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The latest report from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency shows the impact of words and actions on illegals seeking access to free benefits available to them just by crossing the nations southwest border. The number of individuals caught crossing that border in March 16,600 was a 30 percent decrease from February and a 64 percent decrease from the same month a year ago.

President Donald Trumps campaign promises to build the big, beautiful wall as one of many efforts to stem illegal immigration flooding into the country from Mexico turned into actions when he began signing executive orders to start the process.

His attorney general, Jeff Sessions, expanded on Trumps determination to stem the flow on Tuesday during a speech he made at Nogales, Arizona. He issued a memorandum to federal attorneys to ramp up their efforts to prosecute illegals, including those who harbor or assist them, with special priority given to those with criminal records and those who were previously deported. Sessions also instructed the Justice Department to pursue charges even for relatively minor infractions such as identity fraud, document theft, or forgery as well as fraudulent marriages arranged to obtain legal immigration status.

Sessions stated:

For those [who] continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned: This is a new era. This is the Trump era.

The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty [by the previous administration] to enforce our immigration laws, and the catch-and-release practices of old are over.

Sessions then spoke of the criminal cartels responsible for importing illegal drugs into the United States:

Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings. It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.

Later that night Sessions, being interviewed on Fox News Hannity," expanded his remarks, directing them to those still considering taking the risk of entering the United States illegally:

The border is not open. Please dont come.

You will be apprehended if you do come, and you will be deported promptly. If youre a criminal, you will be prosecuted, and if you assault our officers, were going to come at you [like] a ton of bricks.

When he was informed of the latest numbers from the CBP, he expressed surprise at how much the flow of illegals had been staunched already:

I knew strong Presidential leadership unlike the wishy-washy-ness weve seen in the past would impact the flow, but not as much as weve seen already. The numbers are down 70 percent since President Obama left office. So its really a remarkable achievement.

Its not only the words but the actions that are working to turn the tide. Sessions said that 25 immigration judges have already been sent to detention centers along the border to help expedite the deportations, with another 50 to be assigned before the end of the year. And there will be another 75 judges sent to the border next year as well, reflecting, said Sessions, the dire need to reduce the backlogs in our immigration courts.

And then there are the actions already taken by the administration: 200 construction companies have already responded to the administrations requests for proposals to build the wall, while some funding to begin design and construction of it has already been committed. More funding requests for the wall are in Trumps budget, along with funding requests for 5,000 more border patrol agents and 10,000 additional immigration enforcement officers.

The drop in illegal immigration could be temporary, with potential illegals waiting to see whether these words and actions actually turn out to be effective over time. Some are comparing the drop to the spike in the stock market which was driven by anticipation that many of Trumps promises regarding regulations, tax reform, and infrastructure spending were actually going to come true. With the rejection of RyanCare as a replacement of ObamaCare, the stock market has taken a wait-and-see attitude. As Ronald Colburn, who retired in 2009 as deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, put it:

There is this symbolic holding of ones breath by the transnational criminal organizations and by the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, because of the new administration in place.

They are watching and waiting to see if Congress and the American people and the administration have the will to follow through if they do, then we may see this is a continuing downtrend.

An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Illegal Immigration Down by Two-Thirds, Thanks to Tough Talk, Action - The New American

In a letter to clergy, the Most Reverend Bishop Peter Libasci for the Diocese of Manchester says Catholic parishes should not be working against law enforcement. Libasci stated that the term sanctuary church was being misused by illegal immigration advocates.Thomas Bebbington, spokesman for the Diocese, told Christian Postthat the letter came in response to a meeting with several priests who expressed concerns about increased immigration enforcement.

The Christian Post reports excerpts of the letter to clergy sent by Bishop Peter Libasciregarding the harboring of illegal immigrants and the term "sanctuary church".

Some use this term and mean what I have described above a welcoming community ready to offer immediate aid to anyone in need. In these works, of course, we will always be involved, Libasci wrote in the letter.

But others use this term sanctuary to refer to churches that will allow individuals in fear of deportation to live in the church.

