While everyone is paying attention to the Incoming administration, is anyone watching what the folks on their way out are doing? Because THIS sounds significant.
Three top Texas government officials, including one Democrat, are questioning the Department of Homeland Security’s border security measures after a report showed the agency ended an aerial surveillance program on the Mexican border. –Lifezette
With all the talk about the border in this election, you’d think we’d be paying more attention to who is crossing it.
Did you happen to catch stories like this one in the final push before election day? About ‘surges’ in illegal border crossings? Maybe the election news drowned it out. Here’s a sample.
The Department of Homeland Security published new statistics on Monday that confirmed at least 408,870 illegal aliens were apprehended along the U.S. southern border in fiscal year 2016, a 23 percent surge from this time last year.
The rate of juvenile illegal immigrants being apprehended on the border also has increased, according to the statistics, which show a 49 percent jump from similar periods in 2015.
The surge in illegal immigrants comes as leading members of Congress pursue an investigation into the precise number of individuals the Obama administration wrongly granted citizenship and immigration benefits. —Free Beacon
So, how has Mr. Fundamental Transformation’s administration been responding to this security breach?
By cancelling the drone surveillance. It isn’t a question of money, either. The ‘Operation Phalanx’ program is fully paid into 2017. They’ve just stopped scheduling flights.
Operation Phalanx, which was fully funded through 2017, was quietly shut down by the DHS, according to a recent report by watchdog.org. The aerial surveillance program intercepted illegal crossings and drugs on the border of Mexico.
“At a time when we’re seeing increases in the number of apprehensions … it is unjustifiable to cut this support for border security.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Republican Sen. John Cornyn, and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) in a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johhson requested information on aerial-based border security measures the agency is employing — especially in light of an uptick in migrant crossings this month and this year so far that are reportedly higher than last year’s crossings.Their letter on Tuesday also pointed out that the DHS had not requested any flight hours from the Department of Defense, which supports the program, for the calendar year 2017.
“Given the continuing surge of migrants along the Southern Border beyond FY 2015 numbers and a large uptick in apprehensions already for the month of November 2016, we believe DHS should be requesting more surveillance and security resources, not less,” Abbott, Cornyn, and Cuellar wrote to Johnson.
…”Senator Cornyn, Governor Abbott and myself, in a bipartisan manner, wrote this letter to Secretary Johnson because, at a time when we’re seeing increases in the number of apprehensions of Central Americans, Haitians, Cubans and migrants from Africa and Asia, it is unjustifiable to cut this support for border security,” said the congressman. –Lifezette
And THIS is why the American public went to the polls and destroyed the Democrat party at every level of government. It’s simply an issue of trust.
