CBS: Illegals Entering US Triple With Talk of Immigration Reform

By Todd Bemon / Newsmax 

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Arrests of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States have nearly tripled in recent months in anticipation of Congressional efforts to enact comprehensive immigration legislation, border patrol agents told CBS News Wednesday.

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“Once the first group gets across, they call their family, they call their friends and let them know, ‘Hey the time is right, come on over,’” Border Patrol agent and union representative Chris Cabrera told CBS News.

In March, 7,500 illegals were arrested in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, which includes McAllen, Cabrera told CBS News. That’s up from 2,800 in January.

In February, nearly 4,800 illegals were arrested in the Rio Grande, the local news website The Monitor.com reports.

In fact, agents in McAllen used their station’s carport to process nearly 900 illegals caught over three days in March, according to the Monitor.com.

Border Patrol agents have become so concerned about overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that they’ve complained to local and federal officials, the Monitor.com reports.

Many illegals are caught while traveling through the brush between Hidalgo and Sullivan City in Texas, a winding 30-mile stretch of the Rio Grande.

It’s popular with immigrants, who speed across the Rio Grande and assimilate into the small towns along the border, the Monitor.com reports.

Immigration into the United States had been slowing during the recession.

But, CBS says, hopes of gaining citizenship under new legislation and a rebounding U.S. economy are fueling the fresh migration.

The CBS report included surveillance video showing more than 40 men, women and children crossing the border illegally from Mexico during the night.

Some of the illegals come from as far away as Brazil, Cabrera told CBS.

“The people in Washington think they have this idea that the border is safe, the border is secure,” the Border Patrol agent said. “I think they need to come down here and take a look.”

Last month, the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators introduced a comprehensive immigration-reform package that would put the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally on a 13-year path to U.S. citizenship.

It would cost each individual $2,000 in fines plus additional fees, and would begin only after steps have been taken to secure the border.

The Senate group includes GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.

“We streamlined the system so it’s a lot less bureaucratic, a lot less complicated, a lot easier to follow,” Rubio told Newsmax in an exclusive interview last month before the legislation was formally introduced on Capitol Hill.

“One of the things that’s contributed to illegal immigration is that legal immigration is so complicated and so burdensome, and we’re going to modernize the system in a way that’s pro-business, pro-economy.”

But GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama has criticized efforts by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy to rush the 844-page bill through Congress.

Sessions also sits on the Judiciary Committee.

“We are talking about legislation that will impact virtually every aspect of our society, reshape our entire immigration system, introduce at least 30 million new foreign workers into the economy, and directly impact every single American worker and taxpayer,” Sessions said last month in a statement released to Newsmax.

And other Congress members from border states have insisted that immigration reforms be tied to adding more guards, cameras and drones.

The Border Patrol is shifting agents from Laredo to the Rio Grande area, CBS reports.

Meanwhile, back in Texas, Juan Mercado has seen more illegals crossing on the border property that his family has owned in McAllen since the 1850s.

“I’m being invaded by people who have no permission to be on my property,” Mercado told CBS. “By smugglers, by illegals.”

Mercado now is relying on his own security system: a gun.

“I get a clip and it’s ready to go,” he said.

Why 2016 Already

Emmett Tyrrell / Townhall Columnist

WASHINGTON -- It has happened again! Our gaffe-prone president has filed another blunder on his presidential record. At the dedication of George W. Bush's presidential library he invoked history with his usual mastery of detail. He placed President John F. Kennedy in Air Force One, "On the flight back from Russia, after negotiating with Nikita Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War."

Actually the flight was returning from Vienna, not "Russia," and not much "negotiating" had been done. Truth be known, it was one of the lowest points in JFK's presidency. As Kennedy himself recalled, "He [Khrushchev] treated me like a little boy." And more: "Worst thing in my life. He savaged me," said our 35th president. Well, at least President Obama did not claim anyone at the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit spoke "Austrian." That was the language our learned president attributed to the citizens of Vienna back on April 6, 2009. No philologist has ever heard of it.

As I have noted before, President Barack Obama will be remembered as America's gaffable president. He nicely complements Joe Biden, America's gaffable vice president. Remember back at inauguration time when Joe addressed the Iowa State Society Inauguration Ball with "I'm proud to be president of the United States." By now there have been scores of happy blunders committed by both of these public servants.

I am relatively certain that I am the first to say this in a public forum: Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the most gaffe-prone leaders of a presidential administration in modern times. I cannot think of any conceivable groups of presidents and vice presidents in recent history who could surpass these two in cloddishness -- not Warren G. Harding and Jimmy Carter, not Dan Quayle and Al Gore, not Laurel and Hardy. No, strike that last pair. They never ran for high office. Yet, were they today upright and with all their vital organs functioning, they might have presented a formidable duo, particularly if one, say, Laurel could have presented himself as suffering a trendy modern affliction, say gender ambiguity, and the other, that would be the portly Hardy, could have claimed an eating disorder.

