Nevada Taxpayers Foot $100 Million Bill for Illegal Immigrant College Students

One out of every 32 students enrolled in a public university in Nevada is an illegal alien. They have no legal basis for being in this country, but these unlawful students are enjoying their university’s classes, recreational facilities, parties, and sporting events—all of which are subsidized by hardworking Nevada taxpayers.

The Nevada System of Higher Education is quite proud of having so many students who have no legal basis for being in the country. It issued a statement that “reaffirms our strong commitment in support of undocumented and DACAmented students” and declared “we are committed to efforts that support the success and well-being of all our students, regardless of their immigration status.”

(The DACA in “DACAmented” stands for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that the Obama administration created to prevent the government from deporting illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. DACA has been ruled illegal by some courts and is still being contested in others.)

That’s very bold of Nevada’s public universities to be indifferent to enforcement of immigration laws, especially when that indifference serves their interests by adding about 3,243 students to their total enrollment of about 105,000. But it is Nevada’s taxpayers who have to foot the bill.

Nevada public universities offer illegal immigrant students in-state tuition and provide them financial aid on the same basis as students who are citizens. For example, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas charges students from out of state $28,046, much more than the $9,904 it charges in-state students and illegal immigrants.

The $18,142 discount for in-state students largely comes from taxpayers. The extra charge for out-of-state students recognizes that people from out of state have not paid as much in taxes to Nevada. Of course, the same is true of illegal immigrants, especially if they are paid in cash to evade immigration laws and end up not paying state income taxes.

So, Nevada public universities offer illegal immigrants a financial break that U.S. citizens from other states do not receive. That benefit extended to illegal aliens ends up costing Nevada taxpayers about $59 million per year. Offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens but not to U.S. citizens from other states also violates the 1996 immigration law, but the Biden-Harris administration has refused to enforce this provision, permitting states like Nevada to flaunt the law.

In addition to the taxpayer-funded in-state tuition subsidy, Nevada public universities provided $683.2 million in financial aid in 2022-23. If that aid were distributed in proportion to the percentage of illegal immigrant students attending the schools, that would amount to another $21 million for them. But given that illegal immigrant students are significantly more likely to report fewer assets and lower incomes than other students, they will likely qualify for more aid. Therefore, it is reasonable to estimate that they receive not $21 million, but over $30 million per year in direct financial assistance to attend college, in addition to the $59 million in tuition subsidies.

Between the in-state tuition and full access to financial aid offered to illegal immigrant students, Nevada taxpayers are spending about $100 million per year for these students. In doing so, they are often paying for illegal immigrant students to enjoy a much higher standard of living than the average taxpayer funding their college experiences.

At UNLV, illegal immigrant students can swim at a natatorium with a “shallow water leisure pool with vortex,” a “13-person spa,” and a “gender-inclusive locker room.” The UNLV Student Recreation and Wellness Center also offers “outdoor adventures trips and equipment rentals,” “climbing elements,” “massage chairs,” and “a team of clinicians … who promote physical, emotional, spiritual, social, occupational, environmental, and intellectual well-being.”

In addition to these taxpayer-subsidized luxuries, UNLV offers 576 student organizations. Illegal alien students can become active in the #BlackLivesMatter club to “get involved with their efforts for social justice,” the If/When/How–Lawyering for Reproductive Justice club to help people “actualize sexual and reproductive well-being on their own terms,” or the Students for Justice in Palestine club that’s “dedicated to advancing the cause for Palestinian justice and liberation.”

According to the Nevada System of Higher Education, it is worth having taxpayers fork over almost $100 million each year so that illegal alien students can enjoy all of these wonders of higher education because, as they put it, “undocumented students are making positive economic, cultural, and scholarly impacts on our communities.”

Even if illegal alien students do go on to make positive contributions, that does not consider what taxpayers might have been able to accomplish for themselves and their communities if they had been able to keep that $100 million. They could have started new businesses, hired more employees, paid for a better education for their own children, or donated to their local church.

The injustice of having 1 out of every 32 students in Nevada public universities be an illegal alien and having their educational costs subsidized by taxpayers is that it treats the ambitions of those who have no legal reason to be in the country as more worthy than the hopes and dreams of Nevada citizens who have to pay for it.

Nevada, like the rest of the U.S., should be a welcoming place to those who legally enter the country, but it should not subordinate the interests and needs of its own citizens for those who break the law to come here.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/25/nevada-taxpayers-foot-100-million-bill-illegal-immigrant-college-students/

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Canada slams the brakes on immigration levels

Canada is to sharply slow the number of immigrants the country will allow to arrive, leading to a decline in the population for 2025 and 2026.

The aggressive intake of immigrants positioned Canada as having the fastest population growth among Group of Seven countries by a significant margin, and officials acknowledge newcomers helped fuel a strong economic ­recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The influx of newcomers, though, placed considerable strain on housing affordability, infrastructure and social services, and officials say it’s time to slow down.

“We didn’t get the balance quite right,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who’s struggling in the polls and faces re-election in a year, or maybe sooner.

Two polls released last week indicated that a majority of ­Canadians believed the country was admitting too many newcomers.

Officials said with its new plan, they expect the population to decline marginally, by 0.2 per cent in both 2025 and 2026, a dramatic slowdown from the current 3 per cent-plus year-on-year pace.

Mr Trudeau and Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the number of permanent residents, or immigrants legally allowed to work and live in the country without a visa, would be reduced by about 20 per cent in 2025 from previously planned levels, to 395,000, and dwindle further to 365,000 starting in 2027.

Furthermore, Canadian officials will work to reduce the number of temporary immigrants in the country, either on work or student visas, by about 500,000 next year and 2026.

Mr Miller previously said the government would reduce the share of temporary-visa holders to a 5 per cent share of the population over a multi-year period. Current data indicates temporary-visa holders make up over 7 per cent of the Canadian ­population, which is now above 41 million.

“It is a responsible plan to grow immigration, while the net effect is a pause on the population growth,” Mr Miller said.

Curtailing the intake of immigrants marks one of the biggest policy sea-changes from the Liberal governments. Since coming to power in 2015, Liberal administration officials have advocated for an aggressive immigration policy, and lauded how the ­country is better than its developed-world peers in welcoming newcomers and incorporating them into the economy.

Economists and policy analysts argue Canada would find ­itself in a recession were it not for population growth.

The new immigration plan will have immediate ramifications on the economy, analysts say. The Bank of Canada’s latest economic forecast, released this week, anticipates growth of 2.1 per cent next year on the assumption population growth would slow in 2025 to 1.5 per cent. Canadian ­officials now say the population will shrink. The Bank of Canada cut its policy rate by a half-point on Wednesday, to 3.75 per cent, citing slowing inflation and soft economic conditions.

Economist Derek Holt of Bank of Nova Scotia said the government’s new immigration plan should lead to a drop in the unemployment rate and Canada’s ­potential output. As a result, the amount of excess supply, or spare capacity, in the economy could disappear faster than the Bank of Canada projects.

“The Bank of Canada will wish to tread carefully,” Mr Holt said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/canada-slams-the-brakes-on-immigration-levels/news-story/b0cbd6fbe66968a770adf897954be46f

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DOJ Wrong: Federal Law Doesn’t Prevent States From Removing Aliens From Voter Rolls

The Biden-Harris Justice Department is wrong in claiming that federal law bars Virginia and other states from removing aliens from their voter rolls. And if the law DOJ cites is misinterpreted by a court to agree with the agency’s erroneous claim, then the law likely would be unconstitutional.

The Justice Department sued Virginia after it removed the names of 6,303 aliens and Alabama after it moved 3,251 aliens to an “inactive” list.

Keep in mind that it’s a felony under several federal statutes for an alien to claim fraudulently to be a citizen so he or she may register to vote or vote in U.S. elections, including 18 U.S.C. §§ 611, 911, and 1015(f). The Justice Department has a duty to enforce these statutes, something the agency apparently has no interest in doing under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

The federal voter registration form established by the National Voter Registration Act, or NVRA, not only asks applicants whether they are U.S. citizens, it requires them to attest under penalty of perjury that they are citizens.

