Monthly Archives: January 2023

As the year winds down, the border is about to break wide open. In less than a week, the Biden administrations last remaining tool to control illegal immigration, left over from the Trump administration, will be taken away.

Title 42, the public-health order invoked by President Trump during the pandemic that allowed immigration officials to quickly expel most migrants caught crossing the border illegally, will end on Dec. 21 by order of a federal judge.

Once Title 42 is gone, federal agencies at the border will have no choice but to process and release nearly every illegal border-crosser. It will represent a full return to the Obama-era catch-and-release policy. Border Patrol estimates they could see as many as 14,000 arrests per day in the coming weeks, which would totally overwhelm the border.

For migrants, there is now every incentive to do just that. Word of Title 42s demise has almost certainly reached migrants in Mexico already, who now know that if they cross the Rio Grande, they will be allowed to remain in the United States, with work authorization, for years while they await the outcome of an asylum hearing.

Biden, who repealed or severely curtailed nearly every one of Trumps border policies upon taking office in January 2021, has no plan for what to do now. Axiosreported this weekon a vague plan circulating among Biden officials for a temporary (five-month) moratorium on asylum, but the plan hasnt been approved. Its unclear how it would even be implemented with less than a week to go before Title 42 ends.

But even if the feds do impose a temporary halt to asylum, its too late. Thousands of migrants arecrossing into the El Paso sector every day now, many of them having beenbussed into Ciudad Jurez by the Mexican government. They are coming from large caravans that, having heard of the impending end of Title 42, formed for precisely this purpose.

Many of them are from Nicaragua, which means they cant be deported to Nicaragua (the U.S. has no deportation agreement with the authoritarian dictatorship of Nicaraguas president-for-life Daniel Ortega), and they cant be expelled to Mexico, which refuses to take back Nicaraguans. So the U.S. is just letting them in, giving them a court date for an asylum hearing years from now, and releasing them. Never mind that many of these migrants, by their own admission to reporters, are economic migrants who have no valid asylum claims.

Back in August, my colleague Emily Jashinsky and Ireportedon the migrant encampments and shelters in the Mexican border towns of Matamoros and Reynosa across the Rio Grande from Brownsville and McAllen, Texas, respectively. Most of those migrants were Haitian, although they had been living in various South American countries for years, with legal status. They came to the border for a chance to get into the U.S. and pursue what one of them told us was the American dream, a dream for all Haitian people.

The reason so many had been waiting in Mexican shelters was that they feared being deported back to Haiti, where they hadnt lived in many years, or because they had already tried to cross and been expelled back to Mexico under Title 42. They could not afford to pay the cartels for multiple river crossings, and so they were waiting, they told us, for U.S. policy to change.

Their wait is almost over. Once the threat of expulsion under Title 42 is gone, there will be little to hold them back. The border will become a chaotic, ungovernable disaster. We will likely see the appearance of tent-like refugee camps on the U.S. side of the border, as we saw in Del Rio, Texas, in the fall of 2021. To put the figure of 14,000 arrests per day into context, three years ago, during the 2019 border surge, President Obamas DHS Secretary, Jeh Johnson, said that1,000 apprehensions a day overwhelms the system and that he cannot imagine what 4,000 arrests per day would look like.

2022 wasthe worst year for illegal immigration in U.S. history. 2023 will be worse yet. As long as the Biden administration maintains its open-border policies, illegal immigration will increase, the cartels that profit from migrant smuggling will get rich, and the border will descend into chaos.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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End Of Title 42 Caps Worst Year Of Illegal Immigration Ever

Sens. Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, and Mike Braun are warning Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell against greenlighting Democrats massive omnibus spending bill before the newly elected, GOP-controlled House of Representatives is officially sworn in.

The coalition of senators sent a letter on Wednesday urging the GOP head to ignore pleas to extend the governments funding beyond when the new Congress takes office to encompass the entire 2023 fiscal year, including increased spending on Ukraine.

We must not accept anything other than a short-term Continuing Resolution that funds the federal government until shortly after the 118th Congress is sworn in, the senators wrote. No additional spending, no additional policy priorities should be included. Any urgent items that require the Senates attention should be considered separately and under their own terms.

If McConnell rushes to pass the omnibus bill without the new Houses input, the Republican senators say he will be guilty of directly contradicting voters wishes.

On November 8, 2022, the American people made their voices heard at the ballot box. Using the Democratic process, millions of Americans sent a message they want divided power in Washington to curb the worst excesses of both parties, the lawmakers wrote.

