ExclusiveWhat's The Untold Border Deal With Mexico? #frontpageshow #frontpageexclusive

Hello all you freedom-loving people. Welcome to another episode of Front Page. I'm your host, Scott Cameron Goulet. Illegal immigrants are flooding the southern border of the United States. The number of people crossing the border illegally far exceeds the ability of border officials to handle the situation. This sometimes leads to the temporary closure of border crossings. Recently, House Republicans pushed for the impeachment of the Biden administration's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the southern border crisis. But they lost the vote on February 6th, when some of their own four Republicans did not support the impeachment. So what does this impeachment fiasco mean? And what is the root cause of the border crisis? Okay, let's get into it. In the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, near the Mexican border, there is an unassuming municipal park called Shelby Park. Shelby Park has now become a national focal point. Under the direction of the Biden administration, the 47-acre Shelby Park was used as a staging area for border patrol agents to deal with the thousands of illegal immigrants who crossed the Rio Grande last December. But the Texas National Guard took control of the park on January 10th, and they set up a chain-link fence at the entrance to prevent federal border patrol from entering. Decades ago, the typical illegal immigrant was a Mexican man who came to the U.S. in search of work. They were always trying to avoid U.S. border patrol officers as they crossed the border illegally into the United States. This dynamic has changed dramatically in recent years. Not only are illegal immigrants now coming from more distant countries, but they also voluntarily approach U.S. border patrol agents after crossing the border illegally in an attempt to seek asylum in the United States. Rene Cordova, who was a DPS staff sergeant and a public information officer, said that the presence of the border patrol attracts illegal immigrants who look to the green uniforms to help them. However, once word gets out among illegal immigrants that the border patrol is absent, then crossing attempts slow to a trickle. The Biden administration had renewed its demand that Texas allow border patrol agents full access to Shelby Park by January 26th, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott is standing his ground. Governor Abbott recently said that the federal government had broken its compact with the state by allowing more than six million illegal immigrants to cross the southern border in the past three years. Abbott blamed Joe Biden for failing to protect Texas and other states from the invasion. Illegal immigrants are flooding the southern border of the U.S. The number of people crossing the border illegally far exceeds the ability of border officials to handle the situation. This sometimes leads to the temporary closure of border crossings. Republicans are blaming it all on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and his neglect of duty. And because of that, he needs to step down. Republicans say that Mayorkas is not detaining enough illegal immigrants while implementing a humanitarian parole program. The program was designed to bypass Congress and to violate immigration law by allowing in people who would otherwise be ineligible to enter the United States. Republicans also accuse Mayorkas of lying to Congress about border security. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said on February 6th that there was nothing else for Congress to do but the impeachment measure. He said, it is an extreme measure, but extreme times call for extreme measure. The House vote on February 6th was a dramatic one. The preliminary results tied 215 to 215 within minutes of voting. At that point, several Republican lawmakers surrounded Mike Gallagher, one of the Wisconsin Republicans who had voted against the motion and persuaded him to switch his vote to yes, but Gallagher refused to do so. With the vote count deadlocked, Democratic legislators loudly asked the Speaker to bang the gavel to end the vote. Finally, three Republicans opposed the impeachment. The other two Republicans who opposed impeachment were Representative Ken Buck of Colorado and Representative Tom McClintock of California. A fourth Republican, Representative Blake Moore of Utah, cited a point of order in changing his vote from yes to no. This way, he could later reconsider the impeachment of Mayorkas. The final vote was 214 to 216. It was one vote short of passing the impeachment resolution. Even if Mayorkas was eventually impeached by the House of Representatives, the impeachment would still need to be brought before the Senate for trial, but the threshold for conviction in the Senate is much higher than for impeachment in the House. The House only needs a simple majority to pass the impeachment, while the Senate requires an absolute two-thirds majority to convict. This means that with the Democrats controlling the Senate, 51 to 49, a conviction and impeachment of Mayorkas is highly unlikely. Mayorkas and his supporters often say that what draws immigrants to the U.S. southern border is not a government action. Rather, it's part of a global migration phenomenon that is driven by political, economic, and climate endeavors. This makes those people more willing to make life-threatening journeys in search of a better life. But the number of migrants who are apprehended at the southwestern border fell by more than 50 percent in January, compared with a record report in December. Is this because the climate is no longer extreme, or is the global political environment safer? Neither. This is because there was a meeting between the president of Mexico and two members of the Biden administration's cabinet. Subsequently, actions that were taken by the Mexican government resulted