That seems to be how Obama and Biden got reelected. They had a miserable record, most notably in economics, but they segmented the population. They captured the vote of the unmarried women, who are not very happy. They won the vote of the young people, who will be paying for my entitlements for years to come and the entitlements of the poor and the not so poor. Most minorities voted for them. These voters, along with the Democratic majority -- often referred to in this column as the moron vote -- beat a Republican ticket with the demonstrated skill to right the economy and to guide the country through tricky foreign policy challenges, challenges that Obama-Biden have yet to meet.

So our gaffable president and vice president will flounder along for the rest of their terms, and Americans will hope and pray for the best. In the meantime, a news story is beginning to appear with telling regularity. It is the story that speculates on whom the Republicans and Democrats will nominate to represent them in 2016.

Starting around inauguration time Politico and the Wall Street Journal speculated on Joe Biden's candidacy -- ha, ha, ha. Also there were reports in the Washington Post, the Washington Times and the New York Times that Hillary's candidacy was practically invincible. Recall if you will 2008 when her candidacy was, with tedious regularity, referred to as "inevitable." Now she has added Benghazi to her record as the most unpopular and scandal-tainted first lady in history. That, with her age and questionable health, makes her candidacy very dubious. Then there are stories speculating on the Republicans. There is Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan. Now there is Jeb Bush.

All of these stories may be fanciful or they may be based on hard facts, but one thing is certain. Unless you are an angry woman, a clueless young person, or a representative of the moron vote, you have moved on from the election of 2012 and dearly want someone to lead us out of the soup.

The Know-it-All Suddenly Knows Nothing

By: John Ransom / Townhall Columnist
 

Apparently a lot of people who know nothing reside at the top levels of the Obama administration. Why does that not come as a surprise?

It’s probably because the tone of any organization is set from the top, the very pointy top.

Still it’s surprising that the administration that knows more about banking than bankers, more about healthcare than doctors, more about firearms than people who legally possess arms, more about budgets than citizens who have to balance their checkbooks and more about practically everything than anyone else, would admit that on a few things, they really know nothing.

“On most days it's hard to tell him he's wrong about anything,” recently confessed one top Democrat about the Commander in Brief.

It’s seems equally hard to TELL him about anything too.

But here it is:

Obama knows nothing about Benghazi.

He knows nothing about Boston’s Tsarnaev brothers.

He knows nothing about Fast and Furious; he knows nothing about green energy loans, either.

Yes, the man who recently proclaimed: I AM IN CHARGE NOW, FINALLY! knows nothing.

This seems strange coming from the administration that leaked every damn detail about how Barack Obama personally hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden, while simultaneously saving Detroit from bankruptcy… saved Detroit at least until after the election in 2012, that is.

The “I don’t know” claim is not just at odds with the know-it-all-ness of the administration either.  It’s at odds with what others are saying, others who seem to know what they are talking about.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning about accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012,” reports the U.K.’s Daily Mail,  “long before pressure-cooker blasts killed three and injured hundreds, according to a senior Saudi government official with direct knowledge of the document.”

The Department of Homeland Security and the White House however say they know nothing about it.

From the Daily Mail:

'DHS has no knowledge of any communication from the Saudi government regarding information on the suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing prior to the attack,' MailOnline learned from one Homeland Security official who declined to be named in this report.

The White House took a similar view. 'We and other relevant U.S. government agencies have no record of such a letter being received,' said Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the president’s National Security Council.Who? Us? We never got the message.

Russia had similar problems being understood in Washington says the Boston Globe: “In a closed briefing on Tuesday, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee learned that Russia alerted the United States about Tsarnaev in ‘multiple contacts’ -- including ‘at least once since October 2011,’ said Richard Burr, a Republican of North Carolina, speaking with reporters afterward.”
Obama? As I said, he knows nothing about it.

Too busy playing golf.

The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) says that in 2012 Obama spent less time on intelligence briefings than at any other time during his presidency. Last year Obama had 125 “daily” intelligence briefings on his calendar, availing himself of the “daily” briefing only 34.2 percent of the time.  These briefing are most likely where a topics like “Hey, someone might be trying to blow-up the Boston Marathon next year,” might come up.

That means that Obama attended on average only 2.5 personal intelligence briefings for every seven-day week. That’s like showing up for your job on Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday.

They don’t call them “daily” briefings for nothing.

By contrast, the GAI says that Obama played 976 hours of golf while president of the United States.

The president’s daily briefing (PBD) has its roots in the Truman administration, although reporters often mistakenly say it started in 1961. Truman used to get a summary of the overnight developments that he called his “newspaper,” followed by a short briefing by a Naval Intelligence officer.

Bush had his PDBs from 8am to 9am.

Assuming one hour for daily intelligence briefings, Obama has spent 645 hours (of a possible 1800) on daily intelligence briefings and 976 on golf over the course of his presidency.

So, yes, of course he knows nothing.

It’s nice though that, finally, the administration is willing to admit they are as ignorant as the rest of us knew they were all along. 

Obama moving toward sending lethal weapons to Syrian jihadis

From Jihad Watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

"Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of" -- New York Times, April 28, 2013

"Obama moving toward sending lethal arms to Syrian rebels, officials say," by Karen DeYoung for the Washington Post, April 30:

President Obama is preparing to send lethal weaponry to the Syrian opposition and has taken steps to assert more aggressive U.S. leadership among allies and partners seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, according to senior administration officials. 

