“On the Holmes Front,” with Frank Holmes
Donald Trump got elected on one promise: to stop illegal immigration and give America control of its borders again.
You may not have heard, but he has delivered.
Illegal border crossings are down—way down. Cartels are losing money. The Wall is under construction.
And the numbers are so staggering, it’s no surprise the mainstream media isn’t reporting on them.
In May, a whopping 144,116 illegal aliens were arrest trying to cross the border, either illegally in deserts and rivers, or by trying to sneak in through legal ports of entry without legal authorization.
In November, that fell to 42,649 arrests for illegal immigration, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection — a nearly 63 percent decrease.
In fact, illegal border crossings have fallen for six straight months, the CPB announced in December.
What happened six months ago that made the border crisis slow down?
Donald Trump took action. And since Congress wouldn’t lift a finger to protect our country, he did it alone.
Trump made three huge decisions.
First, he stopped letting people go if they claimed they were a family.
The order gave the agencies 45 days to come up with a plan to end the practice of turning illegals in custody loose.
45 days after April is June—six months ago.
“The safety and security of the American people is the president’s highest priority, and he will keep his promise to protect our country and to ensure that our laws are respected,” said then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the time.
She said Trump also called on “all on congressional Democrats to cease their staunch opposition to border security and to stop blocking measures that are vital to the safety and security of the United States.”
Now, we see the results.
“We have all but ended catch and release,” said acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark A. Morgan earlier this month. “If you are a family from the Northern Triangle countries, you are no longer released into the interior of the United States simply because you have a child.”
Guess what happened next? The number of Central American illegals posing as “families” nosedived, down 85 percent since May.
Almost 90,000 “families”—many of them totally unrelated, or possibly human traffickers and their victims—illegally crossed the southern border in May. The number broke records for illegal “family” crossings into the U.S.
“We have probably removed a couple billion dollars from their illicit criminal scheme,” said Morgan.
That spared women, and especially young children, inhuman treatment at the hands of criminal gangs that run the illegal immigrant smuggling routes in South and Central America.
Human smugglers marked the illegals in their caravan with spray paint, treating them “literally like a piece of cattle,” Morgan said.
He brought pictures for Congress to see and said he hoped “when you see these pictures…that you have the same level of disturbance” as he and Trump had.
The second decision Trump made was to build the Wall. Since Congress kept stiffing him, he found the money from other parts of the budget.
“Our goal at the end of 2020 is 450 miles,” Morgan said this month.
A third turning point was when Trump reached an agreement with the government of Guatemala. Now, anyone who crosses through that country must apply for asylum there instead of making their way to the U.S.
Those who pass through are deported back there. Even though they’re given the option of citizenship and a job in Guatemala, most just go home.
The Trump administration hammered out a similar deal with Honduras and El Salvador, which haven’t yet taken effect.
“For those in the region who may be weighing the option of taking the dangerous journey north, I’d strongly urge you against it,” said acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf.
The bad news is, the criminal cartels have shifted tactics.
They’re adverting their smuggling network to an “extracontinental” audience—people from around the world, including people who would like make their way into the U.S. heartland from the Middle East.
President Trump has cleaned up a lot of the problems.
But this is no time to declare victory.
But if America continues to take back control of our border from drug smugglers and criminal traffickers, it will be because of Donald Trump.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”