The form has a strict warning that if the would-be voter provides false information, he or she may “be fined, imprisoned, or(if not a U.S. citizen) deported from or refused entry to the United States.”

However, the Justice Department claims that Virginia and Alabama violated the law’s 90-day preelection deadline for “systematic” list maintenance programs. This, according to the DOJ led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, prevents all “systematic” removals from a voter registration list within 90 days of an election.

What the Justice Department fails to point out is that the 90-day deadline is in the second part of a section of the National Voter Registration Act that deals only with the removal of the names of registered voters who have moved.

The first part outlines the rule for removing the names of individuals who have moved to a different residence either within the state or another state. The second part then applies the 90-day deadline for such removals.

That section of the law also says that the deadline doesn’t apply to “correction of registration records” or to removal of names of voters who have requested it or who have died or become ineligible due to a criminal conviction or mental incapacity.

The common factor in all of those exceptions is that each deals with individuals who were eligible to vote when they registered but subsequently became ineligible.

The 90-day deadline obviously doesn’t apply to an alien who wasn’t eligible to register to vote in the first place and, in fact, was committing a felony violation of federal criminal law by registering.

Critics, including the Justice Department, have claimed that those exceptions are the “exclusive” reasons that a state may remove the names of registered individuals from the voter rolls.

In 2012, in Arcia v. Detzner, a federal case out of the Southern District of Florida, Judge William Zloch said that claim would “produce an absurd result.”

Zloch ruled that would mean a state couldn’t “remove from its voting rolls minors, fictitious individuals, individuals who misrepresent their residence in the state, and non-citizens.”

The 90-day deadline, the judge decided, “simply does not apply to an improperly registered noncitizen.”

In another 2012 federal case, U.S. v. Florida, Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida concluded that Congress drafted these provisions of the law to deal with the removal of names of registered voters “on grounds that typically arise after an initial proper registration.”  The provisions don’t apply to “revocation of an improperly granted registration of a noncitizen,”  Hinkle ruled.

In fact, the judge wrote, “the NVRA does not require a state to allow a noncitizen to vote just because the state did not catch the error more than 90 days in advance.”

Moreover, the Justice Department is also wrong in claiming that the law bars all “systematic” removals of voters’ names.

As Hinkle ruled, during the 90-day period “a state may pursue a program to systematically remove registrants on request or based on a criminal conviction, mental incapacity, or death but not based on a change of residence.”

What “matters here,” the federal judge added, “is this: none of this applies to removing noncitizens who were never properly registered in the first place.”

It is true that in a deeply flawed, cursory analysis, a divided panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Southern District of Florida decision and held that the 90-day deadline did apply to the removal of aliens’ names from voter rolls.

But Florida didn’t appeal this obviously wrong decision by two appeals court judges to the entire 11th Circuit or to the Supreme Court. The 11th Circuit panel’s decision not only is wrong based on the text of the statute, but any interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act that would force a state to allow an ineligible alien who violated criminal law by registering to remain registered so he may cast a ballot in an upcoming election likely would render the law unconstitutional.

In 2019, in Bellito v. Snipes, another case arising out of Florida, a different 11th Circuit panel held that in applying the NVRA, “Congress would not have mandated that the state register” an individual who “is not eligible to vote.”

If the NVRA does not require a state to register an ineligible alien to vote, it cannot be construed to require a state to maintain and continue the registration of an ineligible alien.

Alabama and Virginia should fight the Justice Department and be willing to take these cases all the way to the  Supreme Court.  Maintaining the security and integrity of the American election process and protecting voters against foreign interference that voids their votes requires no less.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/23/doj-wrong-federal-law-doesnt-prevent-states-from-removing-illegal-aliens-from-voter-rolls/

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Behind the Scenes of US-Mexico Border Crisis

EL PASO, Texas—On the outskirts of this west Texas desert town, the “no go zone” of the U.S. border with Mexico is pitch black and tense at 10 p.m. Darkness suits everyone’s interests here; it appears neither border crossers nor U.S. Border Patrol agents want to be seen before they make their move.

Anapra Road and the connecting wall route are where illegal immigrants and their cartel handlers now choose to cross in this region—and they will use force if they feel it necessary. Nearly a dozen Border Patrol vehicles and at least as many agents sit, with their lights off, behind a partition of scrub brush. When cars pass by, their heads snap upward and in tandem, they all turn to watch. Their large presence indicates anticipation of something.

Down the road, there’s a rectangular cutout in the wall. This portal from the world to the United States is large enough for about one man to get through at a time. Watching over the hole, a Border Patrol agent sits in a nearby vehicle. And he waits. He knows migrants are coming.

In September, Border Patrol agents reported nearly 54,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants along the U.S. border with Mexico, between ports of entry. That doesn’t include the thousands of “gotaways”—the ones who were observed but not caught, and the ones who were never seen.

At the ports of entry, Customs and Border Protection recorded 48,000 migrants.

That number is actually down from last spring—though, of course, the numbers don’t tell the whole story.

The Biden administration credits the decrease to its summer crackdown on crossings and its smartphone app, CBP One. The app is intended to encourage migrants to follow the protocol rather than cross the border surreptitiously.

“Use of the CBP One app to schedule appointments at ports of entry has increased CBP’s capacity to process migrants in a more efficient and orderly manner while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants,” the administration claims.

Farmers Kevin and Jennifer Ivey have spent their lives growing and harvesting cotton and pecans on their ranch in El Paso County, along Mexico’s border. Over the years, Kevin Ivey estimates his family has lost about $100,000 in stolen property and damaged equipment at the hands of migrants traveling through their property after crossing the border illegally.

Ivey said he noticed a “huge difference” in the number of migrants crossing through his property after President Joe Biden entered the Oval Office. Multiple trucks have been stolen off the Iveys’ farm, a large duffle bag of drugs was found on their property, and it is not uncommon for helicopters to fly overhead in pursuit of migrants seeking to evade Border Patrol agents.

With the U.S. presidential election quickly approaching, immigration is at the top of voters’ minds, according to Pew Research Center, second only to the economy.

“About six-in-ten voters (61%) today say immigration is very important to their vote—a 9 percentage point increase from the 2020 presidential election and 13 points higher than during the 2022 congressional elections,” Pew reports. “Immigration is now a much more important issue for Republican voters in particular: 82% of Trump supporters say it is very important to their vote in the 2024 election, up 21 points from 2020.”

Those polling numbers could be behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent about-face on immigration. In September, Harris made her way to Arizona for a speech about the issue.

“To reduce illegal border crossings, I will take further action to keep the border closed between ports of entry,” Harris said in the scrublands of Douglas, Arizona. Those measures include barring people entering illegally from ever receiving asylum. “Our system must be orderly and secure, and that is my goal,” she said.

She also alleged that her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, tanked a bill to fix the border. She said she would sign similar legislation if it was brought before her.

Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, contends that Harris is watching the polls closely.

“Bad polling is the sole reason why Vice President Harris has changed her messaging on the border—the chaos on the border is a huge political problem for Harris’ campaign,” he said.

As for Harris’ proposed border policies, DeVore added, “There’s nothing keeping the Biden-Harris administration from enacting those policies right now—why wait for the election?”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/23/pull-back-curtain-on-the-border-crisis-today/

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Large Migrant Caravan Makes Its Way to the US

A migrant caravan is heading northward toward the United States a few weeks before Election Day, the results of which will almost undoubtedly spell changes for border enforcement policies, according to The Associated Press.

A roughly 2,000-person-strong migrant caravan left southern Mexico on Sunday in hopes of reaching the U.S. in the coming days, according to the AP. The latest caravan is so far the largest since newly-elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum entered office in October.

Among those in the caravan are individuals who expressed concern that a new administration in Washington, D.C., would lead to the end of a popular app that has allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to schedule appointments with Customs and Border Protection officials in hopes of entering the country.

“That is what makes us fearful,” Joel Zambrano, a Venezuelan national, said to The Associated Press. “They say this could change because they could both close the CBP One appointment and all the services that are helping migrants.”

The CBP One app was first created in October 2020, with the Biden-Harris administration dramatically expanding its use in January 2023. The popular app enables migrants to schedule appointments in order to obtain exemptions at ports of entry, and permits them to submit biometric data to federal immigration authorities in order to apply for travel authorization and obtain parole.

