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DHS: 110 Percent Surge in Migrant Men Using Kids to Enter US, ‘Rampant Fraud’ “Educated on a legal loophole that lets migrant ‘families’ with kids enter the United States, the Homeland Security Department reported Tuesday that men showing up with kids at the border has spiked 110 percent in just the last two years,” Paul Bedard reports in the Washington Examiner. “The department noted that children could be used by smugglers and drug traffickers to enter the country. Families are also using fraud to game the immigration system. The department said that 170 families have been caught lying about their relationships to enter the U.S.” “This data does not show nor does DHS assert that all minors apprehended as part of a family unit are illegitimate, but it does indicate that there is a significant problem that provides DHS the needed authority to protect the best interests and welfare of all children,” said the department.The statement was aimed at news reporting that has suggested the Trump administration is tear gassing and rejecting families. In response to the misreporting from multiple outlets, I wanted to highlight the rampant fraud taking place at our Southern border. Aliens know that if they bring ANY minor with them they will be apprehended by Border Patrol and released into the interior of the United States. This is a direct result of the Clinton-era Flores Settlement decree that has created a massive loophole which allows alien family units to illegally cross the border and enter the United States after a short detention. This well-known loophole acts a magnet for family units and entices smugglers to use children as a way to gain access to the United States by posing a family unit. Word has gotten out. Over the last two years, we have seen a 110 percent increase in male adults showing up at the border with minors. Further from April 19, 2018 to September 30, 2018, 507 aliens were encountered as a family unit and were separated as they were not a legitimate family unit,Spokeswoman Katie Waldman said. She also supplied some numbers to back up the fraud charges: 87 family units separated based on child determined to be over 18. 165 adults and 6 individuals that had initially claimed to be minors but were later discovered to be adults. 170 family units separated based on no family relation. Overall, the Rio Grande Valley had the highest number of reported fraudulent cases (170).

Debunking 3 Myths About Trump Border Enforcement “The mainstream media and Democrats have criticized the Trump administration’s response to the migrant caravans storming the nation’s southern border. However, many of the critiques either don’t provide full context or are factually incorrect,” Fred Lucas writes in The Daily Signal. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen explained that historically, less than 10 percent of those claiming asylum from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are found eligible. “Most of these migrants are seeking jobs or to join family who are already in the U.S.” Here are three narratives that the Department of Homeland Security is pushing back against: 1. Separating Myth From Fact on Child Separation The long-running narrative has been that Border Patrol officials are separating children from parents. However, that doesn’t take into account fraudulent families, DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman noted in a statement. From April 19 to Sept. 30, the government separated a total of 507 illegal immigrants within “family units” that weren’t legitimate, meaning the adults were not parents or guardians of the children, Waldman said. A total of 170 family units were separated based on lack of family relation, she said, including 197 adults and 139 juveniles.  Another 87 family units, including 171 adults, were separated based on a child determined to be over 18. The Rio Grande Valley in Texas had the highest number of reported fraudulent cases. “In response to the misreporting from multiple outlets, I wanted to highlight the rampant fraud taking place at our Southern border,” Waldman said in the statement. “Aliens know that if they bring any minor with them, they will be apprehended by Border Patrol and released into the interior of the United States.” She clarified, however, that the department isn’t claiming all cases are fraudulent. “This data does not show, nor does DHS assert, that all minors apprehended as part of a family unit are illegitimate, but it does indicate that there is a significant problem that provides DHS the needed authority to protect the best interests and welfare of all children,” Waldman said. The separation policy was based on a culmination of court decisions and legislation since the 1990s. In 1997, the Clinton administration entered into something called the Flores Settlement Agreement, which ended a class-action lawsuit first brought in the 1980s. The settlement established a policy that the federal government would release unaccompanied minors from custody to their parents, relatives, or other caretakers after no more than 20 days, or, alternatively, determine the “least restrictive” setting for the child. In a separate development, in 2008, a Democrat-controlled Congress approved bipartisan legislation to combat human trafficking, and President George W. Bush, a Republican, signed it into law. Section 235(g) of that law, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, states that unaccompanied minors entering the United States must be transferred to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, rather than to the Department of Homeland Security. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit expanded the Flores settlement in 2016 to include children brought to the country illegally by their parents. 2. Tear-Gassing Children The caravan still moving toward the U.S.-Mexico border includes 8,500 migrants, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Media outlets and Democratic politicians seized on children being among the migrants bearing the brunt of tear gas deployed Sunday along the California border, when hundreds of the migrants rushed the border. A migrant family, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America en route to the United States, runs away from tear gas in front of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Tijuana, Mexico. (?: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters) pic.twitter.com/pz7hkxsN9g — NBC News (@NBCNews) November 25, 2018 Ben Rhodes, a one-time national security adviser to then-President Barack Obama, pounced. It’s wrong to gas women and children and the elderly. That shouldn’t be a partisan view, nor should that be uncomfortable to “the men and women in duty” https://t.co/PBHRE5utCT — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) November 26, 2018 However, the Obama administration used tear gas at the border on a monthly basis, The Washington Times reported. Also, the Obama administration used pepper spray when a far smaller contingent of only 100 immigrants charged the border in 2013, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement Monday that the current violent rush on the border eclipsed prior problems. “First, the violence we saw at the border was entirely predictable. This caravan, unlike previous caravans, had already entered #Mexico violently and attacked border police in two other countries,” the secretary said in a Facebook post. “I refuse to believe that anyone honestly maintains that attacking law enforcement with rocks and projectiles is acceptable. It is shocking that I have to explain this, but officers can be seriously or fatally injured in such attacks. Self-defense isn’t debatable for most law-abiding Americans.” She added: “[T]he caravan is far larger and more organized than previous ones. There are 8,500 caravan members in Tijuana and Mexicali. There are reports of additional caravans on their way.” 3. Not Legal Asylum-Seekers Critics of the Trump administration contend the migrants have a legal right to seek asylum in the United States. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., tweeted: Let me repeat myself in case you didn’t hear or read the US legal code. @realDonaldTrump: Seeking asylum is LEGAL. Migrants at our border are looking for help. Yet, instead of greeting them w understanding, you deploy tear gas. Shameful & disgusting. https://t.co/RzEFJDqqzh — Carolyn B. Maloney (@RepMaloney) November 26, 2018 However, Nielsen pushed back, noting that many of the migrants in the caravan do not legally qualify for asylum. Meanwhile, most are not women and children. The homeland security secretary wrote: Historically, less than 10% of those who claim asylum from #Guatemala, #Honduras, and #ElSalvador are found eligible by a federal judge. 90% are not eligible. Most of these migrants are seeking jobs or to join family who are already in the U.S. They have all refused multiple opportunities to seek protection in Mexico or with the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. She also said “the caravan members are predominantly male.” “It appears in some cases that the limited number of women and children in the caravan are being used by the organizers as ‘human shields’ when they confront law enforcement,” Nielsen wrote. “They are being put at risk by the caravan organizers, as we saw at the Mexico-Guatemala border. This is putting vulnerable people in harm’s way,” Nielsen said. This story was corrected to note that the Obama administration used pepper spray at the border in a 2013 incident.

