In a 2009 episode of HBO‘s Flight of the Conchords, Brian, the fictional prime minister of New Zealand, wants to meet the American president. Unable to convince the White House switchboard operator that New Zealand is a real country, Brian travels to Washington and instead takes a public White House tour hoping for a “chance” meeting with...
In January, police in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas found 19 charred corpses in two burned-out vehicles. The initial investigation showed they had been shot first, then set aflame. They were migrants, many from Central America, on their way to Texas. One of them was Marvin Alberto Tomás — “Lefty” to his friends. He left his family in Guatemala...
“The crisis has already begun,” former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan pointed out during the Texas Public Policy Foundation livestream event, “When the Walls Come Tumbling Down: The Coming Border Crisis.” Morgan joined TPPF Senior Fellow in Border Security Josh Jones and TPPF Executive Director Kevin Roberts to discuss the quickly...
When President Biden recently signed executive orders effectively rolling back efforts by the previous administration to reduce the 2019 surge in unlawful crossings at the southern border, he proclaimed, “I’m not making new law. I’m eliminating bad policy.” The obvious intent of the declaration was to dispel any suggestion that the newly elected president was trespassing on...
Do you think France, Canada or Great Britain would be OK if the Americans detained their defense secretary without telling them?” a Mexican official asked rhetorically in the January 2, 2021, issue of The Economist. Anyone versed in the Mexican criminal underworld might respond by noting that cabinet officials in Europe and Canada generally don’t...
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently sued the Biden administration over immigration policies. It’s the first lawsuit from Texas, and it surely won’t be the last. But Paxton won’t be alone. The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for the American Future, where I am lead counsel, will also challenge unconstitutional federal government overreach through the courts. Three areas...
Our country has clearly become more divided during recent years. From politics to the pandemic to religious beliefs, this is evident in all areas of our lives. Media stories of public discourse and events appear to further drive the tensions between the left and the right. Even facts and truthful reporting are now often disputed....
President-elect Joe Biden is already backpedaling on a dangerous campaign promise that pleased advocates of open borders, but would create a humanitarian and national security crisis on our border with Mexico. While he pledged during the election campaign to roll back President Trump’s policies that have reduced illegal immigration on his first day in office on Jan. 20, Biden...
Well, that didn’t take long. A border crisis is brewing before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Migrant caravans are forming in Honduras, where residents were hit with a pair of devastating hurricanes last month, adding to the economic hardship caused by COVID-19. Faced with ruin, many Hondurans have decided to defy local travel bans and head...
The Department of Homeland Security announced this week it will begin accepting applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the program earlier this month. The ruling briefly put DACA back in the headlines, with most news outlets framing the judge’s order as a defeat for...
Joe Biden has promised that if he’s elected president, he will set in motion on Day One the largest dismantling of U.S. immigration law enforcement in the history of the republic. On the very day he’s sworn in as president, the oath for which includes a constitutional obligation to “take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,”...
As election day approaches, the polarization of our political climate has been on full display. It’s easy to fall victim to the temptation to lose hope that our increasingly divided electorate will ever be able to reach consensus on many of the most challenging issues faced by our nation. Yet, as Americans, we are united...