Five Arizona House Democrats who have repeatedly denied that there is a crisis at the border have asked acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan to help with the flood of immigrants at the southern border by appointing a “federal crisis coordinator.”
In a Monday letter to McAleenan, the Democrats suggested that the Trump administration’s border security policies were setting up “a range of other catastrophic issues,” according to The Hill.
Arizona Democratic Reps. Ruben Gallego, Raúl Grijalva, Ann Kirkpatrick, Greg Stanton and Tom O’Halleran wrote that the administration’s measures to use Defense Department funds, build a wall, cut aid to Central America and threaten to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border “will create a range of other catastrophic issues and fail to address this humanitarian crisis in any way.” –The Hill
“This humanitarian crisis requires a humanitarian response,” reads the letter. “To that end, we believe that you should immediately increase communication and coordination among federal, state, local, and tribal governments as well as non-governmental stakeholders to promote the well-being and safety of migrant families, process asylum claims quicker, efficiently use federal and non-federal resources, and ensure that DHS [Department of Homeland Security] can meet its national security mission.”
On April 16, the city of Yuma, AZ declared an emergency over the influex of migrants, however according to the Arizona Mirror the town has yet to receive meaningful funding from state or federal agencies.
Wait, what border crisis?
Many of the same Democrats who signed the letter have repeatedly denied that there is a crisis at the border, only to eventually call it a “humanitarian crisis” created by President Trump.
Making Nogales look like a war zone doesn’t mean there is a crisis at the border.
To say it louder for the people in the back: the only crisis at the border is the one created by the Trump Administration’s policies. This wire needs to go. https://t.co/op5KevMHUs
— Raul M. Grijalva (@RepRaulGrijalva) February 7, 2019
Forcing Nogales to serve as a photo opp for the President’s manufactured crisis is completely ridiculous. I stand with the City of Nogales and their resolution condemning the concertina wire at the border. I sent a letter to DHS and DOD demanding that this wire come down. pic.twitter.com/aWPLADPtJx
— Raul M. Grijalva (@RepRaulGrijalva) February 8, 2019
Last August, Gallego encouraged US government officials to disobey orders from the sitting president in response to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
If you are a US government official and you are deporting Americans be warned. When the worm turns you will not be safe because you were just following orders. You do not have to take part in illegal acts ordered by this President’s administration. https://t.co/BLq48HRkbH
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) August 30, 2018
Last month, Rep. Kirkpatrick – one of the Arizona Democrats asking DHS to appoint a crisis coordinator – said: “a border wall doesn’t solve anything.”
.@realdonaldtrump should listen to the Congressmembers who actually represent border communities. Our districts and our country reap huge economic benefits when we address the real issues that affect our border—a border wall doesn’t solve anything. https://t.co/ajploRpxLz
— Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (@RepKirkpatrick) April 5, 2019
Except that walls work…
In 2013, Israel completed a 143-mile fence with Egypt that cost around $2.9 million per mile – which resulted in a 99% decrease in illegal immigration that even Politifact deemed true.
President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea 🇮🇱🇺🇸
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 28, 2017
Meanwhile, “Bulgaria erected a barrier on its Turkish perimeter in 2013. That year’s 11,000 illegal crossings dropped to 4,000 in 2014 — down 63.6 percent,” according to National Review, which adds “Just as British Gibraltar dangles from Spain’s underside, Spanish Ceuta and Melilla surf atop Morocco. Multiple fences and barriers there sliced 2014’s 2,100 arrests at the Spanish-territorial/Moroccan frontier to 2015’s 100 — down 95.2 percent.”
Back in the US, the Border Patrol reported a 93.7% decrease in San Diego county border crossings between 1992, when a border wall was installed, and 2017. The apprehension rate dropped from around 560,000 to 26,086.
And as the National Review noted in January:
• A barrier between the Tucson, Ariz., sector and Nogales, Mexico, was erected in 2000. That year’s 616,346 arrests plunged to 38,657 in FY 2017 — down 93.7 percent.
• A fence installed at the border between Yuma, Arizona, and Los Algondones, Mexico brought apprehensions from 138,438 in FY 2005 to 12,847 in FY 2017 — down 90.7 percent.
“Crime has significantly decreased in the Yuma area,” then–acting homeland security secretary Elaine Duke wrote in USA Today in August 2017, “and smugglers now look for other less difficult areas of the border to cross — often areas without fencing.”
• A 150-mile barrier between Israel and southern Egypt cut the number of illegal-alien entrants from 17,000 in 2011 to 43 in 2013, after the fence’s completion, Israel’s Ministry of the Interior states — down 99.7 percent.
And now, Arizona Democrats who mocked the notion of a border crisis, then called it Trump’s ‘manufactured humanitarian crisis,’ are now asking his administration for help – with the southern border.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Lqy2OZ Tyler Durden