Tag: Immigration

Commentary: Overpopulation via Immigration Is Destroying America’s Environment

Admin

America is overpopulated. Unchecked population growth over the last 70 years, driven by immigration rather than a healthy birth rate, now poses a serious ecological threat in the American West and a monumental social and political challenge in the rest of the country. Since the passage of the Hart-Cellar Act in 1965, which radically overhauled American immigration policy to favor third-world migrants, tens of millions of additional human beings legally and illegally entered the country. Pew Research estimates that without the Hart-Cellar Act, the United States would have had 72 million fewer people as of 2015. That would have been a much better America.

Read More

Commentary: Illegal Immigration Perpetuates Poverty

Admin

Immigration remains not only one of our nation’s most pressing issues but also one of the most divisive. The common media narrative boils this topic down to say that progressives are kind and welcoming to those experiencing hardship while conservatives are cold-hearted monsters. Sadly, this narrative hides a much more sinister reality: Charitable immigration can severely hurt the global poor and destabilizes the nations that these immigrants come from. Indeed, by accepting mass amounts of immigration, the U.S. is actively working against the very people it is claiming to help.

Read More

Commentary: Changing the Language of Immigration Matters

Michigan Star Staff

In the last few years, federal, state, and local governments have labored to remove the term “illegal alien” from official documents and replace it with “undocumented noncitizen.” At a time of great instability in our nation, this may seem to rational people like fiddling while Rome burns. It is actually a strategic move to further diminish our border security and bring even more chaos to America.

Read More

Commentary: New York and California in a Race to Hit Rock Bottom

Michigan Star Staff

Throughout much of the 20th century, America’s status as an economic superpower and the world’s standard-bearer for freedom and opportunity was due in no small measure to the successes of New York and California. Today, those states have become symbols of America’s decline, as the consequences of their incompetent, partisan leadership are now undeniable. Nowhere is this clearer than how these two formerly great states have addressed immigration.

Read More

Commentary: Europe Shows a Clear Link Between Immigration and Crime

RealClearWire

Violent crime is becoming common in Sweden, shocking residents of the famously placid Scandinavian nation, where horrific acts of violence have become “all too familiar,” according to Common Sense Media, part of a Swedish nonprofit organization.   

Since 2018, Swedish authorities have recorded an estimated 500 bombings, while what they describe as gang shootings have become increasingly common. The country reported a record 124 homicides in 2020 and many residents were shocked in April when violent riots injured more than 100 police officers.  

Read More

Commentary: The Building Hispanic Red Wave

Admin

This week in Miami, the top Hispanic conservative leaders in America will convene for the Hispanic Leadership Conference. Hispanic voters continue to move the political right and a new cadre of dynamic patriotic populist candidates act as an accelerant of this emerging phenomenon. Most of these office seekers are young and new to political office, and many are women. All of them form the vanguard of a new political trend that transforms American politics in lasting ways.

This conference will culminate with a keynote address from President Trump. His headliner participation recognizes the crucial role he has played in breaking down long standing political assumptions among the so-called “experts” that Hispanics must vote for Democrats.

Read More

Hispanic Americans Point to Crime, Immigration and the Economy as Key Concerns

ADN America

Recent reports indicate a dramatic political shift for Hispanic Americans, citing a defection from the left toward the right. While some mainstream media accounts dispute the shift, other national surveys are missing the on-the-ground factors that illustrate why a sizeable portion of Latinos are moving right politically, and the fact that many polls suggest Hispanics are drifting from the Democratic party over economic issues.

Read More

Economist Borjas: Immigration Redistributes ‘Wealth from the Native Poor to the Native Rich’

Admin

In July alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection made nearly 200,000 arrests at the southern border. President Biden’s push for looser border policies has welcomed an influx of migrants since the beginning of his presidency and, according to the deputy opinion editor at Newsweek, research shows an open border hurts low-income Americans the most.

According to a 2021 study, immigration accounts for a third of the decline in the Black employment rate over the last 40 years, Unherd reports. Newsweek’s deputy opinion editor backs her claim with an argument from economist George Borjas stating, “immigration primarily boosts the incomes of the immigrants themselves, while redistributing wealth from the native poor to the native rich.”

