by Daniel Stefanski | Oct 17, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Former President Donald J. Trump picked up a significant endorsement while campaigning in the Grand Canyon State earlier this week.
On Sunday, President Trump appeared in front of thousands at a rally in Prescott Valley, where he was endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) for his bid for the White House.
At the event, Paul Perez, NBPC’s President, said, “If we allow border czar Harris to win this election, every city, every community in this great country is going to hell. The untold millions of people unvetted, who she has allowed into this country that are committing murders, rapes, robberies, burglaries and every other crime will continue to put our country in peril.”
Perez added, “Only one man can fix that. That is Donald J. Trump. He has always stood with the men and women who protect this border, who put their lives on the line for the country.”
Art Del Cueto, the Vice President of the NBPC, stated, “Zero question as to who should lead this country. The time to save America is NOW!!”
State Senator Janae Shamp, one of the top border hawks of the Arizona Legislature, responded to the announcement, posting, “They know exactly what is at stake and who can fix it! God bless each and everyone of these men and women for standing for all Americans!”
The endorsement from the NBPC was reported as unanimous for the 45th President of the United States.
According to a press release from the Trump-Vance campaign, Trump promised to “hire 10,000 new Border Patrol agents and ask Congress to immediately approve a 10% raise for all agents, and a $10,000 retention and signing bonus.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Dr. Thomas Patterson | Oct 11, 2024 | Opinion
By Dr. Thomas Patterson |
Free-market economist Milton Friedman was hardly anti-immigration. He acknowledged that, pre-1914, immigrants came “for a better life for them and their children. In the main they succeeded,” broadly benefiting their adopted country.
But there was an important caveat. “It is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare.” Immigrants dependent on public benefits don’t boost their host country. They have the effect of “a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level.”
Leftists may not like it, but Friedman was right. We’re about to learn the lesson good and hard.
The tens of millions of “undocumented” immigrants now arriving in America have a much different outlook than immigrants of a century ago. In short, today’s immigrants don’t work that much.
A study of Census data by the Atlanta Federal Reserve reported that while over half of new jobs created in the last two years have gone to illegal immigrants, so many have come that barely half of working age, non-college immigrants are in the labor force. Five of six native Americans 25 through 64 regularly work.
The Border Patrol recorded over 10 million illegal immigrants processed during the Biden years plus countless millions not detected. Yet foreign-born employment increased by only 2.32 million. So, who is supporting the rest? We are.
California is the poster child for dependent illegal immigrants. There they get taxpayer-funded health insurance, food stamps, housing allowances, and myriad other benefits, costing $22.8 billion in state and local taxes alone, according to the pro-immigration Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Yet this for a population that generated just $8.5 billion in income.
Moreover, many of the programs are direct federal subsidies which means we all participate in their funding. Beyond all this is the escalation in spending by NGOs and philanthropic agencies to house, clothe, and feed the millions of “newcomers” being bused around the country, again at our expense.
The increased pressure on the federal budget, which immigration “hawks” warned against not long ago, has already been normalized. The discussion has subtly passed from whether illegal immigrants should be included in public benefits to how this should be accomplished. Deportation, once assumed for those who failed their asylum hearings (which most do), is now regarded as logistically and morally impossible.
It’s no mystery why our welfare system is a worldwide magnet. Average benefits received by working age households have risen from $7,352 in 1967 to $64,700 in 2022, adjusted for inflation. Welfare spending now consumes 72.6 percent of unobligated revenues (an accounting which doesn’t count payroll taxes or mandatory interest payments) while defense spending has fallen by half.
Most Americans don’t realize that official poverty statistics distributed by the Census Bureau don’t count as income. 88% of the transfer payments made to alleviate poverty. As noted by Gramm and Arrington in the Wall Street Journal, “The census doesn’t count refundable tax credits, food stamp debit cards, free medical care through Medicaid or benefits from about 100 other transfer payments as income.”
When these benefits are deemed to be income, 80% of those today who are counted as poor are no longer poor and the bottom three income quintiles in the Census Bureau all have approximately the same spending power.
With the abundance of means-tested transfer payments available, the percentage of working age persons in the bottom quintile who work has fallen from 68% to 38%. For about the same income, 2.4 times as many workers in the second lowest quintile actually work—and on average work 85% more hours than those in the bottom quintile.
Welfare beneficiaries in the main aren’t liars or cheaters. They are making rational decisions in an irrational environment. America is unfortunately a nation deeply in debt, living on anticipated income from the future. We spend money as if we still had it. The kids will figure it out.
The driving motive behind immigration policy is still to permanently alter the political landscape. The ultimate victims may be the migrants themselves, attracted by promises that in the long run can’t be kept.
As Friedman pointed out, we can’t enrich others by impoverishing ourselves. We all just become more poor.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jun 22, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Proving yet again how dangerous the American southern border is for the migrants making the journey, members of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations UH-60 aircrew made two separate rescues of groups of individuals this past weekend.