Sanctuary is not a designation recognized by law and provides no such legal protection, Libasci continued.

Instead, immigration law imposes criminal penalties and fines on anyone who conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, in any place, an alien who has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of the law.

In the letter, which the Diocese provided The Christian Post, Bishop Libasci explained that there were two definitions for the term "sanctuary churches" being used.

"Some use this term and mean what I have described above a welcoming community ready to offer immediate aid to anyone in need. In these works, of course, we will always be involved," wrote Libasci.

"But others use this term 'sanctuary' to refer to churches that will allow individuals in fear of deportation tolivein the church."

The bishop went on to state that the latter definition, that of allowing unauthorized immigrants to live within a church, was problematic "because it creates a false hope to tell individuals living in fear that we can protect them from law enforcement actions."

The role that the church will play in the immigration debate is crucial. Many are dividedon President Trump's building of the wall plan and his travel ban. Many religious leaders were the first to signup in protest of the travel ban and tensions run high in cities calling themselves "sanctuaries" for illegal immigrants. One biblical definition of sanctuary is holy place. Perhaps political officials and advocacy groups shouldn't use that word so loosely.

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Catholic Bishop: Church Should Not Harbor Illegal Immigrants - TRUNEWS

Rafael Carranza, Arizona Republic Published 4:54 p.m. ET April 11, 2017 | Updated 46 minutes ago

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced a get-tough approach to immigration prosecutions during a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border. (April 11) AP

Attorney General Jeff Sessions in Nogales, Ariz.(Photo: Ross D. Franklin, AP)

NOGALES, Ariz. The nation's top prosecutor outlined an expansion of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration Tuesday to include directing federal prosecutors to bring felony charges against immigrants suspected of making repeated illegal entriesto the United States.

Undocumented entry cases have been previously charged as misdemeanors.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in his first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, detailed the changes as an attempt to "establish lawfulness in our immigration system.''

"This is a new era," Sessions said. "This is the Trump era.The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws, and the catch-and-release practices of old are over."

In a memo to U.S. attorneys across the country, Sessions said prosecutors must consider:

Charging individuals for "bringing in and harboring certain aliens."

Charging undocumented immigrants with a felony "if they unlawfully enter or attempt to enter a second time and certain aggravating circumstances are present."

When possible, charging undocumented immigrants "with document fraud and aggravated identity theft."

Make prosecution of assault on a federal law-enforcement officer "a top priority."

Sessions also announced a plan to hire and deploy 50 new immigration judges to the border this year and 75 more next year to address a massive backlog in immigration appeals.

The administration's most vocal advocate for tougher border enforcement measures, Sessions' trip to the region comes as the Department of Homeland Security recorded a 40% decline in illegal crossings along the southwest border during the first two months of the year.

Sessions called the decline "unprecedented,'' coinciding with the administration's roll out of aborder security strategy, including the planned construction of a border wall.

Despite the declining apprehensions, Sessions defended the need for a wall, describing it as "a force multiplier'' to deter future illegal immigration.

"There is no doubt that the barrier, the wall, will have a great and positive impact,'' he said.

Read more:

Sessions memo gives cops permission to continue targeting blacks: Column

Sessions orders sweeping review of police reform

Courts are formidable obstacle to rolling back police agreements

In his new charging directive to federal prosecutors, Sessions said felony prosecutions would be recommended for repeatillegal immigrants, "especially where indicators of gang affiliation, a risk to public safety or criminal history are present.''

Civil rights advocates, however, characterized Sessions' directive as an attempt to intimidate immigrant communities.

Attorney General Sessions is grandstanding at the border in an attempt to look tough and scare immigrants,'' said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice Education Fund. "Its yet another example of the Trump administration treating all immigrants as threats and as criminals.''

Josh Breisblatt, a policy analyst at the American Immigration Council, said the attorney general's prosecution directive effectively makes illegal entry prosecutions a national priority, beyond the border states where the majority of cases are brought.

"This is a waste of resources,'' Breisblatt said. "It seems to be a further attempt to link immigration and crime.''

