The BS about BS/ border security, update.
The BS about BS/ border security, update.
Yes, the MAGA/ GOP is still lying, and it is getting worse
September Border outlook
Welcome back to your work week TAT readers. Yes, for me it is still an erratic schedule of remodeling and related chores to help my son, and his family get into their new house. The grandkids are off to bed to get back to school tomorrow as well. For a little while, I will sit down and pound the keyboard in order to give everyone a detailed update, on our Southern Border. As a spoiler alert, it is not even close to the fearmongering provocations, blaring from the mouths of the MAGA/ GOP, especially in TX. What they will never tell you about the border, is the truth. Governor Greg Abbott and his Texas Taliban, despite spending billions of our taxpayer dollars on his political stunt called, Operation Lonestar, draws criticism constantly from experts, including me, about his outrageous claims.
To make matters worse, many of the mainstream news services, use bumper sticker sayings, like the “Biden border crisis,” therefore reinforcing their dishonesty in the minds of their audiences. I have written often on the topic of the border in the past couple of years and will include the links below to previous reports. In the meantime, let’s all take look at where we are right now, as TAT passed its second birthday over the weekend.
In the Southwestern Sector of the CBP/ Customs and Border Patrol regions, encounters at our southern border are at their lowest least since 2021. Still, the GOP’s overt dishonesty and scare tactics, continue unabated. Their border lies are what were called in my youth, “whoppers.” Asylum seekers are now treated humanely, and more unlawful asylum seekers, have been deported than under any other president. In case you are wondering which president deported the most until Joe Biden, it was president, Barack Obama. Somehow these truths never seem to make the news headlines or are mentioned in any GOP rallies, conventions, or campaign speeches. Even more responsible newsrooms fail to give their audiences a complete picture.
If nothing else, the GOP keeps TAT, knee deep in threats to be explained and truth told. As I wrote back in March, they are responsible for the three most dangerous conspiracy theories in our election year. They are the dishonesty of calling price-gouging inflation, the false GOP narratives about Ukraine and today’s topic, false narratives about our southern border. Of the three, only supporting Ukraine with aid, has been partly resolved. Trump sycophant Speaker Mike Johnson, who was briefed directly by the CIA Director in April, finally stopped obstructing the aid vote for our brothers-and-sisters-in-arms in Ukraine. The other most dangerous narrative is the myth that we are still experiencing inflation. We are not, we’re being price gouged.
Before digging into the facts, first come the links to previous essays for those seeking a chronological series of factual updates. The essays below begin with the oldest/ September of 2022 and continue to the newest, which is the one you are now reading.
Yes, our borders are critical to our National Security (truthaboutthreats.com)
In Texas, it's reality vs. Greg Abbott and conspiracy theories (truthaboutthreats.com)
After the end of Title 42, the southern border of Texas is calm. (truthaboutthreats.com)
My TX congressman is gaslighting us on school security and lots more. (truthaboutthreats.com)
Separating the Wheat from the Chaff about our Southern Border. (truthaboutthreats.com)
· The BS about BS... Border Security - by Paul Cobaugh (truthaboutthreats.com)
What these chronologically arranged essays will tell you is that there was never anything like a “Biden Border Crisis.” The Crisis is derived from issues and activities, global, not US only. In fact, many nations in the world have far worse, forced migration issues. To say that this is specifically a crisis created by and continually enabled by administration policies, is absurd.
The first, so-called record rush on our southern border, was during 2019 and largely influenced by a perpetually escalating crisis, called climate change-driven, war, famine, water, resource shortages, crime, oligarchism etc. Somehow, this didn’t matter to the Trump/MAGA movement who was in power then, so long as they went on TV, the radio waves, all manner of digital communications etc.… and blamed everyone but themselves. In normal fashion, those who opposed the cruelty of Trump policies such as “family separation,” could not seem to communicate the truth to the American people.
This historically, has been the case with the left. Their so-called, “messaging,” is incompetent, devoid of real strategy and often missing in action altogether. For the party that does by far the most for working class Americans, they sure don’t seem to know how to talk to us. As an exception, President Biden does understand but can’t carry the entire load of narrating truth to the American people by himself. Where the hell has the party been?
The text below, is quoted from a DHS report from 2019, by then DHS Director Kirstjen Nielson, of the Trump administration.
” Humanitarian and Security Crisis at Southern Border Reaches 'Breaking Point'
Release Date: March 6, 2019
Illegal Immigration Hits 12-Year High; More than 76,000 Migrants Cross in February
The U.S. Border Patrol is currently encountering illegal immigration at the highest rates since 2007, according to new data. In fact, in February more than double the level of migrants crossed the border without authorization compared to the same period last year, approaching the largest numbers seen in any February in the last 12 years, The New York Times reported.
“The truth is that the politics and policies of open borders have failed the American people. Our broken system endures, and the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis at our Southwest Border leaves many minors and families at extreme risk of being exploited by traffickers, human smugglers, gangs, and other nefarious actors seeking to profit at their expense,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen. “Activist courts, congressional inaction, and criminals intent on breaking our laws stand in the way of confronting illegal and uncontrolled migration threatening our safety and security. What was a crisis, is now a full-fledged emergency.”