More than 800,000 noncitizens scheduled appointments through the CBP One app from January 2023 through the end of August 2024, according to CBP. The Biden-Harris administration has additionally flown in more than half a million foreign nationals into the country via an initiative known as CHNV—a program that grants two-year parole to Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.

Roughly 7.4 million migrants have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest data from CBP.

While the CBP One app and an election-year crackdown on illegal immigration by the Mexican government have helped keep migrants in southern Mexico, many are reportedly leaving the region due to a delay in asylum appointments and a lack of job opportunities.

“The situation in my country is very bad, the president doesn’t do anything for us. We spent a week by the border, but getting documents takes time,” Honduran Roberto Domínguez said to The Associated Press. “The documents we get are only for us to be in Tapachula and we cannot leave the city.”

Despite an attempt to brand herself as more of a border hawk since launching her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has consistently polled poorly with voters on border enforcement issues following her administration’s oversight of a historical border crisis. Former President Donald Trump, for his part, has pledged to hire 10,000 Border Patrol agents, give them a 10% pay bump, and wage a large-scale deportation effort.

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Harris can’t say how many illegal aliens her administration released or whether Biden was fit

Vice President Kamala Harris on Oct. 16 sat down with Fox News’ Brett Baier for a brief interview that posed many ultimately unanswered questions, including about the administration of President Joe Biden and Harris in allowing millions of illegal immigrants to remain in America, some of whom went on to commit heinous murders and rapes, and about Biden’s fitness to remain in office as he was being to deposed as the Democratic Party nominee to Harris’ benefit.

When asked by Baier “how many illegal immigrants would you estimate your Administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years?” Harris gave a standard “I'm glad you raised the issue” non-answer, proceeding instead to say she and Biden had offered legislation, which Baier noted would have granted citizenship to those who had been released into America.

The answer was of course since Feb. 2021, there have been 8.3 million encounters by the U.S. Border Patrol on the southwest border, the most in recorded U.S. history, of which, most were allowed to remain. For example, in Fiscal Year 2024, of the 2.75 million southwest border encounters, 1.4 million were Title 8 apprehensions, of which only about 309,000 were subjected to expedited removal, about 109,000 were detained pending proceedings and another 139,000 voluntarily returned, with almost all of the rest given a voluntary “notice to appear” for later immigration proceedings. The rest were just caught and released. In other words, about 2.2 million stayed.

But that wasn’t necessary. As Baier noted, Biden and Harris could have simply kept Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy in place (an executive agreement between the U.S. and Mexico), continued with the Title 42 removals (Biden ended those in May 2023) and to keep the national emergency Trump declared on the southern border in place. There were things under laws Congress already passed that Trump had done that could have been used to have stem the mass migration taking place, but instead were rescinded, allowing millions to continue crossing the border.

According to the latest data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released on Sept. 25 via Congressional oversight by U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), of those who were allowed to remain in the U.S., 13,376 were convicted murderers, 16,120 were convicted of sexual assault, 64,579 were convicted of assault, 43,546 were convicted of burglary, larceny or robbery, 13,876were  convicted of weapons offenses, 2,606 were convicted of kidnapping and 2,218 were convicted of commercialized sexual offenses — all before they ever came to America and were released into the country by the federal government.

According to the House Homeland Security Committee release on Sept. 27, “they had previously been encountered by CBP, turned over to ICE, had their criminal history documented, and then were released into the United States.” 151,851 out of 156,521, or 97 percent — were not currently detained by ICE, with only 4,670 are detention and subject to removal. Of the convicted murderers, the numbers are even worse: only 277 were in detention, or just 2.2 percent.

Responding to Harris’ statements that former President Donald Trump was “unstable,” Baier asked Harris, “you told many interviewers that Joe Biden was on his game that ran around circles on his staff. When did you first notice that President Biden's mental faculties appeared diminished?” which led to Biden being replaced, adding, “you met with him at least once a week for 3 and 1/2 years. You didn't have any concerns?”

Again, Harris couldn’t or wouldn’t answer that there was any trouble with Biden’s fitness to serve, first suggesting “Joe Biden I have watched in from the Oval Office to the situation room and he has the judgment and the experiment and experience to do exactly what he has… done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people. And then when asked again if she had ever had any concerns, she dodged and instead pivoted to Trump, “I think the American people have a concern about Donald Trump…”

Which wasn’t the question. It was about the circumstances that catapulted Harris to be the beneficiary of Biden’s fall, and to ascertain if Harris had ever had any concern about Biden’s fitness to serve.

Similar questions about Trump’s own nomination could simply be answered by noting he had swept 49 out of 50 states against former South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley. That is, he earned it. Whereas Biden was removed from being the nominee precisely because he couldn’t tie two sentences together when confronted by Trump in the perilous June 27 debate — and Harris refuses to acknowledge the circumstances.

The interview comes as Trump has been surging in both national and battleground state polls, showing increasing strength as Nov. 5 rapidly approaches. It certainly explains Democrats and Harris’ decision to put Harris out there in combative interviews such as the Fox one to counter criticisms and to press for details about the policies she oversaw, including border security and immigration, and the reasons for her being the nominee.

That fact is, Harris is the incumbent, who wields the incumbency advantage but also bears the burdens of the incumbent when it comes to the present administration’s shortcomings, which Harris blames on Trump when Trump hasn’t been in power since Jan. 20, 2021.

At one point in the interview, Harris unironically remarked, “You are responsible for what happened in your Administration.” We know.

https://dailytorch.com/2024/10/as-trump-surges-democrats-panic-as-harris-cant-say-how-many-illegal-aliens-her-administration-released-or-whether-biden-was-fit/

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Hurricanes Lead to Surge in Voter Concern about Immigration

In my last post, I examined a recent Harvard-Harris poll and noted it revealed that immigration was the second-biggest issue behind inflation on voters’ minds headed into the election, ahead of abortion, healthcare, and jobs. There are two questions from that poll I did not discuss, but they likely show why immigration is such a hot topic now – all due to three disasters (Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and one at the border) and the federal government’s responses thereto. Let me explain.

Before I begin, though, here’s a brief recap: That Harvard-Harris poll of 3,145 registered voters was conducted between October 11 and 13, just about two weeks after Hurricane (and then Tropical Storm) Helene cut a swathe of destruction through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and eastern Tennessee. Rural sections of the Appalachians were particularly hard hit.

I’ll return to that destruction, but respondents in that poll were surveyed with the images of devastation still fresh in their minds.

It revealed that 14 percent of registered voters named “immigration” as the single issue that mattered to them personally, trailing only inflation (46 percent) and ahead of abortion (11 percent).

At roughly the same time that poll was being conducted, Fox News was surveying respondents for a poll of its own, which was released on October 16. That one surveyed 1,110 registered voters.

As with the Harvard-Harris poll, it showed that immigration was the second-most important issue for respondents in were deciding how to vote, trailing only the economy.

Some 39 percent of the likely – not just registered – voters polled by Fox News said the economy would be the most important on their minds at the ballot box, and 18 percent stated it was immigration.

Abortion was in third place among likely voters in that poll, at 14 percent, while healthcare took fourth, the most important electoral issue for 8 percent of respondents.

That represented a 1-point rise for immigration over similar Fox News polling conducted a month earlier, and a 2-point decline for abortion. The economy also saw a single point increase over that time.

One month before that, in August, “just” 14 percent of registered voters identified immigration as their single most important electoral issue, tied with abortion for second place.

There are two reasons why I am bringing this up. First, it shows that the Harvard-Harris poll wasn’t an outlier. Second, it indicates that immigration is gaining more traction as an issue with the election nearing.

The Destruction

I live in the piedmont of western North Carolina, just far enough from Helene’s eye to have been spared the worst of the storm’s destruction, but close enough to where its most significant impacts were felt to have first-hand knowledge of the impacts and of locals’ impressions of the government’s response.

Let me just put it this way: the storm was “biblical” as one local emergency official put it and the state and federal response was found to be wanting.

Somewhere in the state capital of Raleigh, they are likely planning historical markers describing the devastation to be erected once there are roads to put them along.

