Washington Post Exposes the GOP’s “Secure the Border First” Mantra as Fact-Free A new front-page story in the Washington Post by Jerry Markon finds that “illegal immigration flows have fallen to their lowest level in at least two decades.” It quotes Gil Kerlikowske, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection as saying...
Continue
»
From The Atlantic comes a disturbing account of U.S. Border Patrol agents tasing and throwing an unarmed U.S. citizen to the ground in Ogdensburg, New York. We hear a lot of disturbing stories about the Border Patrol on the southern border, but this one happened on the northern border....
Continue
»
Vox’s Dara Lind highlights an alarming divide between the Obama Administration’s immigration enforcement priorities and the Border Patrol agents tasked with carrying out those policies on the ground. While President Obama’s November 2014 expanded DACA and DAPA programs are currently on hold following a judge’s ruling, the Obama Administration’s...
Continue
»
House Republican leaders appear to be riding an immigration seesaw. One minute they’re attaching extreme amendments to the DHS appropriations bill to placate the Steve King wing of their conference, the next minute they’re readying a “Plan B” in case those provisions get rejected by the Senate. Here’s POLITICO on...
Continue
»
The Department of Homeland Security has definitively said that “the suggestion that individuals who have ties to ISIL have been apprehended at the Southwest border is categorically false, and not supported by any credible intelligence or the facts on the ground,” but it’s election season, which means that GOP...
Continue
»
An important editorial at the Washington Post highlights the steps that the Border Patrol is slowly taking to reform its operations, which have come under scrutiny for use of excessive force. This is important, and necessary, considering that Border Patrol has made headlines for shooting at kids who throw rocks and stepping...
Continue
»
The Washington Post today covers the story of James Tomsheck, Customs and Border Patrol’s former head of internal affairs, who has pretty explosive things to say about CBP’s culture and practices. At least a quarter of the 28 fatalities perpetrated by CBP agents since 2010 are “highly suspect,” he says, and...
Continue
»
One response to the appearance of children fleeing violence has been the reemergence of the Minutemen, aka the militia-style armed groups which take it upon themselves to patrol the border, which largely disappeared a few years ago after a number of incredibly unsavory events. The thing about the Minutemen groups...
Continue
»
For weeks, anti-immigrant conservatives have been trying to use the story of children fleeing violence to claim that the border is not secure — an absurd claim considering that the children coming to the border typically seek out Border Patrol and turn themselves in. In the clip below, Sean...
Continue
»
A disturbing article today from the New York Times reveals that the vast majority of complaints against Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) abuses are simply ignored. As the article begins: On Feb. 16, 2010, a Mexican teenager caught trying to cross into the United States near Douglas, Ariz., filed a formal complaint...
Continue
»