Read More

Commentary: The Real Job Crisis in Michigan

Admin

The real crisis in the U.S. labor market is not, as we keep hearing, that there are not enough people who can work. The real crisis is all the working-age people on the sidelines, not even looking for a job. Yes, the unemployment rate is low, but that statistic covers only those who have looked for a job in the last four weeks. The labor-force participation rate, which measures the share of working-age people working or at least looking for work, shows a long-term decline, especially for men without a college degree, and practically in states like Michigan. When able-bodied men are not even looking for work, a host of social problems ensue — from crime, to drug addiction, to family breakdown. 

Read More

Commentary: Biden Is Nowhere to Be Found After Unleashing Total Chaos at the Southern Border

Admin

I was at the border just this week. If President Joe Biden cared, he’d be there too. His Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quietly released its latest batch of catastrophic border numbers.

More than 239,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in May — the highest monthly total in DHS history. Taking a step back, this means a shocking 3.5 million illegal immigrants have now crossed into the U.S. since Biden took office. This is not normal, nor is it accidental. It is a cataclysmic destruction of our sovereign borders at the expense of the American people.

Read More

Total Southern Border Encounters, ‘Gotaways’ Greater Than Population of 23 U.S. States

The Center Square

President Joe Biden and his administration insist the southwest U.S. border is closed and federal immigration laws are being enforced.

But since Biden took office, more than 3 million people have been encountered/apprehended entering the U.S. illegally from over 150 countries, according to Customs and Border Patrol data. And that number doesn’t include so-called “gotaways,” the term used for those crossing the border illegally who evade capture.

Read More

Commentary: No, They’re Not Sending Their Best

Admin

America is one of the most welcoming nations on the planet, but you would never know it listening to our mass media. An unceasing avalanche of contempt for Americans and their “racist” and “backward” ways flows from the mouths of liberal talking heads on cable news. It is particularly maddening to listen to this talk from recently arrived immigrants in positions of power and influence. The likes of U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ana Navarro on “The View,” and MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan have done very well for themselves in the United States, but they don’t do a very good job of showing their gratitude. 

Read More

Commentary: All the President’s Border Policies That Have Illegals Heading North

RealClearWire

While a federal court has stayed the Biden administration’s attempt to lift pandemic-prompted restrictions on immigrants pouring across the southern border, that is just one setback in a largely successful push by the president to make it easier for migrants to enter, live, and work in the U.S.

Since Joe Biden’s first day in office, when he signed seven executive orders on immigration that, among other things, suspended deportations and ended the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program that had eased the crush of those awaiting asylum hearings, the president has in word and deed sent signals that migrants have interpreted as welcoming. The initiatives include reviving the Obama-era policy known as “catch and release,” “paroling” illegal border crossers so they can enter the country, resettling migrants through secret flights around the country, and ending the “no match” policy that had helped the government identify people who were using fraudulent credentials to find work.

Read More

Abbott Blasts Biden Administration’s Latest Immigration Policy, Saying It Endangers Americans

Michigan Star Staff
Greg Abbott

 Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blasted President Joe Biden Friday for making what he called another “reckless” immigration policy decision to terminate the public health rule known as Title 42. By doing so, the number of illegal immigrants expected to enter the country will more than double those who entered illegally last year, law enforcement officials estimate.

“President Biden’s open-border policies are an unmitigated disaster for national security,” Abbott said in a statement. “His recklessness has forced the State of Texas to take unprecedented steps to fill the gaps – including deploying Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and over 10,000 Texas National Guard soldiers, jailing illegal immigrants who are charged with trespassing, and becoming the first state ever to build a wall to secure the border.

“Instead of listening to the millions of Americans that his administration has endangered – and instead of enforcing immigration laws passed by Congress – President Biden has chosen to jeopardize the safety and security of those very Americans he swore to protect and defend by ending Title 42 expulsions.”

Read More

Commentary: Biden Is Failing in the Courtroom, Too

Michigan Star Staff

Despite the eagerness of the corporate media to soft-pedal or outright ignore the toxic consequences of his policies, Joe Biden’s job approval numbers continue to be low. And even as the fourth estate tries desperately to spin the news, one story cannot be spun and is therefore largely omitted and ignored: immigration. That’s because on immigration, Biden, his agencies, and his policies have been getting clobbered in federal courts across the land.  