Playing Politics?

Of course, Helene wasn’t the only major hurricane to strike of late. On October 9, Hurricane Milton arrived in Florida near Siesta Key and drove across the Sunshine State, clipping Orlando and exiting on the Atlantic Coast early the next day.

As The Hill reported, Vice President (and Democratic presidential nominee) Kamala Harris got into a spat with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in advance of the storm:

    Harris called DeSantis “selfish” Monday [October 7] amid reports the governor refused to take her call after Hurricane Helene hit his state. The governor, a chief foil of the Biden administration, hit back Tuesday, suggesting the vice president was “trying to parachute in” because she’s the Democratic candidate for the White House.

Not surprisingly, Harvard-Harris asked respondents: “Do you think Kamala Harris responded well to the hurricanes or was she playing politics with the hurricanes?”

Voters were split on the question with half (50 percent) stating that she responded well and the other half (50 percent) believing she was playing politics.

There was a strong partisan lean on the question, with 86 percent of Democratic respondents stating that she responded well and 84 percent of GOP voters asserting that she was playing politics. For their part, 54 percent of Independents saw politics in the response, and 46 percent of the unaligned thought Harris responded appropriately.

FEMA Money for Housing Illegal Immigrants?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the federal government’s main disaster relief component, and it received mixed marks from the locals over its response to Helene.

That’s more or less how FEMA gets treated in the immediate aftermath of any emergency or disaster, but the administration didn’t do the agency many favors.

During October 2 remarks in Augusta, Ga., for example, Vice President Harris told affected residents “the federal relief and assistance that we have been providing has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like. And you can apply now”.

That was likely cold comfort to people who had lost everything, and who had no access to electricity or even cellular communications.

FEMA is a component of DHS, and the same day that Harris was in Georgia, the department’s secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, took to the White House rostrum to complain:

    We — we are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what — what is imminent.

That sounded like the secretary was leaving the survivors of Helene in the lurch, and prompted many, both in the media and outside the Beltway Bubble, to assess how the agency was spending its money.

What they discovered was something that I but few others had discussed in the past: FEMA administers a fund that was originally set up for homeless vets, the elderly, and tribal members but that has been transformed into a money source for NGOs and communities in providing for released migrants. (Seer this week’s episode of the Center’s “Parsing Immigration Policy” podcast for more background on this.)

That fund – the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), aka: EFSP-Humanitarian, aka: the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) – had swelled from a modest $30 million program in FY 2019 to a $650 million cash bonanza in FY 2024 as the Biden-Harris administration cut loose millions of illegal migrants encountered by CBP at the Southwest border into towns and cities across the United States.

Many would-be voters were not happy to find that FEMA’s doling out hundreds of millions of dollars for migrants while the vice president was offering $750 payments to affected Americans in Appalachia.

I quickly wrote a post explaining that SSP money was separate from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), “the largest source of federal financial assistance after disasters”, but I may have been barking up the wrong tree: Many were shocked to find out that any FEMA money was going to migrants.

Harvard-Harris plainly had a better sense of the zeitgeist, however, because directly after they asked respondents whether the vice president responded well to Helene and Milton (responses presented on the same slide), they posed the following question: “Should any FEMA money have gone to housing immigrants here illegally, or should FEMA funds have not gone to that purpose?”

In response, 67 percent of the registered voters polled said that FEMA should not be paying to house illegal migrants (including 51 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Independents), while just 33 percent believed that FEMA should be making such payouts. That’s an even 2-to-1 split in opposition to ESFP/ESFP-H/SSP.

https://cis.org/Arthur/Hurricanes-Lead-Surge-Voter-Concern-about-Immigration

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Border Patrol Agents Vow to Quit If Harris Wins

 
The illegal immigration crisis facing the U.S. has drastically worsened ever since Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed the incumbent administration’s “border czar” in 2021.

Terrorist threats are on the rise, violent migrant gangs are roaming the streets, small towns are being decimated by state-sanctioned immigrant dumpings, American children are being slain by migrants, and migrant children are being sex trafficked by gangs and cartels.

But according to reports, the crisis could deepen further if Harris were to win November’s election.

According to The New York Post, U.S. Border Patrol agents are “threatening” to resign in droves if Harris is elected president. “I’m not doing this sh** again … four years of hell,” one agent said. The Post noted that he is “nowhere near retirement,” but is “absolutely sure” that he would quit if Harris were to win in November. Another agent warned, “Lots of guys who can retire will go. If Trump wins, they’ll stay.”

One agent anticipated that his colleagues with five to 10 years of Border Patrol experience will try to find other jobs, while those who have served at least 20 years will simply walk away. “We will have another exodus just because we will have a bunch of 20-year agents saying ‘peace out,’” he said.

Another agent said that no one wants to work Border Patrol under the Biden-Harris administration because the administration undermines the job. “Under this administration, they’ve done everything they could to make our job as inefficient as possible. They can’t outwardly tell us not to do our job, but when you’re watching criminals come in and get released, it sucks,” he commented.

Border Patrol has been steadily hemorrhaging agents ever since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. Over a quarter of agents, totaling more than 4,000, have quit, leaving the crucial agency with roughly 19,000 employees. On average, more than 1,200 Border Patrol agents have resigned per year under the policies of Biden and his “border czar,” Harris.

The National Border Patrol Council, the largest union representing Border Patrol agents, has been openly critical of Harris’ failure to address the surging border crisis and has warned that, as president, she would continue to do damage.

Late last month, when Harris visited Douglas, Arizona, for a campaign event, she made numerous claims regarding the nation’s southern border and its security, including taking credit for increasing overtime pay for Border Patrol agents. “This couldn’t be further from the truth. As with all things border-related, she was nowhere to be found when we needed her,” the National Border Patrol Council quickly responded.

The council continued, “Vice President Harris has ignored the border problem she created for over three years. She goes down there for 20 minutes for a photo op and decides to repeat some of the things the [National Border Patrol Council] has said before. But again, where has she been the last 3-1/2 years?”

When Trump himself visited Arizona on Sunday, the council formally endorsed him. Its president, Brandon Judd, said that Biden and Harris treat the U.S. border as “nothing more than an imaginary line in which crossing it illegally carries no penalty,” adding that the policies of Biden or Harris will make America into a nation “where lawlessness will reign, and where enforcement of laws will become a pastime.”

Trump, however, is “the polar opposite,” Judd said. “He has worked tirelessly and against great opposition to make this country safe, to make our neighborhoods safe, and most importantly, make our children safe,” he continued. Biden and Harris offer only “rhetoric,” the border patrol group president quipped, but “President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has accomplishments.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/19/border-patrol-agents-vow-quit-harris-wins/

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CIA Shocker: Ukraine, Venezuela Have Highest Rates of Net In-Migration in the World. So, why do our migrant-friendly policies continue?

I recently came across a CIA report that was a shocker: Of the three countries with the highest net in-migration—that is, the highest proportion of migrants entering compared to those leaving-- in the world, Ukraine is first and Venezuela is third. Why are a war-torn country and an economic basket case leading expat refuges like the British Virgin Islands (number 4), the Caymans (5), and Monaco (7) in terms of in-migration? And, more importantly, why are our migrant-friendly policies for Ukrainians and Venezuelans still in effect?

Before I continue, as the CIA explains: “Net migration rate compares the difference between the number of persons entering and leaving a country during the year per 1,000 persons (based on midyear population)”. The higher the rate, the larger the number of proportional annual arrivals.
Ukraine

According to CIA estimates, Ukraine has a net migration rate of +36.5 per thousand population in 2024.

To put Ukraine’s net in-migration into context, the United States has the 38th highest net migration worldwide, with a net migration rate of +3 per 1,000 population, and the UK is 39th, with a net migration rate of +2.9 per thousand. The Cook Islands is dead-last, with a net migration rate of -25.1 per thousand.

According to a February report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 4.5 million Ukrainians have returned home, either from abroad or from internal displacement, since the Russian invasion of the country began in February 2022.

Ukraine still has a big upside when it comes to net in-migration, however. IOM explains that nearly 14 million Ukrainians—about a third of the country’s total population—fled their homes since the onset of fighting, and nearly 6.5 million Ukrainians remain refugees globally.

