bodies. “One death is too many,” he said.

Farther west, in Tucson, Ariz., Border Patrol agents logged thousands of rescue calls in the past year from lost or exhausted migrants, including those with life-threatening injuries. Migrants often underestimate the challenge and are ill-prepared for long routes on foot, U.S. and Mexican officials say.

Sheriff Schmerber, of Maverick County, said the work of recovering bodies and trying to identify and repatriate the dead takes time away from law enforcement duties of his 22 officers. “We don’t have enough staff,” he said.

Mass grave

Mr. Gónzalez, owner of the funeral home across the river in Mexico, said about half of the migrants found dead weren’t carrying identification. “Some of them have a phone number hidden on their belt or shoe,” he said. Using the number, he calls to break the news and offer embalming and repatriation.

Mr. González built six mausoleum drawers to temporarily keep as many as 12 bodies at a time, including the unidentified and those unclaimed by relatives. The bodies are later buried in a mass grave at one of Piedras Negras’ municipal graveyards.

The number of migrant deaths reported in the Piedras Negras area doubled last year to nearly 70, and more than 16 people trying to enter the U.S. have been reported missing, according to Familias Unidas, a civic group that searches for missing people.

In mid-January, members of Mexico’s National Guard alerted the rescuers about screams coming from one of the small islets of the Rio Grande between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass. The Beta team, the Mexican immigration agency’s rescue unit, found three Salvadoran sisters, ages 6, 9 and less than 2 years. Mexican officials suspect the girls were abandoned by migrant smugglers.

Local residents and officials are especially taken by the case of Ms. Huete and her missing daughter, Sofía. The Search Commission of Coahuila state issued an alert with a photo of Sofía, smiling and her hair in two ponytails. Flyers with Sofía’s photo were put up on lampposts and walls around town in the months after she disappeared in the Rio Grande.

Ms. Huete’s mother-in-law, Elia Centeno, said she used to care for Sofia while her parents were working. The purpose of Ms. Huete’s trip to the U.S. was to reunite Sofia with her father.

“If I could, I would give my life to find Sofía,” said Ms. Centeno in a phone call from Nicaragua. “There isn’t a second that I don’t think about her.”

[Rockstar]

Border Patrol chief says DHS doesn't have operational control of US border
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last year that the Biden administration had operational control of the US border

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bor...-us-border.amp

The head of the U.S. Border Patrol on Wednesday told lawmakers the agency does not have operational control of the U.S. southern border -- as he also said that migration levels were at "crisis" levels in parts of the border.

Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz was speaking at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in McAllen, Texas and was asked about Chairman Mark Green about Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ prior claims last year that the Department of Homeland Security has operational control of the border.

"Does DHS have operational control of our entire border."

"No sir," Ortiz responded.

Green held up a definition of operational control in the U.S. code as "the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics and other contraband."

He then played video of Mayorkas telling Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, last year that DHS does have operational control of the border, and asked Ortiz if he thought Mayorkas was lying.

"About ten years ago, we used operational control as a measuring stick of our effectiveness along the southwest border. My new strategy is geared towards mission advantage," Ortiz responded.

Green then again referred back to Mayorkas’ remarks.

"You heard the secretary, he said we have operational control," he said, before pointing to the definition. "That’s the definition."

Ortiz responded: "Based upon the definition you have sir, up there, no."

"We don’t have operational control?" Green asked.

"No sir," Ortiz said.

In his opening statement, Ortiz had praised the Border Patrol agents working underneath him, saying that putting on the uniform "fills me with tremendous pride and it will remain my greatest honor."

He then explained the challenges facing agents and even used the word "crisis" -- a phrase the administration has often rejected when describing the situation at the border – when describing the enormous amounts of migrants that the border has encountered in recent years.

"The migration flow represents challenges and in some areas, a crisis situation," he said.

The hearing is being held "to examine the direct link between President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas’ reckless border policies and the unprecedented crisis at our Southwest border" and is one of a number of hearings and visits being held at the border itself after Republicans have promised to hold in-person border hearings.

Democrats had chosen not to attend the hearing, while the White House accused Republicans of playing "partisan games" with the hearing.

Meanwhile, DHS said that the hearing "highlights the vital work the Department of Homeland Security does every day to enforce our laws, secure our border, and combat cartels and smugglers" and pointed to testimony from Ortiz and other witnesses that showed " new programs, technology, and investments are making a real impact."

"Despite inheriting a dismantled immigration system and facing unprecedented migration that is affecting nations throughout the Western Hemisphere, this Administration has surged resources to the border, reducing the number of encounters between ports of entry, disrupting more smuggling operations than ever before, and interdicting more drugs in the last two years than had been stopped in the five years prior," a spokesperson said.

"The Department welcomes input from Congress, and looks forward to working with Members on legislative solutions for our broken immigration system, which Congress has not reformed for more than forty years," they said.

Republicans have placed blame on the administration for reversing Trump-era policies and narrowing interior enforcement while expanding "catch-and-release." The administration has blamed Republicans for failing to approve adequate funding and for failing to pass solutions in Congress including a day one immigration reform bill that was rejected by Republicans due to its inclusion of a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

Mayorkas recently said in an interview that the goal "is to achieve operational control of the border, to do everything that we can to support our personnel with the resources, the technology, the policies that really advance the security of the border, and do not come at the cost of the values of our country."

On Wednesday, Ortiz was asked by Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., if the changes in policy by the Biden administration to release migrants into the interior rather than detain and release was the driver of the crisis.

Ortiz responded by saying that "you have to have capacity, and you have to have consequences." He also said that he had warned as acting chief in 2014 that there was a "policy crisis."