Already, McConnell has signaled strong support for overruling his voters in favor of showering Washington with more taxpayer dollars.

Theres widespread agreement that wed be better off with an omnibus than a [continuing resolution], McConnell said Tuesday, echoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumers words.

Lee, Cruz, Scott, and Braun, however, explicitly state that they stand with the voters on this issue.

We believe it would be both imprudent, and a reflection of poor leadership, for Republicans to ignore the will of the American people and rubber stamp an omnibus spending bill that funds ten more months of President Bidens agenda without any check on his reckless policies that have led to a 40-year high in inflation, the senators said.

Already, Americans across the nation are feeling the effects of excessive spending led by President Joe Biden and the Democrats. Their $4.8 trillion increase in the national deficit, the senators note, is weighing on Americans in the form of an average cost increase of $753 per month.

It should be up to the new Congress to set spending priorities for the remainder of this fiscal year, the senators wrote. Now is the time for Republicans to get serious about leading America towards a better future.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Sens To McConnell: Stop Spendathon Till New Congress Can Vote

In a win for religious freedom, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has permanently blocked the Biden administrations attempt to force religious doctors and hospitals to perform so-called gender transition surgeries.

InSisters of Mercy v. Becerra, a coalition of Catholic hospitals, nuns, and a Catholic university that run health clinics for the poor sued the Biden administration over a Department of Health and Human Services mandate that would have compelled religious doctors and hospitals to administer mutilative gender reassignment surgeries even if the surgeries violated the health-care providers conscience.

The mandate, which was first issued in 2016, interpreted the Affordable Care Act to require doctors to perform such surgeries on any patient including children even if the medical provider believed the surgery would harm the patient.

The Eighth Circuits opinion comes after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this past August that the Affordable Care Act could not require doctors to perform cross-gender surgeries if it violated their conscience. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the Louisiana-based appeals court decision.

We agree with these courts and therefore conclude that the district court correctly held that intrusion upon the Catholic Plaintiffs exercise of religion is sufficient to show irreparable harm, the eighth circuit wrote in its decision.

While the Eighth Circuits ruling is not a nationwide injunction (only the named parties are its beneficiaries), it does set a helpful precedent for religious liberty cases in the future.

Todays victory sets an important precedent that religious healthcare professionals are free to practice medicine in accordance with their consciences and experienced professional judgment,Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at Becket Law, said in a press release. The governments attempt to force doctors to go against their consciences was bad for patients, bad for doctors, and bad for religious liberty.

The Biden administration has 60 days to ask the Eighth Circuit to re-hear the case or 90 days to appeal to the Supreme Court.

There is a growing body of research that points to the detrimental effects of cross-gender reassignment surgeries, including but not limited to serious heart conditions, loss of bone density, loss of fertility, and increased cancer risk.

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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Court: Biden Can't Force Doctors To Mutilate Sex-Confused People

Democrats in the House of Representatives blocked an amendment that would have protected religious Americans from retaliation based on their opposition to same-sex marriage, in order to jam legislation furthering the LGBT lobbys agenda through Congresss lame-duck session.

House Rules Committee ChairmanRep. James McGovern shot down Republicans last chance of defending religious liberty in the ill-named Respect for Marriage Act on Monday when he refused to even let Rep. Chip Roys amendment solidifying First Amendment protections be brought to the House floor for a vote.

McGoverns reasoning for bypassing procedural debate was rooted in the fact that Roys amendment would give the process of passing the RFMA a shelf life that could last well into the newly-elected Republican House.

Seeing as most of the Republicans in the current House oppose the RFMA on the grounds that it stomps on religious Americans right to act on their convictions about traditional marriage, McGovern and his Democrat allies werent keen on waiting around to see if the legislation would survive the new GOP-led House.

If we were to amend this and it goes back to the Senate, for all intents and purposes, its dead for the year. And many of us believe that we have a court right now that is hell-bent on trying to reverse the rights for the LGBTQ community and we do not trust them to respect marriage equality in this country, McGovern said to the rules committee on Monday. When January comes along, the gentlemans party will be in charge and you can bring one amendment after another to reverse the last 70 years of social progress, if the gentleman prefers. We will oppose you on that.

Theres no evidence of the armageddon that he describes being at the doorstep, Republican Rep. Michael Burgess retorted.