In 2022, the CIA placed Ukraine number 115 on its net-migration list, with a net migration rate of -.26 per thousand, and in 2023, it ranked number 116, with a net migration rate of -.27 per thousand. That outflow has apparently shifted despite the continued war.

CBS News reported in April that 236,000 Ukrainian nationals had been approved to come to the United States on “parole” under the Biden-Harris administration’s “Uniting for Ukraine” program, though interestingly only 187,000 of them had arrived through the end of March.

In addition, as per CBS: “Another 350,000 Ukrainians have arrived in the U.S. outside of the sponsorship process since the start of the Russian invasion, mainly through temporary visas, according to DHS.” Whether most of them intend to leave is anybody’s guess, but plainly a lot of formally displaced Ukrainians have deemed the country safe enough to return.
Venezuela

There are no such quasi-sunny IOM reports for Venezuela, however. The organization claims that:

    As of June 2024, more than 7,77 million Venezuelans are outside their country of origin, the second largest displacement in the world. Neighbouring countries are responding to the humanitarian and human mobility challenges presented by this situation with solidarity and hospitality, and have largely kept their doors open to Venezuelan migrants and refugees.

    The majority of migrants and refugees from Venezuela reside in the region (6,59 million as of June 2024). Among the largest host countries are Colombia (2,9 million), Peru (1,5 million), Brazil, Ecuador and Chile.

Notably absent from that IOM list of receiving countries is the United States.

In September 2023, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas redesignated Venezuela for “temporary protected status” (TPS), potentially making an additional 472,000 nationals of the country here eligible for “temporary” status, over and above the 242,700 Venezuelans who already had TPS under an earlier, March 2021, designation of the country (also by Mayorkas).

Last September, shortly after that redesignation, I described how the first TPS designation for Venezuela had driven a massive wave of illegal migration from the country:

    According to CBP records, its immigration officers encountered 2,787 Venezuelan nationals at the Southwest border in all of FY 2020, and 2,274 others between October 2021 (the first month of FY 2022) and February 2022 (which ended eight days before that designation took effect). That’s 5,061 in total.

    Those pre-TPS encounter statistics are representative of illegal Venezuelan migration into the United States compared to prior years. In FY 2019, Border Patrol agents apprehended 2,202 Venezuelans at the Southwest border, while in FY 2018, agents caught just 62 Venezuelans entering illegally there.

    All of this is to say that there really weren’t that many Venezuelans coming here illegally before the country was first designated for TPS.

    Since then? Between March 2021 and October of that year, CBP encountered 46,404 illegal Venezuelan migrants, more than 187,700 in FY 2022, and 168,000-plus in just the first 10 months of FY 2023.

Note that in addition to TPS, the Biden-Harris administration also created two extra-statutory programs to funnel Venezuelan nationals (among others) with no visas and no right to enter into the United States – “CHNV Parole” and the “CBP One app interview scheme” – in January 2023.

According to the DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics, through the end of June, more than 108,000 Venezuelans had been allowed to enter under CHNV Parole and an additional 144,500-plus of them had scheduled appointments at the Southwest border ports under the scheme using the CBP One app.

Despite those more than 252,500 parolees, Border Patrol agents still apprehended more than 297,000 other illegal Venezuelan border-crossers between February 2023 and the end of August 2024. It’s unknown how many of them were subsequently released, but if past administration releases are any guide, it’s safe to say more than a few were.

Accordingly, while the United States may not be housing as many Venezuelan migrants as Colombia is, we are giving Peru a run for its money.

That said, I’ll cut IOM a break for not including the United States on its list of neighboring countries that are harboring Venezuelan nationals, because this country isn’t anywhere near Venezuela.

In fact, by my estimation, Venezuelans must cross through six countries on their way here (Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico), all of which grant some form of asylum. It’s doubtful than many departing Venezuelans are taking advantage of those countries’ largesse, though, now that the United States has flung its doors open.

So, why does Venezuela have such a high estimated net migration rate? The Washington Post offered some answers in June:

    Three hundred thousand Venezuelans have returned to the South American nation, the government of authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro reported in January, more than 30,000 of them with the help of a repatriation program called Return to the Motherland.

    The dollarization of Venezuela’s economy has brought a boom in imported food and new restaurants, making the capital more appealing. But outside an elite bubble, the country is still beset by power shortages, insufficient running water, political instability and an inflation rate that reached 234 percent in 2022.

    Nonetheless, Venezuelans who have returned say it was the best option for them.

Note that Venezuela has had a high net-migration rate for quite a while. According to the CIA, the country had the third highest level of net migration in the world in both 2022 (14.22 new arrivals on balance per thousand) and in 2023 (13.55). The latest numbers are just continuing that trend.
Why Are the Administration’s Migrant Policies Continuing?

The CIA compiles such statistics to inform Washington decisionmakers, but DHS and the White House haven’t gotten the message from Langley about net migration into either Venezuela or Ukraine yet as they continue their migrant-friendly policies for nationals of those countries.

Looking at administration migrant programs like TPS, CHNV, and CBP One, you’d think there’s a huge flood of people out of Venezuela, not a line to get into the country. The same is true to a lesser degree of Ukraine, which is still in the midst of conflict while enjoying its high net-migration rate. Why does the CIA compute net migration figures if the administration ignores them? That may be the bigger question.

https://cis.org/Arthur/CIA-Shocker-Ukraine-Venezuela-Have-Highest-Rates-Net-InMigration-World

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500K+ School-Age Migrant Children Have Arrived Since 2022

On October 5, Reuters published a little-noticed article that includes a stunning factoid: “More than half a million school-age migrant children have arrived in the U.S. since 2022”. When your property taxes go up, or your kid falls behind, or your local school district struggles to find “English as a second language” (ESL) teachers, you’ll know why.

The Total Figures

Reuters cites to “records collected by Syracuse University”, and usually when the alma mater of Joe Biden and Jim Brown is cited in connection with immigration stats, they were first compiled by the school’s Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

I have gone searching for the actual numbers on the TRAC website, however, and have been unable to find them. That said, the figure Reuters cites is – if anything – a little low.

According to DHS’s Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS), more than 325,000 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) were transferred by CBP to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) between October 2021 (the first month of FY 2022) and the end of June 2024, the vast majority to be released to “sponsors” in the United States.

Between the UACs and the kids in FMUs who have been released, likely somewhere between 700,000 and a million school-aged migrant children have entered illegally in the past three fiscal years.

That figure does not include migrant children in family units (FMUs) who crossed illegally with adults and are now attending school here. Between FY 2022 and August 2024, more than 1.646 million FMU migrants have been apprehended at the Southwest border by Border Patrol agents. CBP, however, does not differentiate between adults and children in its FMU encounter figures.

Between the UACs and the kids in FMUs who have been released, however, likely somewhere between 700,000 and more than 1 million school-aged migrant children have entered illegally in the past three fiscal years.

To put that figure into context, New York City – the nation’s largest school district – had an enrollment in 2019 of just fewer than 985,000 pupils, while number 2 – the Los Angeles Unified School District – had fewer than 634,000 enrolled students that year, according to the Census Bureau.

The half million newcomer students as reported by Reuters would be in third place, well ahead of Chicago (378,199 pupils), if they were all combined in one school district. But of course, they’re not all in one school district; they’re spread all over the country.

The Issues

To understand why that diffuse population of migrant children is an issue, here’s the full quote from Reuters, which can be found in paragraph 4 of that article:

More than half a million school-age migrant children have arrived in the U.S. since 2022, according to immigration court records collected by Syracuse University, exacerbating overcrowding in some classrooms; compounding teacher and budget shortfalls; forcing teachers to grapple with language barriers and inflaming social tensions in places unaccustomed to educating immigrant students.

Education being what it is these days, the Reuters report includes quotes from local teachers and administrators who put the best face on the challenges they face after the outlet polled more than 10,000 school districts – 75 of which, across 23 states, actually responded.

The parents plainly knew that they were breaking the law, but given how little the Biden-Harris administration did to prevent them from coming here illegally, they likely viewed it all as a welcome invitation.

