It’s really amazing what happens when laws are enforced.
Whether it’s existing gun laws or medicaid fraud or immigration, few new laws are needed when law enforcement is allowed, nay encouraged, to do its job.
And that’s why we’re seeing a massive decrease in illegal immigration since the January inauguration.
With the appointment of John Kelly as head of DHS, the U.S. Border Patrol is no longer getting mixed signals from the White House.
BP agents have been unleashed to do what they were intended to do: stop illegal immigration.
And now the word is getting out across the border and folks are staying put or coming across in legal fashion.
Here’s more from Redstate…
There are two good pieces of news on border security. One is a policy shift and the second is the Border Patrol data.
First the policy change. One of the things John Kelly has going for him in immigration enforcement is that ICE is happy to arrest and deport illegals, but they have had their hand stayed for quite a while. While Obama actively encouraged illegals, no one can call George Bush a hardliner on enforcing immigration law. Most ICE management, the rank and file ICE agents and Border Patrol agents, and they relevant unions are in favor of what Kelly is doing. Many of the policy shifts have happened under the radar and are only now being revealed.
The head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit in charge of deportations has directed his officers to take action against all undocumented immigrants they may cross paths with, regardless of criminal histories. The guidance appears to go beyond the Trump administration’s publicly stated aims, and some advocates say may explain a marked increase in immigration arrests.
In a February memo, Matthew Albence, a career official who heads the Enforcement and Removal Operations division of ICE, informed his 5,700 deportation officers that, “effective immediately, ERO officers will take enforcement action against all removable aliens encountered in the course of their duties.”
The Trump administration, including Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, has been clear in promising to ramp up immigration enforcement, but has so far emphasized that its priority was deporting immigrants who posed a public safety threat. Indeed, Kelly, to whom Albence ultimately reports, had seemed to suggest a degree of discretion when he told the agencies under his command earlier this year that immigration officers “may” initiate enforcement actions against any undocumented person they encountered. That guidance was issued just a day before Albence sent the memo to his staff.
A spokesman with ICE said Albence’s directive did not represent a break with Kelly’s stated aims, and was consistent with current agency policies.
“The memo directly supports the directions handed down in the executive orders and mirrors the language ICE consistently uses to describe its enforcement posture,” the spokeswoman, Sarah Rodriguez, said in a statement. “As Secretary Kelly and Acting Director [of ICE] Homan have stated repeatedly, ICE prioritizes the arrest and removal of national security and public safety threats; however, no class or category of alien in the United States is exempt from arrest or removal.”
When you marry this with the end of the “catch and release” program you have a much more robust enforcement regime. ICE agents don’t have to have an underlying criminal offense detain and illegal and process them for deportation.
