Conservative Blogger
Friday, October 7, 2016
Authorities caught barely half of illegal border crossers last year, report finds
SAN DIEGO – Immigration authorities caught just over half of the people who illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico last year, according to a report commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security that offers one of the most detailed assessments of border security ever compiled.
The report found that 54 percent of people who entered illegally between border crossings got caught in the 2015 fiscal year. That's much lower than the 81 percent success rate that Homeland Security cited publicly using a different counting method.
The 98-page report was completed in May, and Homeland Security officials have declined to release it, despite urging from some members of Congress. The Associated Press obtained a copy from a government official involved in border issues who acted on condition of anonymity because the department has not made the report public.
The department said Thursday that the report was "one building block provided by a research organization" toward developing more reliable measures of border security and that its methodology needed refinement.
"DHS does not believe it is in the public interest to release, and it would be irresponsible to make policy or other judgments on the basis of analysis that is incomplete and remains a work in progress," spokeswoman Marsha Catron said.
The report offers some of most detailed measures yet of how secure the border with Mexico is -- a major issue in a presidential campaign that features Republican nominee Donald Trump calling for a wall along the entire 1,954-mile border. The report includes enough material to argue that the government has made big strides or that it is falling woefully short.
In terms of people, 170,000 eluded capture during the 2015 fiscal year, 210,000 the previous year, and 1.7 million in 2005. The number of people who eluded capture is larger when including those who escaped detection at border crossings or who entered by sea, which is the responsibility of Homeland Security agencies outside the Border Patrol. Adding those, 200,000 people got away last year, 260,000 in 2014, and 1.9 million in 2005.
The huge drop in illegal entries over the last decade coincides with major increases in border security spending, which has reached $14 billion annually. The report notes more serious consequences imposed on illegal crossers during that period, which include jail time.
Immigration experts have also cited the significant decline in job opportunities after the Great Recession that began at the end of 2007. Still, sharp declines in illegal entries have continued in recent years as the economy improved.
"This is the first solid evidence we have that the border buildup of the last 20 years has indeed made some significant difference in deterring and reducing illegal entries across the southern border," said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Border Patrol's capture rate on the Mexican border was 55 percent in 2014 and 36 percent in 2005, according to the report prepared for Homeland Security by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded research organization. The Border Patrol achieved an 11-point improvement in 2014 after years of slow but steady gains. The report does not offer an explanation for the sudden improvement.
The report, which includes an appendix of more than 100 pages on methodology and a review of previous efforts to count border crossers, offers detailed analysis going back to 2000, shortly before the U.S. erected hundreds of miles of fences along the Mexican border, added surveillance gear and doubled the number of Border Patrol agents. Homeland Security has been under pressure to show if those multibillion-dollar investments yielded results.
The primary measure that Homeland Security has released for public consumption is the number of Border Patrol arrests, which tells how many people got caught but not how many got away. Arrests dropped to the lowest level in 44 years in 2015, down 80 percent from a peak of nearly 1.7 million in 2000.
For the last two years, the department has released an "interdiction effectiveness rate" that measures the percentage of people who got caught among all who attempted to enter between crossings on the Mexican border. The figure includes those who set foot in the U.S. and turned around and asylum-seekers. It was 81 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2015.
The report obtained by the AP takes a different approach. It does not credit the government for people who turn around or turn themselves in to agents to seek asylum, a common occurrence among Central American women and children who have entered the country in large numbers over the last five years, many of them fleeing drug-fueled violence.
The report says there were 140,000 asylum seekers on the Mexican border last year and 170,000 in 2014, compared to about 20,000 a year a decade ago. Homeland Security's practice of counting those as captures goes a long way toward explaining why its success rate was so much higher.
The report also counts people who entered the country illegally at border crossings -- typically by presenting fake or stolen documents to immigration inspectors. Homeland Security does not publish those numbers. The report says 28,000 escaped detection last year, down from 46,000 in 2014. The capture rate improved to 39 percent from 29 percent.
Counting border crossers who elude capture is a mammoth and imprecise task but one that many experts believe is necessary to judge whether the border is secure. Homeland Security approaches the job by tracking physical evidence, such as footprints in the desert and other signs of human presence, and by agent sightings. The internal report uses that information, along with migrant surveys and techniques developed by social scientists.
FBI files reveal missing email 'boxes' in Clinton case, allegations of evidence tampering
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| How the FBI is trying to meet Clinton email deadline |
The interviews released earlier this month, known as 302s, also reveal the serious allegation that senior State Department official Patrick Kennedy applied pressure to subordinates to change the classified email codes so they would be shielded from Congress and the public.
The details about the boxes are contained in five pages of the FBI file – with a staggering 111 redactions – that summarize the statements of a State Department witness who worked in the “Office of Information Programs and Services (IPS)." The employee told the FBI that, “Initially, IPS officials were told there were 14 bankers boxes of former Secretary of State Hillary CLINTON’s emails at CLINTON’s Friendship Heights office.” Friendship Heights is a neighborhood that straddles the Northwest neighborhood of the District of Columbia and Maryland.