Earlier this week, CBP announced that five illegal aliens had been rescued in the Peloncillo Mountain range in the Tucson Border Sector on Friday and Saturday. This range is near the Arizona-New Mexico border. On Friday, three migrants were evacuated from the range after they had suffered from heat exhaustion. The responding aircrew was initially flagged by Douglas Station Horse Patrol Agents. On Sunday, two additional individuals were rescued by the aircrew, and the Douglas Horse Patrol Unit assisted seven other migrants to safety.
“Our aircrews are trained and capable of rapidly shifting from operational missions to humanitarian roles,” stated Jessie Scruggs, Director of Air and Marine Operations, Tucson Air Branch. “These two incidents represent what our aircrews are called to assist agents on the ground who encounter the growing number of migrants who become distressed by the unrelentless conditions they are placed in by callous smugglers.”
According to the press release from CBP, enforcement actions from CBP’s Air and Marine Operations during Fiscal Year 2023 “resulted in 1,004 arrests and 89,909 apprehensions of undocumented individuals, as well as the seizure or disruption of 256,883 pounds of cocaine, 2,049 pounds of fentanyl, 4,050 pounds of methamphetamine, 2,200 weapons, and $15.3 million.”
There are approximately 1,800 federal agents and mission support personnel who serve in CBP’s Air and Marine Operations.
Illegal aliens making their way to the United States encounter many dangers along the way, including from the extreme climates along the southern border and the abuse from the cartels and smugglers who profit from their travels. Very vulnerable children are also subject to these journeys – several of whom are forced back and forth across the border to help adult migrants exploit loopholes in U.S. immigration policies.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Mar 5, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanksi |
The Tucson Border Sector continues to be one of the nation’s most active crossing zones as the weather shifts to a more favorable climate for migrants journeying to the United States.
On March 1, John R. Modlin, the Chief Patrol Agent of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, posted that there had been 11,800 apprehensions of illegal aliens in his region over the past week. He also noted that there were 195 federal criminal cases, 28 human smuggling cases, and 4 significant arrests during that time period.
This follows a similar report from Chief Modlin at the end of February, when he shared that there were 12,200 apprehensions over a week’s time.
Chief Modlin also revealed that Border Patrol agents had “detected, tracked, and apprehended 16 migrants dressed in camouflage in a remote area near Douglas, AZ.” This was a reminder to onlookers that, while many of the reported apprehensions are illegal aliens who essentially wait for Border Patrol to process them, there are many others who are attempting to make their way around law enforcement and into the heart of the country.
On Saturday, Fox News reporter Bill Melugin wrote that “numbers [are] slowly ticking back up at the southern border moving into March.” He added information from his sources at CBP that “there were just over 7,000 migrant encounters [Friday] led by Tucson sector with 1,800+ apprehensions.”
Although Chief Modlin provides regular updates on generic numbers at the border, including criminals and other dangerous individuals who are caught by law enforcement, much is still unknown to officials about the identities of many of the people who are apprehended. NewsNation National Correspondent Ali Bradley recently posted that the United States government does not “have access to most criminal databases – nearly 170 nationalities have been encountered at the border but if the host nation doesn’t alert the U.S. the reality is, we likely won’t know if they have any history.”
Bradley added a reminder from former Yuma Border Patrol Chief Chris Clem, who recently said, “If the fingerprints come back with no record matches, if the pictures come back with no record matches, then we’re having to do this based on what they tell us…Border Patrol agents are in the people business. So, we can kind of oftentimes smell a rat. But it’s one of those things where there is an opportunity for somebody to get through that shouldn’t.”
Arizona legislative Republicans have been hard at work this session – just as they were last year – to come up with solutions to help combat the crisis at the border and the security and humanitarian issues that are growing for communities across the state. However, most – if not all, of the Republicans’ proposals will be vetoed by Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs, who, although expressing interest in solving the issue and pointing blame at federal officials, has not been willing to sign legislation that would help the state and local law enforcement gain any more control over this very serious situation.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Daniel Stefanski | Feb 28, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Smugglers continue to exploit the crisis at America’s southern border.
Earlier this month, the Chief Patrol Agent of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, John R. Modlin, reported that members of his team had discovered the existence of two cloned Border Patrol vehicles in the field. He revealed that both vehicles were “intercepted by Three Points Station agents,” and he applauded “our vigilant agents for their unwavering dedication.”
Chief Modlin’s post followed one from Jason Owens, the 26th Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, who had disclosed that one of the vehicles was involved in “a human smuggling event.” Chief Owens stated that “one agent was assaulted during the arrest of the USC driver & 11 undocumented subjects,” and that “criminal prosecution for the assault is being pursued.”
The “X” account for the Arizona Trooper’s FOP Lodge 32 weighed in on the news, writing, “The cartels are cloning Border Patrol vehicles AND assaulting Border Patrol Agents. This is beyond partisan talking points and virtue signaling. This is full blown anarchy and it has to stop.”
Arizona State Senator Janae Shamp took notice of the announcement. She posted, “Every state is a border state.”
The crisis at the border continues to overwhelm Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement, as cartels and smugglers exploit the lawlessness for their benefit. The Tucson Border Sector, where the cloned vehicles were found, has been the epicenter of the border crisis, leading the nation in border apprehensions month after month.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