That said, 42 of those districts said that they’d had to hire more ESL teachers, 15 reported issues communicating with parents, 17 asked for more state funding to help cover costs (12 received it, but in one New Jersey school district, “it still wasn’t enough to hire an ESL supervisor”).

Textbooks in native languages, of course, are an issue as is staffing: 49 of the 75 school districts claimed that their teachers were only “partially trained” (31), “not well trained” (8), or not trained at all (2) in meeting the needs of migrant students.

Education is far and away the largest expense for most local governments, accounting for an estimated $800 billion of their costs in 2021, and property taxes are their largest source of income (counties and cities brought in an estimated $800 billion in assessments that year, as well).

Most property tax assessments are done on an annual or multi-year basis, and consequently that’s how school budgets are usually determined, as well. For that reason, most districts were wholly unprepared for the surge in migrant students that they have received.

The Blame

None of this should be viewed as blaming the migrant children themselves cum students. Some – and likely a significant number – of those UACs were nearing the age of 18 when they arrived, but few if any of their younger peers or the children in FMUs made the individual decisions to come here illegally.

Nor, however, can you really put all the blame the parents of those children. They plainly knew that they were breaking the law, but given how little the Biden-Harris administration did to prevent them from coming here illegally, they likely viewed it all as a welcome invitation.

It will take years – and probably hundreds of billions of dollars in federal, state, and local spending – for schools to accommodate the 500,000 to 1 million migrant children who have entered the United States since the start of FY 2022. In the interim, expect your taxes to rise and your local schools (and teachers and pupils) to struggle.

https://cis.org/Arthur/Reuters-500K-SchoolAge-Migrant-Children-Have-Arrived-2022

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How FEMA Got into the Illegal Immigrant Business

In the midst of the last major budget crisis in Washington, Democrats diverted money and the legal authority to put the nation’s disaster relief agency into the business of caring for the millions of illegal immigrants who crossed the border on the Biden-Harris administration’s watch. And now both parties seem to be trying to obfuscate the truth.

White House spokeswoman Karine-Jean Pierre took the lead in trying to suggest it was a "conspiracy theory" to suggest the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was using its resources to aid illegal aliens. Republicans countered with surprise and shock that FEMA had routed $640.9 million in grants to nonprofits aiding immigrants, many of whom have crossed into the U.S. illegally.

But the truth is both parties signed off on a budget deal earlier this year that increased funding for the new mission authorized in 2023 for FEMA, which is now reeling from a double-barreled hurricane crisis that has led to frustration over alleged missteps by the agency as millions of stranded and needy Americans in the Southeast await help.

“FEMA, as well as this whole Biden administration has is here to protect Americans, our citizens, and hurricane Helene has put a tremendous burden on us, but, get this, follow these funds that have been directed at anything but Americans: $110 million in FEMA funds went to the emergency food and shelter program to assist migrants,” Congressman Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show Monday.

Norman partly blamed the broken budget process in Congress for giving funds to FEMA  for immigrants rather than American citizens suffering from a disaster.

“If we don't get back to regular order, John, then there's no hope for ever having a fiscal sanity plan in place,” he said. "They, the Democrats, play us like a drum waiting to the end of the year."

FEMA has disputed the Republican characterizations in recent days that disaster relief money was diverted to fund illegal immigrants, instead pointing out that Congress appropriated funding for the immigrant programs separately during the budget process.

"This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts,” FEMA said in its Hurricane Helene Frequently Asked Questions page.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also denied that FEMA resources were going to illegal migrants at a press conference last week despite her own statements at the podium two years earlier touting the opposite.

“Funding is also available through FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter program to eligible local governments and not-for-profit organizations upon request to support humanitarian relief for migrants,” Jean-Pierre said of FEMA efforts to alleviate the immigration crisis.  

A Democrat-run Congress that year later created the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) was to replace a similar program formerly run by DHS, which was directed to transfer $800 million of its appropriations in 2023 to the emergency management department. Though FEMA is a subagency of DHS, it represented a transfer of the core responsibility for illegal and legal immigrant support to the agency dedicated to disaster relief.

The funding was to stand up the new program which would “support sheltering and related activities provided by non-Federal entities, including facility improvements and construction, in support of relieving overcrowding in short-term holding facilities of U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

By 2024, the program was well established at the agency when Republicans and Democrats alike voted to fund it to the tune of $650 million with the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024—a minibus bill passed by the House and Senate in March, both with significant Republican support, and sent to President Joe Biden’s desk.

Now, Republicans have placed the program under a spotlight after widespread flooding and damage from Hurricane Helene left several southeastern regions devastated and tens of thousands of citizens without basic resources. But, so far, few who originally supported the bill have owned up to their role in passing the budget stopgaps last year funding the very programs being placed under the spotlight.

A group of Senators who did not vote for the funding measure led by James Lankford of Oklahoma, wrote a letter to President Biden last week raising concerns about how FEMA’s immigration responsibilities could be impacting its disaster readiness.

“FEMA’s continued entanglement in DHS’s efforts to respond to the border crisis could impact its readiness and emergency response mission,” a group of Republican lawmakers wrote to Biden last week. “Rather than ensuring FEMA is ready to respond to hurricanes and other emergencies, FEMA has been pulled into a border crisis mission.”

“FEMA’s mission is ‘helping people before, during, and after disasters,’ not helping DHS clean up the impact of your Administration’s reckless border policies,” they added.

The letter was also signed by GOP Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Frustration started growing among conservatives after FEMA announced that it did not have enough funds to get through the remainder of hurricane season and amid allegations that the agency was slowing down or outright obstructing private relief efforts in flood-stricken Appalachia.

“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week. “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said after Mayorkas’ announcement that whistleblowers approached his office after the hurricane and claimed that FEMA misappropriated funds related to disaster relief. The agency vehemently denied those allegations. In a letter last week, Gaetz claimed the whistleblowers told him that FEMA has serious mismanagement issues and used taxpayer funds marked for disaster relief on non-disaster-relief programs that housed and supported illegal immigrants on the country's southern border.

Additionally, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is sponsoring private efforts to deliver aid to hurricane victims, criticized the federal response to Hurricane Helene, claiming that the government was blocking flights trying to bring Starlink internet connection devices and other aid to hurricane victims, after a source told Musk the airspace was shut down.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg disputed these reports and said “no one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights,” Just the News reported.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/how-fema-got-migrant-business-and-who-covering-it?

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Uncontrolled immigration is the hottest topic of our age. And hurling accusations of racism won't change that

Will it ever be possible to have an honest conversation in this country about mass immigration? There are some who would prefer us not to.

On Tuesday the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that in the year to June 2023 the population of the United Kingdom grew by 1 per cent, or 662,400, to 68.2 million people.

This astounding annual increase, the largest since records began, was driven entirely by net migration. In fact, the resident population of the UK fell by 16,300 over this period because there were more deaths than births.

How did our State broadcaster, the BBC, deal with these extraordinary facts? Well, it reported on Tuesday’s BBC1 News at Six that the record rise in population was driven ‘mainly’ by net immigration, although in truth it was exclusively so.

BBC Home Editor Mark Easton gave us the benefit of his thoughts. Whilst acknowledging that the population would have fallen without immigration, he looked forward with foreboding to what will happen if Tory visa rules curb the influx of immigrants.

In other words, what worries Mark isn’t the reality of mass migration but the prospect of the UK population declining if it abates. The implication was that this country needs large numbers of immigrants.

It’s all academic in any case since, despite those tighter visa rules belatedly introduced by the last Tory government, legal immigration seems likely to remain at very high levels – higher than this country experienced before Brexit.
Migrants wave to a smuggler's boat in an attempt to cross the English Channel near Dunkirk, northern France

According to the statistically impeccable Migration Watch – an organisation ignored by the BBC because it opposes mass immigration – annual net migration of 600,000 is projected to lead to an increase in our population of 20 million by the mid to late 2040s. That’s 40 cities the size of Bristol!

Even if growth turned out to be half this amount, the pressure on schools, public services such as hospitals, and housing would be immense. I don’t believe this is what most British people, including immigrants settled here, want.

