The Arizona legislature commissioned a Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) for the arid state. An op-ed in the Arizona Daily Star takes the DCP to task for failing to come up with an actual plan to conserve water, but the writer himself fails to adequately address the main reason Arizona is running out of usable freshwater.
House Democrats will vote on a resolution to block Pres. Trump’s national emergency declaration as early as next week. The President signed the declaration last week, declaring a national emergency after month’s of record-level border apprehensions of family units and unaccompanied minors. Pres. Trump is looking to shift funds from other agencies to help fund additional barriers along the U.S.- Mexico border.
White House officials are building on Pres. Trump’s call to increase legal immigration, according to a new report from McClatchy. According to the report, Pres. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been meeting with a number of business groups and other government officials to devise an immigration plan that would increase the number of employment based visas for foreign workers.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) has introduced legislation that would block states from giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens. Under federal law, it’s illegal for states to grant a benefit to illegal aliens that can’t be accessed by all U.S. citizens, but still, a number of states have passed laws that allow illegal aliens to receive the in-state tuition benefit.
After 8 weeks of back-and-forth theatrics between Pres. Trump and Democratic Leaders (that included a 5-week partial government shutdown), the President received $75 million more in border wall funding than what Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer offered in December.
The cost for obtaining the additional $75 million for fencing was far too high -- a substantial weakening of interior enforcement, including an incentive for illegal-alien sponsors of unaccompanied alien children (UACs).
A true champion for reducing legal immigration and stopping most illegal immigration passed away on Sunday. Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina died at the age of 76 after serving more than two decades in the House of Representatives.
The House and Senate passed H.J.Res. 31 on Thursday to fund roughly 25% of the federal government, including the Department of Homeland Security, through Sept. 30. In addition to allowing DHS to increase the number of low-skilled guest workers through the H-2B visa program, the bill also reduces the number of detention beds used by ICE to detail criminal aliens and recent illegal border crossers and protects sponsors of child smuggling from deportation.
NumbersUSA’s Government Relations Director Rosemary Jenks informed Members of Congress that her organization will score against affirmative votes for the budget deal (Conference Report to Accompany H.J. Res. 31). She cited provisions that encourage the smuggling and trafficking of children, reduce funding for ICE detention beds, and double the number of H-2B seasonal guest workers for the fiscal year. NumbersUSA is advocating passage of another continuing resolution to give Congress time to fix numerous problems in the pending measure.
Based on Census Bureau assumptions about immigration levels through 2060, the Center for Immigration Studies projected the U.S. population based on various immigration scenarios. One thing CIS revealed is that immigration does little to increase the proportion of the working-age population (16-64).
Border Patrol Agents apprehended 311 migrants late Monday night as they walked around the end of a pedestrian fence near Sunland Park, New Mexico. The arrests occurred a few hours after President Trump held a wall rally a few miles away in El Paso, Texas. Earlier on Monday, Agents apprehended a group of 330 migrants several hundred miles to the west in Antelope Wells, New Mexico.