Read More

Commentary: Stimulus Checks Are the Latest Immigration Scam

Admin

A great plague of our contemporary political landscape is that one bad policy begets even more bad policies. Such is the case with many of America’s existing immigration laws.

Federal law, for example, calls for specific enforcement protocols. But our elected representatives have decided that some of those protocols simply should be ignored. This mindset led to ideas like catching and then releasing illegal aliens into our communities, preventing local law enforcement from working with federal law enforcement, and “sanctuary” cities where those who have broken our laws can hide from accountability.

From this witches’ brew of bad ideas has come the latest product rollout, one suited for our time: stimulus checks for illegal aliens. Using the economic damage caused by COVID-19 as a pretext, anti-borders activists and their allied politicians have found a way to sustain those here illegally while creating further incentives for even more foreign nationals to move here.

Read More

Commentary: Citizenship, Immigration, and the Great Society

Michigan Star Staff
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Immigration Act of 1965 formed the core of the Great Society. Together, they became what some have called the “Second Reconstruction.” Professor Gabriel Chin noted that  “[i]n a remarkable fifteen-month span between July 1964 and October 1965 . . . these laws unquestionably marked a turning point in American history and dramatically changed American society.” 

Read More

Southern Border Migrant Encounters Increased in February

Michigan Star Staff
U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations following the implementation of Title 42 USC 265 at the northern and southern land borders. U.S. Border Patrol agents transport a group of individuals encountered near Sasabe, Ariz. to the U.S. Mexico border on March 22, 2020. CBP Photo by Jerry Glaser

Border officials encountered 164,973 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announcement Tuesday.

The figure represents a 7% increase from January’s encounters, according to CBP.

CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement that February’s overall operational numbers result from “the continued economic rebound from the depths of the COVID pandemic, with CBP officers processing more than 2.8 million shipments in legitimate trade valued at more than $236 billion.”

Read More

Commentary: By Design, Biden’s Border Crisis is Actually His Biggest Success

Michigan Star Staff

President Joe Biden’s no-border policy has detonated an explosion of illegal-alien apprehensions and got-aways at the southern “frontier.”

Millions of Americans consider this one of Biden’s biggest failures, surpassed only by his utterly calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, this fiasco is Biden’s finest hour.

After 11 months, Biden’s “border” remains wide open, if not functionally erased. Illegal aliens cascade across. Between Feb. 1 and Dec. 31, 2021, on Biden’s watch, Customs and Border Protection apprehended a record 1,956,596 illegal aliens on the southern “frontier,” versus 511,192 one year earlier, under then-President Donald Trump—up 283%.

Read More

Just a Third of Americans View COVID-19 as a Top-Five Priority, Poll Shows

Michigan Star Staff

Less than 40% of Americans view the coronavirus as a top-five issue to address in 2022, a new poll shows.

The Associated Press-NORC survey found that just 33% of Americans labeled virus concerns as a top issue, down 16 points from a year ago. On the other hand, 68% of respondents said that the economy was the top issue on which to focus this year, with subtopics ranging from inflation to unemployment and the national debt.

The results come as inflation has hit a multi-decade high and supply chain bottlenecks continue to affect Americans’ lives. However, it also comes as the Omicron coronavirus variant has fueled daily case counts near record-highs, with the U.S. now averaging over 650,000 new infections per day.

Read More

Commentary: Securing America’s Border and Communities Is Our Government’s First Duty

Admin
Group of people at a Trump rally, man in a "Keep America Great" hat

Remember when President George W. Bush said this?

I’ve had a lot of experience with dealing with borders, as the Governor of Texas. I know there’s a compassionate, humane way to deal with this issue. I want to remind people that family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River.

It was January 2005. Bush had just won reelection with a campaign strong on national security. Then after narrowly defeating John Kerry, Bush did what Bushes tend to do when they think they’re secure: He lurched to the Left and betrayed the base of his own party. He cast Americans who want a strong, secure border as racists—just four years after we had been attacked by international terrorists who exploited our weak immigration system to kill thousands of us. Bush behaved as if Americans didn’t know that Mexicans living south of the Rio Grande believe in family. Millions of Americans have Mexican heritage themselves. But they or their ancestors chose to be Americans.