Then there is social cohesion, already fraying as some immigrant communities fail to assimilate. Just look at the origins of the people coming here (85 per cent from outside the EU) in the 12 months to June 2023.

How can so many people from different societies easily assimilate in a country that is already culturally fragmented?

All these are legal immigrants, encouraged to come here by universities, the NHS, or businesses. The number of illegal immigrants includes, but far surpasses, those who have come across the English Channel in recent years.

A new study at Oxford University reckons that there could be as many as 745,000 illegal immigrants living here, more than one in every 100 people in Britain. By contrast, France and Germany (a more populous country than the UK) are estimated to have 300,000 and 700,000 illegal immigrants respectively.

This Government hasn’t grasped the severity of the situation or the concerns of the majority of people. Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper metronomically repeat their intention to ‘smash the gangs’ – i.e. stop illegal immigration – without producing any measures likely to achieve such an outcome.

Meanwhile, although Starmer says somewhat breezily that legal net migration should come down, he hasn’t come up with a single policy that might give us a shred of confidence that he will manage to achieve that.

This brings me to another dishonesty. No one in this Government ever connects the dire shortage of new housing in this country with immigration levels that are out of control.

Sir Keir Starmer never makes a link. Nor does Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London. Nor does Deputy PM Angela Rayner, who is spearheading Labour’s plan to build 150,000 new homes a year. Labour is stamping on local opposition and denigrates so-called ‘Nimbys’ as it plans to despoil swathes of England with new homes.

This is my question. If the population is gently declining, as those ONS figures suggest, why do we need so many new houses and all the ancillary infrastructure of schools, roads, GP surgeries, pylons and so forth? There is one obvious answer. Mass immigration.

I accept that this isn’t the only cause. If there weren’t a single immigrant entering the country, we would still need more homes. Households are declining in size for a number of reasons. More people are living alone, or as couples, than was the case half a century ago.

Nonetheless, immigration is a major factor in housing demand – responsible for at least 40 per cent of new homes, according to Migration Watch and the Right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies.

Imagine a young person, who may be of a Left-wing persuasion, unable to rent or buy a flat. Because there is a fashionable fatwa against connecting high levels of immigration with the shortage of housing, such a person may blame the capitalist system.

And so the cry goes out from Whitehall: ‘Build more houses!’ But the sensible and honest cry should be: ‘Bring immigration under control’.

Will it ever happen? There are many vested interests dependent on mass immigration – universities; the NHS; businesses craving cheap labour – and it will take a strong and determined government to stand up to them. We don’t have one of those.

Moreover, Labour is largely in thrall to modish metropolitan opinion that still claims it is racist to oppose immigration. Such people have succeeded in keeping a lid on an honest and informed debate for years.

But no longer, I think. Uncontrolled immigration will be the hottest political topic for the next 20 years, as more and more people seek to escape the poverty and lawlessness of their unhappy homelands.

The party that fails to control mass migration is doomed. That almost certainly means Labour. As for the Conservatives, having failed in government will they now fail in opposition?

Of the two remaining candidates to get through, surprisingly, to the final round of the Tory leadership contest – Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch – only the former appears resolutely committed to restricting immigration.

Reform UK could have an opening. For all his many faults, Nigel Farage understands that people have had enough. His challenge, which he has so far just about met, is to oppose mass immigration without sounding racist. His appointment of Zia Yusuf, a Muslim multi-millionaire, as party chairman was shrewd.

Will we ever have an honest debate about immigration? Those who would rather we didn’t will continue to hurl accusations of racism to stifle discussion. But they’ll no longer be able to suppress the biggest issue of our age.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13942059/Uncontrolled-immigration-hottest-topic-age-hurling-accusations-racism-wont-change-that.html

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Kamala Harris skirts questions on ‘historic flood’ of migrants three times, whiffs on economic policy answer in tense ‘60 Minutes’ interview

Kamala Harris whiffed on an attempt to explain how she’d help boost small businesses and repeatedly deflected when asked about the “historic flood” of migrants crossing illegally into the US since she’s been vice president in a  “60 Minutes” interview that aired Monday.

Harris, 59, was unable to describe how her fiscal policies would work in “the real world,” including passing both chambers of what is likely to be a divided Congress, after CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker accused her of being unrealistic.

“My plan is about saying that when you invest in small businesses, you invest in the middle class and you strengthen America’s economy,” Harris told Whitaker during the sit-down.
60 Minutes clip of their Kamala Harris interview 5
A CBS correspondent pressed Vice President Kamala Harris in a “60 Minutes” interview on specifics about her plan to invest in small businesses. CBS

“Small businesses are part of the backbone of America’s economy,” she restated.

“Pardon me, Madam Vice President, the question was, ‘How are you going to pay for it?'” Whitaker interrupted.

“Well, one of the things I’m gonna make sure,” Harris began, blinking repeatedly in apparent surprise at the questioner’s pushback, “that the richest among us — who can afford it — pay their fair share in taxes.”

“It is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations. And I plan on making that fair,” she went on.

“But we’re dealing with the real world here,” Whitaker interjected. “How are you going to get this through Congress?”

“You know, when you talk quietly with a lot of folks in Congress, they know exactly what I’m talking about ’cause their constituents know exactly what I’m talking about,” the vice president said before repeating herself yet again. “Their constituents are those firefighters and teachers and nurses.”

Harris’ economic agenda — which includes increasing the amount in tax deductions offered for startups to $50,000 — is estimated to add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to a nonpartisan analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released Monday, even while raising taxes on corporations, the ultra-wealthy and others to the tune of $4.25 trillion.

Billionaires and other high-income earners also do not pay lower tax rates than teachers, nurses or firefighters, according to analyses by both the US Treasury Department and the Congressional Budget Office.

The top 1% income bracket shoulders 46% of the nation’s tax burden at a current taxation rate of 37%, according to economists.

The average tax rate for teachers, nurses and firefighters based on those occupations’ median income is 22% — but could be as low as 12% for married couples and heads of households.
Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris waves before boarding Air Force Two after assessing the Hurricane Helene recovery response in North Carolina on October 5, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. 5

In an early clip released of the sit-down with CBS’ Bill Whitaker that will air at 8 p.m. Monday, Harris, 59, was unable to explain how her fiscal policies would work in “the real world.” Getty Images

Critics have harped on Harris’ word salads during her time in office, which have earned her comparisons to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ vacuous character Selina Meyer in HBO’s “Veep.”

Often, the vice president resorts to repetition when asked to clarify her positions — most recently in an interview last week with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, when Harris used the word “holistic” three times in 23 seconds.

Harris, who has embraced President Biden’s recent “crackdown” on illegal immigration, sidestepped when asked by Whitaker why the administration didn’t aim to stem illegal border crossings years earlier.

The vice president blamed Congress for not taking up legislation to “actually fix” the border crisis.

https://nypost.com/2024/10/07/us-news/cbs-correspondent-presses-kamala-harris-on-specifics-of-50k-small-business-plan-were-dealing-with-the-real-world/

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Dire immigration warning as overseas arrivals soar in Australia

The Albanese government's immigration targets for the last financial year could be exceeded by as much as 100,000 people.

Corinna Economic Advisory's Saul Eslake forecast the 2023-23 financial year intake would be 495,000 people, 'if not more', reported The Australian.

The government had settled on a net overseas migration (NOM) intake target of 395,000 for the same period, down from 518,000 the previous year.

Abdul Rizvi, former immigration department deputy secretary, estimated the number would be around 450,000 to 475,000 people and added that Australia's robust jobs market was keeping people here and attracting those from overseas.

'Especially people in Europe and China and in Southeast Asia, where the labour market has weakened more quickly than in Australia,' Mr Rizvi said.

'What we had was a higher-than-expected return of Australian citizens, and we also had a higher-than-expected net arrival of Kiwis.'

The government has already revised their numbers twice.

In last year's May budget it forecast the number of foreigners moving to the country would drop to 315,000 in the 12 months to June under new measures it introduced - though this was revised to 375,000 in December and 395,000 earlier this year.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton previously said the influx of new residents vying for places to live was why property prices remain at record highs.

'This is why Australians can't afford to buy a home, it's why the rents have gone through the roof and it's why we find ourselves in a position that we do today with people living without secure accommodation,' he said.

