Securing U.S. Borders

Nine Republican senators have introduced the Significant Transnational Criminal Organization Designation Act, which leaves America's counterterrorism enterprise alone, but still brings to bear the very same powerful government authorities for which proponents of FTO designation were hoping. By Todd Bensman as published by the Center for Immigration Studies on December 13, 2019 In precious few … [Read more...] about Bill Would Designate Mexican Cartels as Something Other Than Terrorists

President Trump says he's moving forward with plans to designate the Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, the same as ISIS. The designation is not official yet. That’s good, because someone needs to hit the pause button on this. Here's why. By Todd Bensman as originally published December 3, 2019 by The Federalist President Trump’s surprise revelation last week to talk show … [Read more...] about Why Trump Should Hit Pause On Designating Mexican Cartels As Terrorists

The national security justifications that proponents of FTO designation pose are unpersuasive, and there's no evidence that they or anyone in government have done the serious analysis or planning — or any deep thinking at all, frankly — to assess the impacts of adding tens of thousands of Mexican "terrorists" to America's counterterrorism efforts against Islamic jihadist organizations. … [Read more...] about Hold Off! Designating Mexican Cartels as Terrorists Could Dilute War on Jihadists

The controversial nonprofit wall-building group We Build the Wall is now in South Texas tilling the soil of its second project, a 3.5-mile build along the Rio Grande River. It took no time at all for opponents to complain. Expect the fighting to become a feature of Texas for a long time to come. By Todd Bensman as published by the Center for Immigration Studies on November 26, 2019 MISSION, … [Read more...] about Crowd-funded ‘We Build the Wall’ Starts Texas Project Despite ‘Butterfly People,’ ‘Rogue Priests’ and ‘Freaks’

Moayad Heider Mohammad Aldairi's case is interesting because it briefly illuminates a fascinating kind of American counterterrorism-immigration operation reporters must do acrobatic yoga to avoid covering. The Aldairi case also demonstrates why this exotic sort of human smuggling presents a national security threat to the homeland and has spawned James Bondian foreign efforts to take other … [Read more...] about American justice caught up to a smuggler of suspected Yemeni terrorists through Mexico

Deaths like these have causal roots in American failure to stop and deter mass migration for far too long. It was the American failure to sew up asylum abuse and catch-and-release loopholes at the southern border that, once word of them widely spread to poor countries of Africa, ignited an inexorable and dangerous mass migration. By Todd Bensman as originally published by … [Read more...] about Overturned Migrant Boat on the Mexican Coast: Bigger Picture Takeaways on Dead African Migrants

A key element of Jared Vargas's murder was hermetically excluded from the trial: That murderer Ernesto Esquivel-Garcia was a criminal illegal immigrant from Mexico who could have been deported before he killed Vargas, but wasn't. Now the Vargas family embarks on a life-long quest, if that's what it takes, to find out who in the U.S. immigration system did this to Jared. By Todd Bensman as … [Read more...] about Facts About How a Deportable Criminal Alien Was Left Free to Kill Are Excluded from Murder Trial

Trump, after all the media ridicule, was correct in saying that potential terrorists have illegally crossed the United States' southern border. Abdulahi Hasan Sharif of Somalia did. And it could happen again. Expect no coverage from American media, because that would require emphatic acknowledgement that a terrorist actually crossed the border and attacked. By Todd Bensman as originally … [Read more...] about The First Illegal Border-Crossing Terrorist is on Trial. But Don’t Expect the Media to Cover It