Read More

Majority of Voters Disapprove of Biden’s Handling of Crime and Immigration

Michigan Star Staff

More than half of likely voters expressed their disapproval of Joe Biden’s job as president in a recent Rasmussen poll, particularly with regards to his handling of the issues of crime and immigration, as reported by the New York Post.

According to the Rasmussen survey, 51 percent of voters rated Biden’s performance as “poor” on the issue of crime and law enforcement, with only 31 percent describing him as “good” or “excellent.” On immigration, 54 percent described him as “poor,” with only 27 percent rating him as “good” or “excellent.”

Read More

Senate Parliamentarian Blocks Immigration Reform from Democrats’ Spending Bill for Third Time

Michigan Star Staff
U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the McAllen station encounter large group after large group of family units in Los Ebanos, Texas, on Friday June 15. This group well in excess of 100 family units turned themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol, after crossing the border illegally and walking through the town of Los Ebanos.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected another Democratic effort to include immigration reform in President Joe Biden’s spending bill.

MacDonough’s ruling, which came late Thursday, is Democrats’ latest setback in their bid to overhaul the nation’s immigration system via the reconciliation bill. She rejected two bids earlier this year to include a pathway to citizenship in the package, ruling that the provisions did not meet the criteria to be included in the filibuster-proof legislation.

Read More

Commentary: The Republican Party’s Multiethnic, Working-Class Coalition Is Taking Shape

Michigan Star Staff

In the 2016 Republican Party presidential primary, decades of dissonance between the party’s aggrieved grassroots and its blinkered elite spilled out into the open. For years, the chasm widened between the GOP’s heartland base, the river valley-dwelling “Somewheres” from David Goodhart’s 2017 book, The Road to Somewhere, and the party’s bicoastal “Anywhere” rulers. The foot-soldier Republican “Somewheres,” disproportionately church-attending and victimized by job outsourcing and the opioid crisis, felt betrayed by the more secular, ideologically inflexible Republican “Anywheres.”

Donald Trump, lifelong conservative “outsider” and populist dissenter from bicoastal “Anywhere” orthodoxy on issues pertaining to trade, immigration, and China, coasted to the GOP’s presidential nomination. He did so notwithstanding the all-hands-on-deck pushback from leading right-leaning “Anywhere” bastions, encapsulated by National Review magazine’s dedication of an entire issue to, “Against Trump.” Trump’s subsequent victory in the 2016 general election sent the conservative intellectual movement, as well as the Republican Party itself, into a deep state of introspection.

Read More

VP Harris to Announce $540 Million Private Investment to Slow Immigration from Central America

Michigan Star Staff
Kamala Harris talking to Administration about immigration policy

Vice President Kamala Harris is set on Monday to announce $540 million in private corporate investments in Central America’s Northern Triangle – a facet of the Biden administration’s plan to slow migration from the region by making it more livable.

The new funding is in addition to the $750 million in private sector dollars the vice president announced in May.

President Biden in the early months of his presidency tasked Harris with helping stem the flow of illegal migration across the U.S. southern border by addressing what the administration refers to as root causes including poverty, corruption, crime and natural disasters, prominent in the Northern Triangle, from which many of the migrants are now coming.

Read More

‘Take Migrants at Their Word’: Republicans Criticize Process Allowing Illegal Immigrants to Get Through Airport Security Without ID

Michigan Star Staff

Republican lawmakers are raising concerns over illegal migrants without identification traveling on commercial flights throughout the country, according to an email exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The email revealed that the national vetting center used by TSA processed over 42,000 non-citizens and non-U.S. nationals requesting document validation between the first of the year and mid-October.

Republican Texas Rep. Lance Gooden has been probing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as part of his office’s investigation into whistleblower documents alleging an operation to move migrants across the country without standard documentation.

Read More

Commentary: Myths About a Border Crisis by Design and for Destruction

Michigan Star Staff
CBP Border Patrol agents complete official paper work after completing bus security at Nogales port of entry, DeConconi.

For decades Americans have witnessed the gradual disintegration of our southern border. It has angered a lot of people, but it hasn’t affected most people’s lives directly, so little has been done about it. Apart from a brief four-year law and order hiatus under Donald Trump, the fire has burned steadily and under current leadership is now an uncontrollable inferno. How did we get here?

We got here in part because the government and the corporate media have peddled a number of myths, also known as lies, to fool enough citizens that the border fire was under control. It is time to identify and debunk some of the biggest ones here.