in a reduction of more than 125 migrant arrests in January. Late in December, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas traveled to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Obrador. The Mexican president hinted to the U.S. delegation that he would reduce migrant crossings into the U.S. if Biden provided more aid to Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. In a joint communique following the December meeting, the White House stated that the two countries reaffirmed the strengthening of their partnership to address the root cause of migration, as well as initiatives for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. The ongoing cooperation also includes increased efforts to combat human smuggling, trafficking, and criminal networks, as well as continued efforts to promote legal, as opposed to irregular, migration paths. Shortly after the meeting, pursuant to an undisclosed agreement between Mexico and the United States, Mexican immigration and law enforcement officials began actions to round up migrants along the country's northern border and to transport them back to Mexico. Mexican law enforcement authorities also removed migrants from trains that were headed from central Mexico to its northern border. The efforts in Mexico appear to have dramatically impacted border crossings, particularly into Texas. By early February, the flow of migrants to Eagle Pass, Texas, fell from thousands per day to a mere trickle. But the efforts by Mexico are not a long-term fix to the problem. The migrants are just being delayed from reaching the U.S. border. An official who is operating under the umbrella of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that the migrants are being moved further south, delaying their efforts to reach their goal of seeking asylum in the U.S. Joshua Trevino, who is the Director of Intelligence and Research at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, this is a conservative think tank, he argues that with illegal immigration at the center of the upcoming presidential campaign, Biden needs the Mexican president to keep a lid on the crisis until after the November election. Trevino also said one of the things that they have asked the Biden administration to do is to crack down on Texas. It's interesting that Trevino said that the foundation publishes a ton of research and they say that the Mexican state and the cartels are not antagonistic to one another. The Biden administration took this action immediately after Blinken and Mayorkas met with the Mexican president at the end of December. It is not coincidental that literally 24 hours later, the Department of Justice announced a lawsuit against Texas for the law that gives Texas the ability to arrest and deport. The law, Texas Senate Bill 4, is known as SB 4. SB 4 was signed into law in December of 2023 by Governor Abbott. It will go into effect in March of this year. The law makes it a state crime to illegally cross the border into Texas and it gives the state's law enforcement agencies the power to arrest and prosecute illegal immigrants for the felony crime of illegally entering the country from a foreign country. The offense carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The law also allows state judges to issue eviction orders against violators. The impasse, which pits Texas against the federal government, appears to be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University, argues that the seeds of the current disaster at the U.S.-Mexico border were sown by a Supreme Court decision more than a decade ago. Professor Turley's February 3rd op-ed in the Capitol Hill suggests that the real border crisis is not the result of a poor job by Mayorkas, but rather the fact that more than a decade ago, in Arizona versus U.S., the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-3 majority against a state department's inability to seek enforcement of its own immigration laws despite a vacuum in federal action. This ruling is tantamount to the Supreme Court declaring that states are prohibited from taking their own actions against illegal immigrants. Turley said that for states, times of crisis call for critical measures. Texas, for example, recently declared that they have the right of state self-defense under Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution. That provision reverses the right of self-defense for a state that is actually invaded. The current border crisis is the result of decades of Supreme Court decisions that have expanded federal executive power while limiting the ability of states to challenge those federal policies. Therefore, Professor Turley believes that the Texas approach is absolutely correct. Turley said the combination of the sweeping preemption by the courts and diminishing enforcement by the agencies has left states as mere observers to their own destruction. It's like watching your house burn down as the fire department works primarily to prevent anyone else from putting it out. Mike Howell directs the Oversight Project, which is a Washington-based heritage foundation that develops models of conservative government policy. Howell told the Epoch Times that unlike the 2012 decision in Arizona versus United States, the Texas case could succeed. He said what Texas is doing at the border cannot be interpreted in any way, shape or form as interfering with the feds. This legal battle isn't really about immigration. It's about a state's right to protect itself. Howell also said, I don't think the framers of the Constitution ever contemplated a situation in which the chief executive through his departments would basically turn over the sovereignty of the United States. Okay, this is our show for today. Thank you so much for being a FrontPage member. Your support here is really helping us to continue to tell you the truth. Again, thank you for watching FrontPage and we will see you next time.