Roy, along with his Republican cosponsors Reps. Byron Donalds and Doug Lamborn, submitted the amendment for review on Thursday in a last-ditch effort to convince conservative legislators to prioritize Americans First Amendment rights. Roys amendment copied the legal protections for religious Americans that Republican Sen. Mike Leetried, but ultimately failed, to addto the Senates version of the legislation two weeks ago.

I think it would be an important amendment just to offer on the floor of the House, Roy replied to McGovern during the committee meeting. You know how it will work. Well get an hour of debate on both sides. The amendment will almost certainly get voted down, but I hope it wouldnt because I believe its important. Id like to have at least the opportunity, in the one hour of debate that I would get in this august body, to be able to make the case for religious liberty with my colleagues.

McGovern, however, refused to listen to Roys concerns. As a result, the unamended RFMA, which expands the Supreme CourtsObergefell v. Hodgesdecision to further open the door for LGBT activists to sue Americans opposed to same-sex marriage, will see a floor vote as soon as next week.

The 47 Republican legislators who voted for a previous version of the bill still have a chance to vote no to the RFMA. Even without GOP support, however, the Democrat voting bloc is expected to send the bill to the White House where President Joe Biden already signaled he plans to sign it into law.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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House Dems Kill Amendment Protecting Religious Americans

As a result of the Supreme Courts Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision returning abortion regulations back to the states, the Biden administration has worked overtime to open every back door to advance its pro-abortion agenda, including in states with recently passed abortion restrictions or even bans. To accomplish this, it has turned to federal agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs to terminate the lives of unborn children. These efforts have quickly turned into a legal disaster.

Just last week, news broke that Stephanie Carter, an Army veteran and nurse practitioner at a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Texas, is suing the Department of Veterans Affairs for forcing her to handle and distribute abortion pills one of the latest mandates enacted by the Biden administration to circumvent the Dobbs decision. The Reproductive Health Services rule enacted in September immediately allowed elective abortions at VA medical clinics.

This rule does not currently allow for religious exemptions for workers like Carter, who have religious objections that conflict with this life-ending procedure. When Carter attempted to opt out of the handling and distribution of abortion pills at the Olin E. Teague Veterans Center, her supervisor refused, according to a report from Live Action. This egregious violation of religious freedom has resulted in First Liberty Institute filing a lawsuit on Carters behalf.

To make matters worse, because this VA hospital is under both federal and state jurisdiction, Carter could be held liable for providing this abortion access, as it potentially conflicts with the various abortion restrictions in Texas.

The rule thats at issue in this case, according to Danielle Runyan, an attorney of First Liberty Institute, allows for abortions to be provided to protect the life or health of the mother. Health [can be] a wide variety of things that can potentially be in conflict with the laws of the state of Texas. So not only are Ms. Carters religious liberties being violated, but she could also be held criminally and civilly liable here in Texas if she complies with the rule.

This gross violation of religious liberties is just one instance in the Biden administrations recent efforts to bring abortions to states with pro-life laws. Just two weeks after the quite literally life-altering Dobbs decision, President Joe Biden signed the executive order Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Services in an attempt to access any loopholes.

The Federalist staff writer Jordan Boyd explained this order will effectively funnel federal time, resources, and funds, mostly through the Department of Health and Human Services, to shield existing abortion facilities, promote unlimited abortion, and circumvent Republican state laws to help send women to abortion appointments in other states.

Additionally, the orders pledge to protect access to medication abortion is a misleading euphemism for a chemical abortion that starves, kills, and expels the dead child from a mothers womb. This is clearly the antithesis of medication and has also sparked lawsuits against the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The order is just another way for the Biden administration to push abortion into states that have legally placed restrictions on it.

Since this order was signed, HHS has further peddled this abortion agenda. In August, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure wrote a letter to each U.S. governor, encouraging them to work with CMS by applying for Medicaid 1115 waivers to provide increased access to care for women from states where reproductive rights are under attack and women may be denied medical care.

So while the Dobbs decision has promoted federalism, reverting the choice to legalize or ban abortion back to the states, the pro-abortion Biden administration led by our self-proclaimed Catholic president is working to find every last loophole to allow the killing of unborn children in these abortion-restricted areas. Lawsuits like Carters may have these mandates come tumbling down into the same ash heap Roe now lies in.

Sophia is a graduate of Le Moyne College, where she received her B.A. in English. She is pursuing a career in political journalism.

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The Biden Administration Works Overtime To Circumvent Dobbs