Ivanka Trump praises the ‘laboratories of innovation’ like Idaho during school visit In the Idaho Statesman, Cynthia Sewell writes that students at Wilder Elementary School were greeted yesterday by two special guests: Apple CEO Tim Cook and Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump. The two guests “embarked on a nearly hourlong tour of the school, visiting classrooms and watching students demonstrate their technological skills on the handheld devices Apple provided the school district nearly three years ago,” Sewell reports.Trump and Cook were visiting Wilder schools Tuesday to examine the district’s use of technology. The stop in Idaho is the latest in a series of tours by Trump as part of her work with the National Council for the American Worker, the Statesman reported earlier. “In the past year I have visited 20 states across the country … these are states that are often called the laboratories of innovation,” Trump said during her visit. “You come into districts where you have superintendents like [Wilder] Superintendent [Jeff] Dillon who is so deeply passionate about bringing innovation and making a system that works for his or her students.” Cook gestured around the classroom: “You notice in this classroom there is no teacher, there is a mentor. It makes the learning process for students very different because in a classroom where there is a mentor, people can move at different rates. This is life. We all learn things at different rates.” Instead of a teacher standing before the entire class and lecturing, the students at Wilder hold the classroom in their hands and complete the work at their own pace. “What that allows is you can push the person who learns faster onto building the next skill and the person who needs a little more help can get a little more help,” Cook explained. “This school and the leadership in this school are doing just an incredible job of bringing that to life.” Trump agreed. “This is what is so exciting, the harnessing of technology in conjunction with incredible educators to create this type of really personalized learning experience … [to] prepare students for a world where digital literacy is absolutely critical but at the same time enable them to move at their own speed.”

Trump sanctions top Nicaraguan officials “The Trump administration on Wednesday announced new sanctions against the vice president of Nicaragua and a top national security adviser to President Daniel Ortega. The sanctions were imposed through an executive order signed by President Trump Tuesday and follow similar escalations against officials from Cuba and Venezuela, National security adviser John Bolton labeled the three Latin American countries the “troika of tyranny” in a speech earlier this month and warned of increasing sanctions against their government officials.” Rafael Bernal reports for The Hill. A senior administration official called Vice President Rosario Maria Murillo de Ortega, who is also the first lady, “the de facto co-president of Nicaragua since 2007.” Nestor Moncada Lau, the other official targeted by sanctions, is known as Ortega’s right-hand man. Administration officials said Moncada was directly involved in covering up sexual misconduct with a minor committed by the Nicaraguan president. Both Murillo and Moncada have a long rap sheet of corruption and human rights violations, according to a statement by the Treasury Department, including acts of violent intimidation against political opponents. Under the sanctions, all property owned by Murillo or Moncada under U.S. jurisdiction will be blocked and U.S. persons will be prohibited from conducting business with the two Nicaraguan officials. “This Administration is committed to holding the Ortega regime accountable for the violent protests and widespread corruption that have led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent Nicaraguans and destroyed their economy,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. in a statement. “Treasury is intent on ensuring that Ortega Regime insiders are not able to access the U.S. financial system to profit at the expense of the Nicaraguan people.” Ortega’s government has been accused of suppressing dissent with violence. More than 400 people have been killed for protesting the regime since April, according to the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights. A senior administration official said the sanctions are a “first step” and a message to Ortega and his allies to “find an exit strategy” and call for free and fair elections. The impact will be felt by Murillo and Moncada, according to senior administration officials, particularly as Nicaragua’s economy is dollarized. Officials refused to comment on the dollar amount of assets that could immediately fall under the sanctions.

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