The State Department witness further explained to the FBI that “on or about December 5, 2014, IPS personnel picked up only 12 bankers boxes of CLINTON’s emails from Williams & Connolly.”
The officials were not sure if the boxes “were consolidated or what could have happened to the two other boxes. “
Clinton’s chief lawyer at Williams & Connolly, who leads all Clinton-related legal matters, is David Kendall. He has successfully represented Bill and Hillary Clinton together and separately throughout decades of their legal entanglements since the 1980’s, ranging from the former president’s sex scandals to missing billing records for Hillary Clinton’s work as a partner in The Rose Law Firm on behalf of the failed Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan and Capital Management Services.
In the documents provided by Kendall’s law firm, the witness told the FBI they were “unable to locate any of her emails from January-April 2009.” This timeframe is crucial as it covers the start of Clinton’s term as secretary of state and when she set up a private server for all government business, in turn skirting public records laws.
In the same Aug. 18, 2015, interview, on page 42, the State Department witness also told the FBI there was a deliberate effort to change sensitive Clinton emails bearing the “B(1)” code -- used in the Freedom of Information Act review process to identify classified information -- to the category of “B-5.” That category covers Executive Branch deliberations, “interagency or intra-agency communications including attorney client privileges,” and makes material exempt from public release.
Over five pages of the single-spaced summary notes, the witness, whose name is redacted, alleges Clinton’s team which included Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy played classification games to confuse and obfuscate the formal FOIA review process.
“(Redacted) believed there was interference with the formal FOIA review process. Specifically, STATE’s Near East Affairs Bureau upgraded several of CLINTON’s emails to a classified level with a B(1) release exemption. (Redacted) along with (redacted) attorney, Office of Legal Counsel called STATE's Near East Affairs Bureau and told them they could use a B(5) exemption on an upgraded email to protect it instead of the B(1) exemption."
In early May 2015, the witness reported, "… KENNEDY held a closed-door meeting with (redacted) and (redacted) DOJ's Office of Information Programs where KENNEDY pointedly asked (redacted) to change the FBI's classification determination regarding one of CLINTON's emails, which the FBI considered classified. The email was related to FBI counter-terrorism operations.”
This appears to be one of two emails that kick-started the FBI probe in the summer of 2015. Fox News first identified the two emails containing classified information as well as sensitive law enforcement information sent by Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan to Clinton’s unsecured server.
State Department spokesman John Kirby consistently has stated the majority of the 2,100 Clinton server emails containing classified information were "retroactively classified" and not classified at the time they were sent and received. But that explanation is disputed by seasoned intelligence officials. Even the State Department witness cast doubt on the claim in the FBI interview:
"(Redacted) heard the argument that some of CLINTON'S emails were unclassified back in the 2009-2012 timeframe when they were initiated, but were later classified due to various circumstances. It was very rare for something that was actually unclassified to become classified years after the fact."
Asked this week about the FBI 302 and the claims Kennedy, one of the department's most senior executives, tampered with the FOIA review process, State Department spokesman Elizabeth Trudeau said they "strongly refute those claims."
She added, "The department has complete confidence that the … attorneys performed the highest professional and ethical standards, including, with connection, with the review and release of Secretary Clinton's emails."
Kennedy, in his FBI interview on Dec. 21, 2015, “categorically rejected” the allegations of classified code tampering. While the section is partially redacted, it appears the FBI asked Kennedy about the credibility of the accusing witness. He said she “says it like it is” and has “no fear of telling truth to power.”
The conflicting statements indicate either the junior State Department employee or Kennedy misled or lied to federal agents which can be a criminal offense.
Fox News first reported on the intelligence community’s deep concerns that the process was tampered with, as lawyers with Clinton ties were alleged to be involved at the State Department.
Fox News was told in August 2015 that Kennedy was running interference on Capitol Hill. Two sources confirmed that Kennedy went to Capitol Hill and argued one of the emails that kick-started the probe did not contain classified material, citing a 2011 Irish Times newspaper report to claim the information was already public.
According to congressional testimony, at least one of the lawyers in the office where the changes were made is Catherine “Kate” Duval, who was at the IRS during the Lois Lerner email scandal and later handled the release of documents to the Benghazi congressional committee.
Duval once worked for the same firm as Kendall and has since left the State Department.
Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.
White House coordinated with State Department, Clinton campaign on email issue, documents show
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| Lawmakers question destruction of Clinton aides' laptops |
Their discussion included a request from the White House communications director to her counterpart at the State Department to see if it was possible to arrange for Secretary of State John Kerry to avoid questions during media appearances about Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement.
In another instance, a top State Department official assured an attorney for Mrs. Clinton that, contrary to media reports, a department official hadn’t told Congress that Mrs. Clinton erred in using a private email account.
The previously unreported emails were obtained by the Republican National Committee as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records of Mrs. Clinton’s time in office. The RNC provided to The Wall Street Journal only some of the emails, leaving it unclear what was in the remaining documents. The RNC said it released only emails relevant to the communication between the White House and State Department.
Meredith McGehee, chief of policy, programs, and strategy at the nonpartisan advocacy group Issue One and an expert on ethics and campaign finance, said the email exchange would probably raise no legal concerns because federal law permits members of the White House staff to engage in some political activity.
Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement has dogged her campaign for months, with Republicans and other critics saying it shows a carelessness with government secrets and undermines her claim to good judgment. Donald Trump’s campaign posted a statement on his website last month saying the Obama White House knew Mrs. Clinton was using a private email server.
See the Fox News 2016 battleground prediction map and make your own election projections. See Predictions Map →
The emails highlight the revolving door between the State Department, the White House and the Clinton campaign in early 2015 as Mrs. Clinton geared up to run for president.
Hurricane Matthew could bring political storm surge to Washington
Hurricane Matthew is poised to hit Washington, D.C.
Hear this out for a moment.
Forecasters predict the storm will tear through the Florida, Georgia and Carolina coastlines over the next two days. It could be the most-potent hurricane to crash the U.S. mainland in more than a decade. Just a few days ago, severe weather specialists pondered the chances of Matthew lashing the outskirts of the nation’s capital, a la Hurricane Hazel in 1954. But a big trough in the jet stream is too far north to suction Matthew into the Beltway region. The storm is now expected to perform a curly-q once it whipsaws the southern U.S. rather than drifting northward.
But alas, those are the meteorological models.
Check out the political models.
If past is prologue, Hurricane Matthew could well be a full-blown Cat 5 on the political version on the Saffir-Simpson scale when it makes landfall in Washington.
Congress is out of session until after the election. Lawmakers just approved a temporary spending bill last week to avoid a government shutdown. It’s likely Congress will wrestle with a broad, so-called “omnibus” package to again fund the government come Christmastime. And if Matthew is as bad as meteorologists expect, a debate about emergency assistance for Florida could dominate the conversation.
Keep in mind that lawmakers just stitched aid for flooding in Louisiana onto last month’s temporary spending measure. A storm of Matthew’s magnitude could prompt a reprise of such efforts – only for a different part of the country.
In politics, Mother Nature is the most democratic force in the universe. Earthquakes rattle California. Wildfires char the mountain west. Floods soak the Mississippi delta. Tornadoes spin through the Great Plains. Blizzards grip the Midwest. Ice storms paralyze New England. Hurricanes boil just off the Gulf Coast. Volcanoes belch in Hawaii.
Every part of the country has its own type of disaster. So when the earthquakefirefloodtornadoblizzardicestormhurricanevolcano strikes a given lawmaker’s district or state, they’re calling on Washington and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to chip in.
This goes for Democrats and Republicans. You thought all politics was local? Natural disasters are even more quintessentially provincial.
For years, a natural disaster would strike and Congress would quickly attach some disaster relief dollars onto the next big appropriations bill. It was just how they did things in Washington. Members of Congress – regardless of party – were loath to oppose any of those packages. Why? Well, this month it might have been a wildfire out west. But if you’re a congressman from New England, winter and an ice storm are coming. An earthquake may have just jolted San Francisco. But senators representing the Great Plains know tornado season is up next spring.
Congress infused FEMA with plenty of cash ahead of time a few years ago to sidestep these appropriations crises. That approach mitigated some spending fights after each individual natural disaster. But it’s impossible to anticipate what’s necessary following each calamity.
Resistance to providing some emergency relief after various natural disasters materialized in 2011 and 2012 as Republicans won control of the House of Representatives. In 2010, voters elected Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers to specifically slash spending. Coughing up additional aid heaped billions of dollars onto the deficit.
Superstorm Sandy punished the East Coast in late October, 2012. Then-House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, struggled to engineer enough votes to approve an aid package. There was hope Congress would pass the assistance package in late December of that year. But it was not to be.
Congress finally approved the Sandy aid plan in early 2013. The House okayed the plan 241-180. But despite holding the majority, a scant 49 Republicans joined 192 Democrats to vote aye. The vote on the Sandy measure represented the fewest members of the majority party to vote for a major piece of legislation which the House passed in years.
That roll call revealed something fascinating: almost all Republicans in favor were either members of leadership, committee chairs, moderates – or represented areas near the Gulf Coast subject to hurricanes. In other words, Sandy wrecked New York City and the northeast U.S. But those lawmakers who endured Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and other storms knew they couldn’t oppose such a plan to help another region. A nay vote would be hypocritical.
Of course no one knows what devastation Matthew might mete out. But one thing’s for sure: storms thousands of miles away from Washington often rip through the Beltway. Examine the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and how it helped tarnish the GOP brand. That helped Democrats score House and Senate control in 2006.
Another example is Category 5 Hurricane Andrew which smashed southern Florida in late August, 1992. The Administration of President George H.W. Bush failed to order an evacuation ahead of Andrew. Moreover, FEMA didn’t distribute the necessary aid.
“Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one?” exploded Kate Hale, head of the Dade County, Florida Emergency Management division. “For God’s sake, where are they?”
The biggest concern with many of these hurricanes is the storm surge. That’s the wall of water that tears through communities. Congress must figure out a way to fund the government again this fall. And complicating those efforts could be a political storm surge washing through Capitol Hill that wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen when lawmakers left a few days ago.
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