Lie #1:  The recent surges at the border are spontaneous events created by root causes in Latin American countries where people are fleeing persecution and violence.

Read More

Migrants Are Setting Up Camps Across Mexico, Hoping to be Allowed into the U.S.

Michigan Star Staff
Group of tents on a sidewalk; homeless people

New migrant campsites have sprung up around Mexico throughout 2021 as migrants have grown uncertain of whether they’ll be able to remain in the U.S., the Associated Press reported Thursday.

Camps are full of migrants, including many children and those who can’t apply for asylum in the U.S. because of Title 42 restrictions, who have to wait in Mexico as their cases proceed through U.S. immigration courts, according to the AP. Title 42 is a Trump-era public health order implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that prevents some migrants from remaining in the U.S. while seeking asylum and allows border officials to rapidly expel most migrants from the country.

Hundreds of Mexican law enforcement officials raided an encampment in Tijuana and required migrants to register for credentials or evacuate the area on Oct. 28, the AP reported. The migrants who registered and stayed were soon surrounded by a mile of chain-link fence.

Read More

Commentary: Illegal Immigrants Would Get $10.5 Billion From Reconciliation Bill

RealClearWire
U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations following the implementation of Title 42 USC 265 at the northern and southern land borders. U.S. Border Patrol agents use personal protective equipment as they prepare to process a group of individuals encountered near Sasabe, Ariz. on March 22, 2020. CBP Photo by Jerry Glaser

The budget reconciliation package pushed by Democrats creates a new expanded child tax credit (CTC) that would pay illegal immigrants some $10.5 billion next year. All immigrants with children are eligible, regardless of how they got here and whether their children are U.S.-born. This includes the roughly 600,000 unaccompanied minors and persons in family units stopped at the border in FY2021 and released into the country pending a hearing. Cash welfare to illegal immigrants is not just costly; it also encourages more illegal immigration. 

Although it is referred to as a “refundable credit,” the new CTC, like the old additional child tax credit (ACTC) it replaces, pays cash to low-income families who do not pay any federal income tax. The new program significantly increases the maximum cash payment from $1,400 per child to $3,600 for children under 6, and to $3,000 for children ages 6 to 17. After 2022, the maximum payment would be $2,000 per child, but advocates hope the much larger payments will be extended. 

In an analysis conducted in October, my colleague Karen Zeigler and I estimated that illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children would receive $8.2 billion from the new CTC. However, we had assumed that the new program, like the old ACTC, would require children claimed as dependents to have Social Security numbers (SSNs).  But reconciliation (page 1452, line 14) would permanently repeal this requirement. 

Read More

Border Agents Ordered to Cease Deporting Nicaraguans under Public Health Emergency Authority

Michigan Star Staff

On Friday, Customs and Border Patrol agents received instructions on a new policy: Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security would no longer allow deportations of Nicaraguan illegal aliens under Title 42, a clause within the 1944 Public Health Services Law that “allows the government to prevent the introduction of individuals during certain public health emergencies.”

All Nicaraguans entering the U.S. illegally, with some exceptions related to criminal history, will be released directly into the U.S. as of Friday afternoon, Just The News has learned.

The order to all CBP agents was issued verbally on a conference call. Official orders in writing are expected soon. The Department of Homeland Security has not issued a statement, nor has CBP.

Read More

A Higher Percentage of Migrants Granted Asylum Under Biden, Report Shows

Michigan Star Staff

A higher percentage of migrants were granted asylum under the Biden administration despite fewer applications filed during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new TRAC report released on Wednesday.

Asylum grants increased from 29% under former President Donald Trump to 37% during the Biden administration, according to data obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Nearly 24,000 asylum decisions were made during the fiscal year 2021 when COVID-19 restrictions and shutdowns were in effect compared to 60,000 in the fiscal year 2020.

Read More

Republicans Vow to Fight White House Plan to Pay Migrants Who Entered Country Illegally

The Center Square
U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the McAllen station encounter large group after large group of family units in Los Ebanos, Texas, on Friday June 15. This group well in excess of 100 family units turned themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol, after crossing the border illegally and walking through the town of Los Ebanos.