The officials said they are moving toward the shipment of arms but emphasized that they are still pursuing political negotiation. To that end, the administration has launched an effort to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that the probable use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government — and the more direct outside intervention that could provoke — should lead him to reconsider his support of Assad.

But Obama, who spoke by telephone with Putin on Monday and is sending Secretary of State John F. Kerry to Moscow in the coming days, is likely to make a final decision on the supply of arms to the opposition within weeks, before a scheduled meeting with Putin in June, the officials said.

Confirmation that the Assad government has used chemical weapons, Obama said Tuesday, would mean that “there are some options that we might not otherwise exercise that we would strongly consider.”

At a news conference, he emphasized the need to “make sure I’ve got the facts. . . . If we end up rushing to judgment without hard, effective evidence, we can find ourselves in a position where we can’t mobilize the international community to support” additional action. Administration officials have made repeated reference to the George W. Bush administration’s inaccurate claims of weapons of mass destruction to justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq....

Or we can find ourselves in a position where we're aiding the jihad that aims to destroy us. But hey, who cares about that?

Op-ed: 

Netanyahu knows the truth...it's time we do too

By: Diane Sori 

A deliberate act of subterfuge coupled with intended deception was spread over Israel as pretty but empty words were said by Secretary of Defense Chuck 'muslim sympathizer' Hagel, during his photo-op trip to the Holy land a few short weeks ago.  His words prove Israel does indeed still have much to worry about with this administration, as Obama dangles a carrot on a string in front of them and then pulls it away.

While in the Jewish state, Hagel insisted that the latest sale of US arms to our only true ally in the Middle East sends a strong message to Iran to back off their nuclear ambitions.

Unfortunately, NOTHING could be farther from the truth.

Proven with Hagel's choice of the words 'arms sale'...as in Israel must pay for US arms support while Egypt, with its Muslim Brotherhood controlled government, is on the receiving end of $250 million in assistance...money that NEVER has to be repaid.

So thanks to Obama giving aid to Israel's enemies, and specifically the F-16s and Abrams tanks also recently given to Egypt, (with promises of more later this year) Israel still, in reality, stands alone surrounded by enemies determined to wipe them off the map.

And to add insult to injury, Hagel repeated the Obama administration’s ad-nauseum empty mantra that Israel has the right to defend itself, words falling way short of Israel's much wanted pledge that the US would militarily stand by their side if they did indeed decide to pre-emptively strike Iran.

And oh what a sneaky move the actual sale itself is for the weapons being sold to Israel do NOT give them the actual means to carry out a successful attack on the Fordo Nuclear Facility...the key operational plant in Iran's quest to become a nuclear nation. And why...it's because Obama will NOT sell Israel the Massive Ordnance Penetrater (MOP), a bomb weighing a whopping fifteen tons that's capable of penetrating ten times as much concrete as previous models...a type of bunker buster bomb specifically designed to take out hardened targets buried deep underground. And with the Fordo site located 300+ feet below ground, the MOP is the only bomb that might actually be able to destroy the facility.

Without that bomb Israel cannot assuredly take out Iran's nuclear facility unless they launch a massive ground invasion...an invasion that would cause countless fatalities on both sides. And see how clever Obama is...how the true colors of whose side he's really on shows through for even if Obama allowed the sale of the MOP to Israel they would still need a B-2 bomber to deliver a bomb of that size, and Israel does NOT as of yet have one, and Obama has NO intention of ever selling them one, let alone givng them one.

So all this shows is that Hagel’s trip to Israel, like Obama's 'for publicity only' trip a short while ago, is proof positive that the Obama administration will stop at nothing in order to deceive Israelis about their true intentions of helping those who want to see the Jewish state of Israel become nothing but a footnote in the history books.

And adding into this mix is the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee's Resolution 65 which stipulates that the US will assist Israel if it's forced to take action against Iran...or does it really as the actual wording of Resolution 65 reads, “urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action against Iran in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel.”

'Urges'...urges is NOT a definitive promise of support...the resolution 'urges' the US government to stand with Israel NOT that the US will most assuredly stand with Israel. This allows Obama, who we all know is NO friend to Israel, to decide whether an Israeli military act constitutes a legitimate act of self-defense. The resolution also states that US support for an Israeli attack must conform to US law, and that includes Congressional authorization for any US action. Just think, with how the Obama government operates, with all its stonewalling, lies, and cover-ups, by the time congressional authorization is given the Jewish state of Israel would most likely be long gone.

And to make matters even worse, this resolution makes it very clear that any US action in support of Israel refers only to an Iranian nuclear threat NOT lets say to a massive ground assault by surrounding Arab nations. This makes Resolution 65 no authorization to go to war in support of Israel...it just 'urges' Congress to stand with Israel if, and only if, they feel Israel is in eminent danger.

Yeah, the Obama administration has Israel's back all right...it has a knife dug deep into Israel's back is more like it.