Minister for Employment Affairs Murray Watt said migration had slowed under the government's measures it had introduced progressively over the last two years.

'We recognise that we need to make sure that the numbers of migrants that we have coming to Australia is sustainable, and that's exactly why we've taken a range of actions to bring that number down,' he said.

Mr Eslake said the makeup of migrants coming to Australia was as important as the overall numbers and that the Coalition was correct to call for more construction workers to be allowed in.

Dozens of building companies have collapsed in recent months courtesy of a surge in material and labour costs.

It is one of the reasons the Master Builders Association estimates Australia will not meet a target of 1.2million new homes built over the next five years to ease the housing crisis.

Mr Rizvi said along with the nation's low unemployment rate - 4.1 per cent, compared to 6 per cent in the EU and 5.2 per cent in China - attracting new immigrants, there was also a slower-than-anticipated decline in foreign student numbers.

He also said the conditions for working holiday visa holders had 'not really tightened at all'.

'Arrivals have not declined as they [the government] expected, departures have not increased as they expected.'

Official immigration figures for the 12 months to July will not be released until later this year.

Looking ahead to the target for this financial year of a net overseas migration intake of 260,000 people, Mr Rizvi said it too would likely be well exceeded unless the government quickly introduced more measures.

NOM is the difference between arrivals to Australia and departures from Australia and includes both migrants and Australians.

Migrant arrivals to Australia are counted in NOM if they are in Australia for a total of 12 months or more during a 16-month period.

Temporary visa holders are the largest contributing group to migrant numbers and most temporary visa categories are demand-driven  and not capped.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13934653/Australia-immigration-politics-Albanese.html

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Trump sounds alarm on illegal immigrant murderers: 'A lot of bad genes in our country'

Former President Trump on Monday described illegal immigrant murderers as having "bad genes" and warned that there are "a lot of bad genes in our country" as illegal immigrant crime remains a top issue for voters ahead of the November election.

"How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States," the 2024 Republican presidential nominee told radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Trump appeared to be referring to the more than 13,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S. who are on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s non-detained docket with a conviction for homicide. The data was revealed in a letter to lawmakers last month. Some of those, although it is unclear how many, will be in federal or state prisons, and many came into the U.S. in prior administrations. The data says that, among those not in detention, there are 425,431 convicted criminals on the docket, up from about 405,000 in June 2021 and 368,000 in April 2016.

The data revelation has again fired up the issue of illegal immigrant crime, which has been a top concern for many voters amid a massive border security crisis in which record numbers were seen at the border and a number of high-profile crimes committed allegedly by illegal immigrants.

"You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now," he said.

Trump appeared to be referring only to murderers, but some media outlets quickly pounced on Trump's words and accused him of referring to immigrants more broadly. An NBC News headline described it as the "latest disparagement of migrants" from the former president.

The Washington Post, Politico and other mainstream media outlets also echoed this same narrative. Mediaite described Trump's comment as "chilling" and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, "That type of language is hateful, it's disgusting, it's inappropriate. It has no place in our country."

Trump has promised to take a tougher line on illegal immigration as well as some forms of legal immigration. He has promised to launch a massive deportation campaign if elected. He has also promised to finish the border wall that he started in his first administration and end Biden-era parole programs that have brought hundreds of thousands of migrants into the U.S.

Polls generally show that Trump is leading his Democrat opponent, Vice President Harris, on the issues of immigration and border security. Republicans have said that the Biden administration encouraged and fueled the border crisis by rolling back Trump-era policies and expanding catch-and-release.

Harris has sought to position herself as the candidate better suited to handle border security, pointing to her past as a prosecutor who went after transnational criminal organizations. She has also backed a bipartisan border security bill unveiled this year that would surge funding for the border and also limit some asylum entries.

Harris and the Biden administration have accused Trump of opposing that bill for political purposes, but conservatives have said the bill would only codify high levels of illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, border encounters are down sharply at the border, with a drop of more than 50% since the summer. The administration puts that down in part to an executive order signed by President Biden that limits asylum entries into the U.S. Harris recently supported a move to toughen up that order further.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-sounds-alarm-illegal-immigrant-murderers-bad-genes-in-country

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J.D. Vance is right, unbridled immigration of 8 million since 2021 is causing housing prices to skyrocket. It’s math.

By Robert Romano

“We don't want to blame immigrants for higher housing prices. But we do want to blame Kamala Harris for letting in millions of illegal aliens into this country… which does drive up costs, Tim. Twenty-five million illegal aliens competing with Americans for scarce homes is one of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country. It's why we have massive increases in home prices that have happened right alongside massive increases in illegal alien, alien populations under Kamala Harris's leadership.”

That was Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance at his Oct. 1 debate against Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, outlining that allowing 8.3 million border crossings since 2021 reported by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, most of whom tend to stay, thus requiring housing, increases demand and thus prices for existing homes.

For example, in Fiscal Year 2024, of the 2.75 million southwest border encounters, 1.4 million were Title 8 apprehensions, of which only about 309,000 were subjected to expedited removal, about 109,000 were detained pending proceedings and another 139,000 voluntarily returned, with almost all of the rest given a voluntary “notice to appear” for later immigration proceedings. The rest were just caught and released. In other words, about 2.2 million stayed. Where?

In the nation’s increasingly scarce housing. Now, do that every year, and you wind up with millions more demanding housing, and if production does not keep up—it hasn’t—and prices have only one place to go, up. At the debate, Vance noted “there's a Federal Reserve study that we're happy to share after the debate. We'll put it up on social media. Actually, that really drills down on the connection between increased levels of migration, especially illegal immigration, and higher housing prices.”

True to his word, on Oct. 2, Vance posted on X a speech by Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman from May 3 at the Massachusetts Bankers Association Annual Convention in Key Biscayne, Fla., when she stated, “there is a risk that strong consumer demand for services, increased immigration, and continued labor market tightness could lead to persistently high core services inflation. Given the current low inventory of affordable housing, the inflow of new immigrants to some geographic areas could result in upward pressure on rents, as additional housing supply may take time to materialize.”

Since 2020, the U.S. population has increased by almost 5.7 million to 337 million on a net basis once births, deaths and immigration are factored in, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That means illegal immigration of 8.3 million reported by the Border Patrol — again, most of them stay — more than accounts for the entire overall increase of the population.

Even still, from 2021 to 2024, there have been about 5.8 million housing starts for private homes, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s enough homes for every person, let alone every household — the average size of American households is 2 when households are divided by population level.

So, construction has more than kept up with the growth of the population, although there are regional incongruities. One-third of illegal immigrants live in California and Texas alone, with Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois included accounts for more than half of the inflow, according to Pew Research.

And according to Zillow, about half of the worst housing shortages are in Californian cities alone, while the biggest increases in housing supply were occurring in Austin, Seattle, Orlando, Jacksonville, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Raleigh, Nashville, and Phoenix. Texas builds more homes, and so prices there are less than California.

Overall, since the end of 2020, the U.S. Freddie Mac Home Price Index has increased 37.2 percent. The all transactions house price index by Federal Housing Finance Agency says they’re up 44 percent. And housing in the consumer price index is up 22.7 percent, and overall shelter prices are up 22.8 percent.

It is in that context that Kamala Harris is proposing to build an additional 3 million homes over the next four years, in addition to the current 1.3 million a year already being constructed. Or we could just deport the illegal immigrants, as proposed by former President Donald Trump, and then there is no shortage.

Also, and this is sad to think about, but as Baby Boomers age and pass away — there are 60 million Americans 65 years old and older — the number of available housing units will grow dramatically over the next 15 years. The same thing is happening in Japan, where once there were housing shortages, but because of the aging population, there are surpluses as prices collapse.

Meaning, just as soon as we get done building a bunch of new homes to accommodate all of the immigration, we could see home prices contract as happened in 2007 through 2011. At best, there are temporary shortages that could be almost entirely mitigated by restricting migration. Senator Vance was right.

https://dailytorch.com/2024/10/j-d-vance-is-right-unbridled-immigration-of-8-million-since-2021-is-causing-housing-prices-to-skyrocket-its-math/

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