Contributing: Kevin Johnson and Alan Gomez

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Sessions directs felony charges against repeat illegal immigrants - USA TODAY

A 40-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who had been deported from the U.S. was arrested Friday in Virginia on sex abuse charges involving a 12-year-old girl.

Oscar Perez-Rangel faces charges including felony aggravated sexual battery. The abuse allegedly occurred between October and December 2016,Fox 5reported.

The girl was abused while at a daycare center operated by Perez-Rangels girlfriend, investigators said.

Fairfax County police said they did not believe there were other victims.

An immigration detainer has been lodged against Perez-Rangel.

Perez-Rangel was previously removed from the U.S., and has felony convictions for attempted robbery, use of a firearm during the commission of a felony and illegal re-entry after removal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement to Fox 5.

Last month, a 17-year-old and 18-year-old werecharged with rapeafter investigators said a 14-year-old student was attacked in a high school bathroom in Rockville, Md. Officials said both suspects were in the U.S. illegally. A lawyer for one suspect claimed the sex was consensual.

Click for more from Fox 5.

Read more here:
Virginia illegal immigrant charged in sex abuse case involving 12-year-old girl - Fox News

Last month, we saw a 64 percent reduction in illegal immigration on our southern border. President Trump, weekly address, April 7, 2017

My administration is just a matter of weeks, literally, a short period of time has brought record reductions to illegal immigration. Record reductions. Down 61 percent since inauguration. General Kelly is doing a fantastic job. Trump, remarks at North Americas Building Trades Unions conference, April 4, 2017

You see whats happened: 61 percent down now in terms of illegal people coming in. Way, way down in terms of drugs pouring into our country and poisoning our youth. Way down. General Kelly has done a great job. Trump, remarks at CEO Town Hall on Unleashing American Business, April 4, 2017

I go to these arenas that have signs all over the place Hes kept his promise, hes kept his promise because Ive done a lot of work. The border is in the best shape its been in, in decades. Down 61 percent since the inauguration. Trump, remarks at National Republican Congressional Committee dinner, March 21, 2017

President Trump is repeatedly touting reductions in apprehensions at the Southwestern border, attributing the decline to his administration and the leadership of Department of Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly.

Trump also claimed that drugs pouring into our country and poisoning our youth areway, way down. We dont know if that is accurate. We repeatedly requested 2017 data of drug seizures at the border from Customs and Border Protection since Trump made the claim, but still have not received a response. The White House didnt provide data, either. We will return to that claim when CBP provides us the data.

So for now, we dug into Trumps use of the 64 percent and 61 percent figures. The figure is correct, but it requires some caveats. Heres what we found.

First, some context. Southwest border apprehensions have steadily declined since their peak at more than 1.6 million people in fiscal 2000. There have been temporary spikes since 2000 most recently, there was an uptick in apprehensions of unaccompanied children and their families in 2016, after a significant drop in 2015. Those apprehensions in 2016 were back to 2014 levels, during the height of the flow of Central American migrants illegally crossing the border.

These families and children are fleeing rampant violence and crime in a region called the Northern Triangle, comprising Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Many of the Central American migrants turn themselves in to Border Patrol once they reach the southwest border, seeking asylum status.

This represents a shift in border migration. The number of Mexicans caught trying to cross the border illegally is dropping (more than 400,000 in fiscal 2010 to about 177,000 in 2016), The Washington Post reported. The number of migrants from the Northern Triangle nearly quadrupled in the same period to almost 179,000.

March 2017 total apprehensions were, indeed, very low. Its the lowest monthly number CBP has reported since at least 2000. The 64 percent figure he uses is the total number of people apprehended or deemed inadmissibleat the southwest border in March 2017 (16,600), compared to the total number in March 2016 (46,150).

The 61 percent figure Trump is referring to is the drop in just the Southwest border apprehensions from January 2017 (31,577) to March 2017 (12,193). A 61 percent drop over three months is dramatic, as Trump indicates. But the January data is a total for the month, not since Inauguration Day on Jan. 20 so the majority of the months data predated his presidency.