“This cannot be a partisan issue,” Nielsen continued. “Every DHS Secretary since the Department’s inception has sounded the alarm about our unsecured border and its consequences. The American people and our law enforcement personnel rightfully demand effective border security: building the wall, strengthening our laws, and giving the men and women serving on the front lines the tools and resources they need to keep Americans safe. To that end, this Department pledges our unwavering resolve to confronting present and ever-evolving future threats to our national security at our Southwest Border.”
As you can see in the chart above from DHS, the 2019 Trump numbers had a spike just like the Obama administration did during their terms in office. The difference is the Obama team deported far more than the subsequent Trump team. They also enacted a variety of other policies to better manage the centuries-long flow of people, back and forth across our southern border.
Secondly, at the beginning of 2020, the COVID disaster struck. This had two significant impacts along the border; the first was the ability to wield Title 42 as a tool of asylum management and two, the pandemic dramatically reduced the number of asylum seekers, at our southern border. As you can see in the graphic below from CBP, once the pandemic had been significantly tamed during early summer of 2023, all of those who had put off the trek north from Central and South America, picked up their rucksacks and headed north again. Many of those arriving on the other side of the Rio Grande, were the backlog of those from the COVID pandemic era. Administrations tend to get the so-called, “luck of the draw” when it comes to the southern border.
By January of this year, I was reporting on Putin’s ploy late last year, to push a million immigrants towards our southern border from friendly and allied nations as far away as India, Russia, Central Africa and far more. Putin did this as part of his “hail Mary” to help Trump win this November election. This is not some weird conspiracy theory either. I cover the details at this embedded link from the end of January this year. The primary source for this link is the VOA or Voice of American for Asia, a US government sponsored news and media service.
As I write this, our border asylum seekers, and encounters at the border in the Southwest Region, continue to drop and are now below the number that Trump handed off to the Biden Administration in January of 2021. Primary news media does an extremely poor job of headlining article that will detract from the advertising dollars from all Americans or hurts the chance for a presidential election to be anything but close. This makes their ad revenue increase which gives their oligarchical elite owners, a better bottom-line. Profitability drives most reporting these days, not so much ethical journalism, and journalists. Still, there are outstanding and ethical journalists, but they become scarcer, by the day.
A few other facts that play against the free-flowing nonsense, spewing from the GOP are also quite fascinating and relevant… if only the media would discuss them.
Border numbers are down and have been coming down consistently, since the beginning of this year and now sit lower than at the Trump/ Biden transition.
There is a much larger Federal presence at the border, than at any time in modern history.
There is now, post the end of Title 42, an online registration app that is being used, and which has greatly reduced the workload required for asylum seekers’ applications processing.
The current administration continues to take the actions available to them, while the congressional GOP representation, via Trump’s demand, refuses to even call for a vote on the bi-partisan border bill agreed to months ago.
At the embedded link, you will find ten pages of articles regarding the border, from the non-partisan and highly acclaimed, Texas Tribune. In ten pages of linked articles about the border, you will find the truth about the patently, hyperbolic dishonesty that we hear daily from GOP sources. Too bad that most national news sources, will not cover the border with the same integrity as the Trib.
I could continue adding bullet points like those above, but it will not matter to Trump voters. They have been brainwashed, long ago and at this point, their actual corrupted views, most likely cannot be reversed in anything under a decade, and that is under optimal circumstances. Our national security community currently nor has for decades, understood how to build resilience in US audiences from the conspiracy theories and false narratives of our era. It is not just their fault though. Community leaders, politicians, media, schools, churches etc. plus those that attend or belong to any type of public organization, has a responsibility to defend truth. Last but most importantly, each and every citizen has a responsibility according to our founders, to be well and accurately informed.
The only people in our nation that are not descended from immigrants, are those with the DNA of indigenous peoples. We have a duty to remain a nation that honors the traditions of immigration. This means orderly, controlled immigration processes and resources. This is the express job of the Legislative Branch, not the Executive Branch. It has been decades since they have done their job. Even now, it is Congress, that stands in the way of progress.
I wish to be very clear about a couple of hot topics before closing out this essay. First and foremost, an actual wall, is the most ridiculous idea that I can imagine. It is not viable nor manageable, under any circumstance. Also, and as written in some of the background essays, introduced at the beginning of this one, I clearly demonstrate that the immigration problem, cannot be solved at our borders. The issues are grounded in the largest global migration of human beings, since the end of the second, world war. The majority of our problems must be solved at the point of origination, not at our borders. Whether we like it or not, the earth is “globalized” and with it, come all the problems and advantages inherent to doing business and engaging other global citizens, anywhere on the planet.
Let’s remember as you finish reading this, that in order to solve any problem facing us or the world, it requires collaboration. If we continue to hate each other over partisan politics, where one half of voters are under the spell of influence operations, we can never solve a problem. Like math class in school, you cannot just push any number possible into an equation. Wrong numbers, wrong answers. All that living on conspiracy theories does for everyone, is to delay solutions to problems that grow worse by the day. We must operate on truth and critical thinking. Apparently, none of this is occurring on the right side of the aisle, during the Trump era. We need to snap our GOP family and friends, out of their Trump spell. The consequences for not doing so, is too frightening to imagine.
Cheers to all for the rest of their week,
Paul