Congressional Republicans say they will fight a White House plan to pay up to $450,000 in reparations to migrants separated from their families under the Trump administration after entering the country illegally.

After The Wall Street Journal reported on the plan earlier this week, President Joe Biden called the report “garbage,” only to be corrected by his spokesperson the next day.

At issue is former President Donald Trump’s policy of prosecuting all adults who entered the country illegally, in accordance with federal immigration law, including those with children. The Biden administration rescinded the policy, along with many other immigration enforcement efforts.

Read More

Border Patrol: 27 Percent of Migrants Arrested at Border Are Repeat Offenders, Many with Other Criminal Convictions

The Center Square

Federal law enforcement officers arrested more than 17,300 migrants with past convictions of other crimes attempting to cross the border illegally last fiscal year. That’s up from 9,447 in fiscal 2020.

The federal government’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

An additional 8,979 in fiscal 2021 were of migrants with outstanding arrest warrants against them from other law enforcement agencies.

Read More

Biden Approval Rating Falls to 42 Percent

The Center Square

President Joe Biden’s approval rating has fallen to 42%, according to a new NBC News poll; his disapproval rating hit 54%, up 6 points from August.

The majority polled, 71%, including nearly half of registered Democrats, say the country is headed in the wrong direction. Republicans and Independents say the country is headed in the wrong direction, 93% and 70%, respectively, with 48% of Democrats saying the same.

Read More

As Washington Shirks Federal Border Enforcement Role, Burden Falls to Frontline Sheriffs

Michigan Star Staff
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels

Acoalition of law enforcement agents, mostly comprised of sheriffs combatting cartel violence along the southern border, in cooperation with Border Patrol agents, is working to bring awareness to Americans of the dangers they face because of the Biden administration’s hands-off border enforcement policies.

“A nation without secure borders cannot stand,” argues Mark Hager, Army veteran and founder of the U.S. First Defense Coalition. “As a republic, the citizens of the United States are the responsible first line of defense,” he says, and sheriffs are “the only law enforcement branch elected by the people,” Hager told Just The News. “They are comparable to the grassroots of law enforcement.”

Also a historian and a professor, Hager notes that sheriffs “hold a special place in American history, and especially along our southern border, where they are protecting citizens when the federal government won’t.”

Read More

Lawmaker Offers New Solution for Surge of Illegals: Send Them to Wealthy Democrat Enclaves

Michigan Star Staff

ASouth Carolina congressman has introduced legislation to open a dozen new ports of entry in America, seeking to shift the burden of President Joe Biden’s border crisis from Texas to wealthy enclaves favored by Democrats like Martha’s Vineyard, New York’s trendy suburbs and Silicon Valley.

Rep. Ralph Norman, a Republican, said he introduced the Stop the Surge Act last week as a companion to similar Senate legislation sought by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). It would require all future illegal aliens captured at the border to be shipped to the wealthy, liberal enclaves.

“All these prosperous areas that you see, you know, million dollar houses, let’s send them there,” Norman told John Solomon Reports podcast. “And let’s let them exercise what they claim to be compassion on illegals.

Read More

Donated Frequent Flyer Miles Provide 40,000 Flights for Afghan Refugees

Michigan Star Staff

Frequent flyer miles donated over a two-month period will provide around 40,000 flights for Afghan refugees, the Associated Press reported.

The Biden administration is considering doubling the number of miles available to refugees, and around 3,200 flights already covered by the donated miles have allowed Afghan refugees to resettle in communities around the U.S. from temporary housing at military bases, according to the AP. Miles4Migrants organized the donations, and the group has provided aid to refugees using donated airline miles and credit card points since 2016.

“Government resources are limited, and we knew that the American people wanted to support Afghans who were arriving and help them find safe homes,” Miles4Migrants Co-Founder Andy Freedman said, the AP reported. “That’s when we turned to the airlines.”

Read More

Report: Biden Considering $450,000 Payments to Illegal Immigrant Families Separated at Border

Michigan Star Staff

The Biden administration is considering paying illegal immigrant families who were separated at the border under former President Donald Trump’s policies up to $450,000 per person, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The illegal immigrants filed a lawsuit claiming the federal government detention resulted in major psychological trauma, according to the WSJ. Most of the families were made up of one parent and child who could receive around $1 million in payouts, though the amount could vary by family depending on the circumstances.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represents some of the families involved in the lawsuit against the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services, the WSJ reported. Around 940 families filed claims and the number of those who might qualify for the settlement is expected to be lower.