Actually, the best apples-to-apples measure would be to compare the number of people apprehended or deemed inadmissible for February and March of 2016 with February and March of 2017. That calculation shows there was a 52.4 percent (40,170) decrease in 2017 compared to 2016 (84,466).This would be a more accurate look at the impact of Trumps policy changes to date, rather than focusing on just the month of March.

Still, experts caution against putting too much emphasis on the annual, quarterly or monthly numbers, because immigration trends are about flows, not raw numbers. But what is notable about recent apprehensions is that it doesnt fit the seasonal trends. Usually, theres a seasonal lull through winter months, before apprehensions start climbing back up. Apprehensions tend to peak from March to May, before coming back down in the late summer and through the fall.

But in fall 2016, there was an increase in apprehensions, despite the seasonal norm. You can see this increase in the bright blue line of 2016 apprehensions in the graphic below. Apprehensions start to increase in July 2016, and through October (see the red line for fiscal 2017), and peak in November 2016. Then apprehensions start falling from November to March. Looking at the red line in the graphic, its clear that the downward trend in 2017 so far is different and more drastic than any other year since 2002.

What does this all mean? Why was there an increase in apprehensions leading up to November 2016, the month of the U.S. presidential election? Why did it start to decline after the election, and so drastically into March? Experts say Trumps rhetoric on immigration made a difference.

On-the-ground reactions to federal level immigration policies, such as Trumps executive orders cracking down on illegal immigration, take some time to materialize. But the apparent rush to enter the country before the election indicates people sensed immigration attitudes and policies could drastically change if Trump were elected, said Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center.

Theres been a clear and marked decrease in unauthorized border crossings. Thats really undeniable, Wilson said. How much of that is due to policy changes versus rhetoric? Its not really easy to answer that question. My sense is that what weve really seen so far, the big change, has been around rhetoric, communicating. Its been about messaging, and thats worked, essentially. Potential migrants are convinced that this is a difficult time to come to the United States, and they have not been coming.

Still, violence continues to escalate in the Northern Triangle in Central America. In the past two years, Mexico and the United States have both turned away comparable flows of northbound Central American refugees and asylum seekers. That means its unclear how long this downward trend will last. Our friends at PolitiFact found that smugglers may be waiting to find a new route into the United States.

In 2015, then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson declared apprehensions were at record lows because of measures his agency had taken to respond to the 2014 influx of Central Americans. (We gave him Two Pinocchios at the time.) As weve seen, the Central American crisis continued to persist, leading to a spike in apprehensions the following year. So the reductions in 2015 under Johnson didnt last long.

Trump is citing a documented figure that the total number of apprehensions and people deemed inadmissible at the Southwest border declined by 64 percent in March 2017 compared to March 2016, and that there was a 61 percentreduction in Southwest border apprehensions from January 2017 to March 2017.

The number of people apprehended or deemed admissible tend to start climbing in March, yet the number continued to decline in March 2017. That showshow uncharacteristically low the flow over the border has been in March 2017. The 61 percent figure also isunique because such a reduction over three months is quite dramatic and bucks seasonal trends. Total apprehensions in March 2017 were the lowest monthly total since at least 2000.

But his use of the data still lacks some context. Trump says the 61 percent reduction began since Inauguration Day, or Jan. 20. But the January data is a total for the month, so the majority of the data predates his presidency.

As we noted, the most accurate figure would compare February and March of 2016 with those months for 2017. That shows a decrease of 52.4 percent, which is still substantial. Trumps rhetoric during the presidential campaign against illegal immigration and border crossings likely resonated with northbound migrants, experts say.

Yet its unclear what role Trumps immigration actions as president had, or what role Kelly (who was confirmed on Inauguration Day) had in bringing those figures down. And its too early for Trump to declare he kept his promise; we dont know whether this is the new normal, or a temporary change.

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Last month, we saw a 64 percent reduction in illegal immigration on our southern border.

Donald Trump

President of the United States

in a weekly address

Friday, April 7, 2017

04/07/2017

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President Trump's claim that illegal immigration is down 64 percent ... - Washington Post