Minutes after President Trump announced in the Rose Garden this past week a plan to revise the priorities under which immigrants are accepted into the United States, Democrats and media outlets were calling his proposal dead on arrival, having no chance of being approved by Congress.
This month, four volunteers from a similar organization in Arizona, called No More Deaths, were convicted of misdemeanor charges of abandonment of property and entering a wildlife refuge without a permit after leaving food and water in a remote national wildlife refuge infamous for migrant fatalities. The Pima County medical examiner has documented 137 migrant deaths in this area since 2001, although No More Deaths advocates say they believe the number is much higher.
Each volunteer could receive up to six months in federal prison and a $500 fine for crimes that Judge Bernardo P. Velasco wrote eroded a “national decision to maintain the Refuge in its pristine nature.”
About 20 dead bodies were found along the U.S./Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley, mere miles from where CNN’s Jim Acosta reported Thursday that things were “tranquil” in border land.
“Mexico’s president says an undetermined number of bodies have been found in the northern Mexico border state of Tamaulipas in what appears to have been a mass killing involving drug gangs,” said KRON4. “Local media report that between 19 and 20 burned bodies were found near the remains of burned-out pickup trucks near the border town of Miguel Aleman.”
There are several towns called Miguel Aleman in Mexico, but the report said that this town was located in the Rio Grande Valley. The only Miguel Aleman in the Rio Grande Valley is just an hour and a half from where CNN’s Jim Acosta said things were “tranquil” near McAllen, Texas, where there is a border wall:
A total of $17,313,633 had been donated by 284,843 individuals in just 9 days as of late afternoon December 26, to fund part of the border wall. The campaign is a GoFundMe appeal started by U.S. Air Force veteran and triple-amputee Brian Kolfage. His campaign has more information at www.WeFundTheWall.com.
“Illegal migrants, human traffickers, and drug smugglers, whether crossing by foot or using vehicles cause substantial damage to the natural and cultural resources found on federal lands. Tremendous amounts of human waste and garbage are left on borderlands every year. Medical supplies, diapers, clothing, and even broken-down cars are all left behind.”
On February 9, the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on existing regulatory impediments to securing the southern border. One of the topics addressed is the checkerboard of ‘sensitive’ wildland designations in states along the border with Mexico. The Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies are unable to gain ‘operational control’ of large regions of the border due to such designations and their accompanying prohibitions on access.
Our country was founded over 200 years ago after enough colonists agreed that the rule by the King of England no longer made sense for the colonies. They did not agree on every aspect of the how and the why, but they all agreed that it must change. The biggest aspect of agreement and disagreement in the birth of our Nation was the right of each human to agree and disagree. There foremost ideal that drove the creation of our constitution, can be said to be creating a government that could stand for and thrive while maintaining this and other freedoms.
This turned out to be a humongous task and goal. First and foremost the procedure and processes for dealing with disagreement had to be agreed upon. There will always be different beliefs and ideals. However, most of all they understood that in order to have peace while preserving everyone’s ability to exercise their Freedoms, they must have a process and rules for dealing with Disagreement or conflicts of personal Freedoms between all people. This is where the concept of Liberty was created and defined. Liberty, for the sake of our constitution, would be the definition of civility and common agreement on how to deal with Freedoms in all situations, including when there is disagreement.
Sergio Martinez returned to Portland after nearly a decade’s absence. But he’d been busy in the meantime: Deported 12 times. Convicted three times for illegal re-entry. A rap sheet of crimes from burglary to theft in three states.
Immigration agents noticed his name on a Multnomah County list of jail inmates last December. They asked the Sheriff’s Office to alert them before releasing Martinez so they could send him back to Mexico one more time.
But they never heard a word. Martinez spent a night in the downtown jail, then was out.
Police in Portland arrested Martinez five more times over the next six months. Each time, he was booked into jail. Each time, immigration agents had no idea that he’d been arrested, booked and released.