Read More

Commentary: Americans Pay for Biden’s Immigration Agenda with Blood and Trauma

Michigan Star Staff
Crowd of immigrants

Throughout Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign for president and his nightmarish first year in the White House, he and his acolytes have extolled the virtues of near-limitless immigration. His campaign talked about immigration as an “irrefutable source of our strength” and how it is “essential to who we are as a nation, our core values and our aspirations for the future.” Anyone who suggests that we bring immigration to safe, manageable levels is shamed with a retort of “that’s not who we are.”

Read More

Border Patrol Reports 192,000 Border Encounters in September, Says 26 Percent Immigrants Making Multiple Tries

Michigan Star Staff
On June 17, 2020, Tucson Sector Border Patrol Agents conduct operations at the Highway 86 checkpoint near Tucson, Ariz. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection photo by Jerry Glaser)

The United States recorded 192,001 encounters with immigrants last month along the country’s southwest border with Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The agency on Friday reported 1.7 million apprehensions along the entire U.S. southern border in fiscal 2021, which ended Sept. 30.

The agency reported 26% percent of the encounters in September involved individuals who had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months. Last month’s overall number marked a 9% decrease compared to August.

Read More

Fiscal Year 2021 Becomes Third-Highest Year on Record in Border Encounters, Reaching 1.7 Million

Michigan Star Staff

Border officials encountered the third-highest number of migrants at the southern border on record, reaching more than 1.7 million apprehensions, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

Border officials reported 192,000 encounters with migrants attempting to illegally enter the U.S. through the southwest border in September, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. A record high of more than 213,500 migrants were apprehended in July and another 209,800 were encountered in August.

“CBP encounters along the Southwest border declined in September from the prior month, and a majority of noncitizens encountered were expelled under Title 42,” Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement. “The men and women of CBP continued to rise admirably to the challenge, despite the strain associated with operating during a global pandemic that has claimed far too many lives among our frontline personnel.”

Read More

Texas, Missouri Attorney Generals Sue Biden Administration over Border Wall

The Center Square
Eric Schmitt and Ken Paxton

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a second joint lawsuit against the Biden administration on Thursday over the ongoing border crisis.

Meeting on the banks of the Rio Grande River south of El Paso, Texas, the two Republican attorneys general said they are demanding that the federal government continue to build the border wall using funds Congress appropriated for its use. One of Biden’s first acts in office was to halt construction of the border wall, which they argue violates federal law.

Additionally, it currently costs taxpayers $3 million a day to not build the wall due to contractual obligations with the construction firm tasked with building it.

Read More

Thousands of Afghan Refugees Are Resettling in Communities Around the U.S. Every Week

Michigan Star Staff

Thousands of Afghan refugees who were temporarily housed at U.S. military bases are resettling in communities around the country every week, CBS News reported on Thursday.

Around 6,000 Afghan refugees who were evacuated from the Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power have resettled around the U.S., according to data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), CBS News reported. Additionally, about 3,000 new residents with U.S. citizenship, green cards and those with close family or friends in the U.S. have left the military bases.

More than 55,000 Afghan evacuees are still at the temporary housing sites across eight military bases in the U.S. and another 5,000 refugees remain waiting in third countries to come to the U.S., according to CBS News. Around 4,000 evacuees were released to resettle in the U.S. in the last week.

Read More

Report: Biden Admin Is Flying Migrant Minors to New York State

Michigan Star Staff
Airplane aisle during flight

The Biden administration is reportedly flying migrant minors to New York state from Texas, the New York Post reported on Tuesday.

The flights reportedly started in August, unnamed sources told the Post. Two planes carrying migrants who appeared to be kids, teenagers and a few men in their 20s landed at the Westchester County Airport late Wednesday and Friday evening.

Read More

Millions of Illegal Immigrants Could Get Amnesty, College Tuition Help and More Under Democrats’ Reconciliation Bill

Michigan Star Staff
Temporary processing facilities in Donna, Texas, safely processes family units and unaccompanied alien children (UACs) encountered and in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol March 17, 2021. The facility will bolster processing capacity in the RGV while the permanent Centralized Processing Center in McAllen is renovated. CBP Photo by Jaime Rodriguez Sr.