"And I still hold true that we have some policies in place where we need to ensure that the men and women out there patrolling the border, investigating these criminal cartels are actually allowed to do their job each and every day," he said.

"And their job is to detain or remove illegal immigrants," Bishop asked.

"Yes sir," Ortiz replied.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

Yeah no matter how much you need to twist and pervert the law to get at him. FBI Investigations based on information they knew to be false. Figmentary anonymous whistleblowers, Encouraging a riot then calling it an insurrection, partisan hacks lying like dogs in the dirt, all used to hold him to the "law" and so far it has all failed.

There are many court proceedings in the works and there will be the first indictment next week.

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

There are many court proceedings in the works and there will be the first indictment next week.

We'll see. I'm tired of empty promises.

[Rockstar]

So it is Hunter Biden’s laptop.!

Hunter Biden sues laptop repair shop owner, citing invasion of privacy.

The lawsuit, a countermove against John Paul Mac Isaac, escalates the legal battle surrounding the president’s son at a sensitive moment


By Matt Viser
March 17, 2023 at 9:29 a.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit..._medium=social

Does this mean that the laptop was not fake? Like it was claimed by all the major media, former intel officials and the all knowing Subsim fact checkers?

From the WaPo just two and half years earlier.

Biden relies on pattern of activity to blame Russia for release of data from what is said to be his son’s laptop
By Annie Linskey and Paul Sonne
October 24, 2020 at 7:17 p.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...6ed_story.html

Joe Biden leaned heavily on a letter from former U.S. intelligence and defense officials in Thursday night’s debate to argue that Russia orchestrated a disinformation operation allegedly involving damaging information obtained from his son’s laptop that was promulgated by President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” Biden said at the debate. The former vice president said those former officials had concluded that what Trump was citing about his son was “a bunch of garbage.”…

The Biden campaign’s assertion of Russian involvement in the Hunter Biden leaks comes as the Democratic nominee campaigns on restoring truth and transparency to the U.S. government.

Truth and transperancy eh?

[Rockstar]

What the hell is California doing paying slave reparations? The State had nothing to do with slavery because it wasn’t even a State yet. I mean if they really give a damn about history you think they would at least consider the fact the State of California managed to commit genocide and in just 20 years, wipe out 80 percent of California’s Native Americans. Some died because of the seizure of their land or diseases caught from new settlers, between 9,000 and 16,000 were murdered in cold blood—the victims of a policy of genocide sponsored by the state of California and gleefully assisted by its newest citizens.


Bunch of pandering, conceited, crooks ignoring the history of their own State and its victims. All for a vote. Absolutely pathetic.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

What the hell is California doing paying slave reparations? The State had nothing to do with slavery because it wasn’t even a State yet. I mean if they really give a damn about history you think they would at least consider the fact the State of California managed to commit genocide and in just 20 years, wipe out 80 percent of California’s Native Americans. Some died because of the seizure of their land or diseases caught from new settlers, between 9,000 and 16,000 were murdered in cold blood—the victims of a policy of genocide sponsored by the state of California and gleefully assisted by its newest citizens.


Bunch of pandering, conceited, crooks ignoring the history of their own State and its victims. All for a vote. Absolutely pathetic.

While California entered as a free state there were many African American slaves brought to the state by Southern slave owners during the gold rush.

[MaDef]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

While California entered as a free state there were many African American slaves brought to the state by Southern slave owners during the gold rush.

to take it a step further, maybe Spain should be paying restitution to the descendants of the American Indians they enslaved.

[Rockstar]

But what about your history of state sponsored genocide during the gold rush that ended the lives of up to 16,000 American Indians? Why isn’t this discussed? Too dark of a past to be reminded of or does your state believe they don’t deserve reparations because they’re pretty sure they killed them all off? Could it have more to do with white politicians pandering to a larger voting base?

How does California draw the line who get’s 5 million dollars and who gets another dirty blanket?

[Skybird]

No doubt he will be the grrreatest prisoner ever. His fans will stand in long lines to get as wonderfully imprisoned, as he will. Lets make the prisons great again!

[Jimbuna]

Trump claims he will be arrested on Tuesday and calls for protests to ‘take our nation back’

Donald Trump has claimed that he will be arrested on Tuesday and called for protests to “take our nation back”.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...6521ae00&ei=34

History repeating itself?

[Buddahaid]

Yes, I'm certain. The Grand Jury meets next on Tuesday(I think) or they decided on indictment last Thursday. There have already been meetings with police planning scurity measures and the Secret Service will be involved protecting Trump.

Nice to see Il Douche taking it so well and calling for civil war.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court...r-nation-back/

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Yes, the Secret Service will be involved protecting Trump.

You post generated a question.

Even after a President leave the Oval Office s/he is under protection, It is Secret Service who is taking on this task to protect former Presidents
(Have been told this in our news now and then)

How far goes this protection-Will these Secret Service men/women engage the Police or the FBI if they try to arrest a former President ?(Or the sitting)

Markus

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by mapuc

You post generated a question.

Even after a President leave the Oval Office s/he is under protection, It is Secret Service who is taking on this task to protect former Presidents
(Have been told this in our news now and then)

How far goes this protection-Will these Secret Service men/women engage the Police or the FBI if they try to arrest a former President ?(Or the sitting)

Markus

I would imagine he will have the privilege of Secret Service protection until such time he is actually proven guilty and convicted of a crime and goes to prison. If that ever happens in our life time (anyday now ) . Then according to the 13th amendment to our constitution he becomes a slave to the state and falls under the protection of the State or Federal prison system.

The 13th amendment didn’t end slavery it just reformed it.

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

[Buddahaid]

Very unlikely there will be prison for this unless he steps all over himself. Even if convicted as a felony there is no minimum sentence.