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Saturday, August 26, 2017

Of Course Border Walls Work


DHS: Arizona Proves ‘Border Walls Work’


J. Moore/Getty
by JOHN BINDER24 Aug 2017Washington, D.C.602

In an op-ed for USA Today, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Acting Secretary Elaine Duke said that despite pushback from the political establishment, the state of Arizona proves “border walls work.”

Duke became Acting Secretary of DHS after Gen. John Kelly was reassigned the title of President Trump’s Chief of Staff. Just before Trump spoke in Phoenix, Arizona, about immigration, Duke penned the op-ed, where she touted the ‘Secure Fence Act of 2006.’ In that legislation, Arizona’s Yuma Sector was one of the first border regions to see new infrastructure:
The bipartisan Secure Fence Act of 2006 — supported by then-Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and others — mandated the construction of hundreds of additional miles of secure fencing and infrastructure investments. Yuma sector was one of the first areas to receive infrastructure investments.
We built new infrastructure along the border east and west of the San Luis Arizona Port of Entry in 2006. The existing fence was quickly lengthened, and we added second and third layers to that fencing in urban areas. Lighting, roads and increased surveillance were added to aid agents patrolling the border.
Although there is still work to do, the border in Yuma sector today is more secure because of this investment. Even under lax enforcement standards, apprehensions in fiscal year 2016 were roughly a 10th of what they were in FY 2005 — and are on track to be even lower this year. Crime has significantly decreased in the Yuma area, and smugglers now look for other less difficult areas of the border to cross — often areas without fencing.
Duke, though, did not just comment on the effectiveness of a border wall, but also noted extensively how “open borders policies” have been a detriment to American communities that have been torn apart by a never-ending flow of gang warfare, drugs and sex crimes:
Aware of these lax enforcement policies, tens of thousands of aliens attempted to the cross the border illegally every month. Last October alone, more than 66,000 people were apprehended after entering illegally — and that 66,000 is just the number of individuals we actually found; it does not include those who evaded detection.
The culture of pardons, permisos and lax enforcement also encouraged dangerous behavior by individuals looking to come to the United States. It meant that parents were willing to risk subjecting their children to sexual abuse and neglect at the hands of smugglers (also known as coyotes). It meant that — in a single year — hundreds of thousands risked their lives. In FY 2016, Customs and Border Protection saved nearly 4,000 near-death individuals who found themselves lost in the desert. This is in addition to the tremendous number of immigrants who are robbed, raped and brutalized along the human smugglers’ dark networks.
Under Trump, Duke says the days of open borders policies are over, citing the need to move forward with a border wall, as it has proved effective in Arizona. Duke also pleaded with Republicans and Democrats to fund Trump’s border wall.
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“Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle should come together like they did 10 years ago and give the men and women of DHS the resources we need to defend our homeland,” Duke said. “This starts with fully funding the construction of a wall along our Southern border.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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Someone Should Not Go To Jail For Following The Law.

Trump Pardons Joe Arpaio, Who Became Face of Crackdown on Illegal Immigration

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and MAGGIE HABERMAN
Joe Arpaio served for 24 years as sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., building a national reputation for harsh conditions in his county jail, and for his campaign against undocumented immigrants.Courtney Pedroza for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff whose aggressive efforts to hunt down and detain undocumented immigrants made him a national symbol of the divisive politics of immigration and earned him a criminal contempt conviction.
In a two-paragraph statement, the White House said that Mr. Arpaio gave “years of admirable service to our nation” and called him a “worthy candidate for a presidential pardon.”
Mr. Trump called Mr. Arpaio “an American patriot” in a tweet later Friday. “He kept Arizona safe!” the president said.
In his own tweets, Mr. Arpaio thanked Mr. Trump and called his conviction “a political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama justice department.” He also pointed his supporters to a website that was accepting donations to help him pay off his legal fees.
Mr. Trump, who made cracking down on illegal immigration a signature campaign issue and had pressed for local officials to do more to assist federal authorities in rounding up undocumented people, had been openly flirting with the idea of pardoning Mr. Arpaio.
“I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy,” the president said Tuesday night at a campaign-style rally in Phoenix, after asking, “Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?”
“I’ll make a prediction: I think he’s going to be just fine,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Arpaio, 85, served for 24 years as sheriff of Maricopa County — which includes Phoenix — building a national reputation for harsh conditions in his county jail, and for his campaign against undocumented immigrants.
Mr. Arpaio had touted himself as “America’s toughest sheriff,” making inmates wear pink underwear and serving jail food that at least some prisoners called inedible. He was also at the forefront of the so-called birther movement that aimed to investigate President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
The criminal conviction grew out of a lawsuit filed a decade ago charging that the sheriff’s office regularly violated the rights of Latinos, stopping people based on racial profiling, detaining them based solely on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally and turning them over to the immigration authorities.
A federal district judge hearing the case ordered Mr. Arpaio in 2011 to stop detaining people based solely on suspicion of their immigration status, when there was no evidence that a state law had been broken. But the sheriff insisted that his tactics were legal and that he would continue employing them.
He was convicted last month of criminal contempt of court for defying the order, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.
The pardon was swiftly condemned on Twitter by Democrats in Congress as “outrageous and completely unacceptable” and a “disgrace.”
Its timing also raised eyebrows, coming on the eve of Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, barreling down on coastal Texas. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, accused Mr. Trump of “using the cover of the storm” to pardon Mr. Arpaio and to issue a formal ban on transgender people from joining the military. (The ban also gives the secretary of defense wide latitude to decide whether currently serving transgender troops should remain in the military.)
“The only reason to do these right now is to use the cover of Hurricane Harvey to avoid scrutiny,” Mr. Schumer said in a series of tweets late Friday. “So sad, so weak.”
Mr. Trump’s supporters hailed the pardon as a sign the president was keeping his word on his campaign pledge to crack down on illegal immigration.
Kelli Ward, a former Arizona state senator who is challenging Senator Jeff Flake in a Republican primary for his seat in 2018, called Mr. Arpaio “a patriot who did the job the Feds refused to do.” Mr. Trump has endorsed Ms. Ward’s candidacy.
Meanwhile, Senator John McCain, also an Arizona Republican, denounced the pardon of Mr. Arpaio.
“No one is above the law,” he said, “and the individuals entrusted with the privilege of being sworn law officers should always seek to be beyond reproach in their commitment to fairly enforcing the laws they swore to uphold.”
The discussion about pardoning Mr. Arpaio had begun weeks ago, while Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, was still in the administration, according to two people briefed on the matter.
But the decision to make the announcement during a national news blackout related to the impending hurricane was not accidental. Some in the Trump administration had cautioned against it as too controversial, and had urged waiting, if it were going to be done.
Mr. Bannon had favored the move, as had Mr. Trump’s policy adviser, Stephen Miller, a former adviser to Jeff Sessions, the attorney general and a former senator for whom Mr. Miller served as press secretary.
Mr. Sessions and Mr. Miller share a hard-line view on curtailing immigration levels, and Mr. Arpaio had become a national avatar for Mr. Trump, who had a good relationship with the sheriff during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Trump had once told Mr. Arpaio that he would try to help him if he could down the road.
But that was before Mr. Trump was closing in on Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. Still, he was fond of Mr. Arpaio, and was sold on the pardon as a way of pleasing his political base. Additionally, Mr. Miller fought hard for the pardon, according to a senior administration official.
Julie Hirschfeld Davis reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.
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