Millions of illegal immigrants could have access to amnesty, assistance with college tuition, various tax credits and waived grounds for inadmissibility to the U.S. under the Democrats’ proposed reconciliation bill.

The reconciliation bill might allow illegal immigrants with expunged criminal offenses to enter the U.S. and give millions of others illegally living in the U.S. a chance at parole.

“It is outrageous that congressional Democrats and the Biden administration are trying to ram through a massive amnesty and significant increases of legal immigration during this historic and worsening border crisis,” Director of Regulatory Affairs and Policy for the Center for Immigration Studies Robert Law told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday.

Read More

Orchestrated Crisis to Bring Tens of Thousands of People to Southern Border in Coming Weeks

Michigan Star Staff
LAREDO, TEXAS – U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended another large number of individuals inside a tractor-trailer during a failed human smuggling attempt in north Laredo, for the second time this week. The event occurred on the evening of July 13, when a tractor hauling a white trailer approached the U.S. Highway 83 checkpoint. During an immigration inspection of the driver and passenger, both U.S. citizens, the driver readily admitted that there were people inside the trailer. Upon opening the trailer, agents found 35 individuals who were illegally in the United States from the countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The inside trailer temperature was recorded at 126.1 degrees Fahrenheit at the time the individuals were discovered. All were evaluated and offered medical attention by a Border Patrol emergency medical technician. All subjects were placed under arrest, to include the U.S. citizen driver and passenger, pending further investigation by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agents. Despite the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, smugglers continue to endanger the lives of individuals they exploit and the health and safety of our Nation. U.S. Border Patrol agents strive to prevent the flow of illegal immigration and slow the spread of COVID-19. Photo provided by: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Tens of thousands of migrants from other countries are making their way north to the southern border, an open border activist and government officials warn.

Irineo Mujica, Director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, an NGO that provides “shelter and safety to migrants and refugees in transit” and accompanies them “in their journey,” says a new Haitian caravan is making its way to the U.S. border from Tapachula, Mexico.

He also says 800 Haitians and Central Americans are crossing the Guatemalan border every day making their way north.

Read More

Tens of Thousands of Afghan Refugees Set to Be Released in the U.S. Without Set Immigration Status

Michigan Star Staff
Afghan women refugee settlment

Tens of thousands of Afghan refugees could be released into the U.S. without a decision about their immigration status, CBS News reported on Thursday.

The refugees came to the U.S. on humanitarian parole instead of with visas, and many of them don’t have a way to obtain lawful permanent residence, according to CBS News. Since August, over 55,000 Afghan refugees were evacuated to the U.S., and around 40% of them qualify for special immigrant visas, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

“We evacuated them here. We did that. It’s not very equitable to force people to stay in this limbo state,” Church World Service Policy Director Meredith Owen said, CBS News reported. Church World Service is one of the organizations working with Afghan refugees in the U.S. resettlement programs.

Read More

Report: Democrats’ Stalled Budget Bill Includes $8 Billion a Year for Illegal Immigrant Parents

Michigan Star Staff

Democrats’ stalled budget bill includes $8 billion a year for 10 years for illegal immigrant parents, the Center for Immigration Studies announced on Tuesday.

The bill would replace a program that requires parents to work to receive welfare and increase the funds available to illegal immigrant parents because some who work “off the books” can’t verify their employment, according to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Any illegal immigrant with a child born in the U.S. would be able to apply for aid through the program.

Read More

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Claims at Least 20 Percent of Migrants Have Illnesses

Michigan Star Staff
Alejandro Mayorkas

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced on Monday that the rate of illegal aliens carrying diseases with them into the country is “approximately 20 percent,” even though many such illegals have not been properly tested, as reported by the New York Post.

“When one is speaking of 7,000 or 7,500 people encountered at the border every day,” Mayorkas said at a press conference, “if one takes a look at that system, it is not built for that in a COVID environment where isolation is required.”

Mayorkas did not expand on what he meant by “illness,” and whether he was referring to the Chinese coronavirus or other diseases. However, he did mention that he does not expect to see a “tragic rise in the Delta variant” (also known as the India variant) following the latest surge at the border, which saw over 10,000 illegals, mostly from Haiti, enter the country illegally.

Read More