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The White House • January 29, 2019 Here is the crisis Democrats say doesn’t exist One of the biggest lies told about immigration is that border security is anti-immigrant. Legal immigrants and American citizens alike—not to mention our brave law enforcement officers—are the victims of lawlessness at our Nation’s doorstep every single day. Consider these stats. In just the past 2 years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested more than 260,000 criminals who exploited our broken immigration system. This list includes those charged with or convicted of nearly 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 homicides. That’s the debate at hand. One side thinks the murder of 4,000 people is a crisis that our Government is accountable for solving. The other says it’s a “manufactured” problem. No one argues that border security will stop all crime in America. We need other steps—such as the criminal justice reform signed into law by President Donald J. Trump last month—to make our communities safer, as well. But there is no question that better border security will save lives. Pretending it won’t is Washington cynicism at its worst. Americans can no longer afford for Congress to punt on this issue. The consequences of a broken immigration system aren’t going away on their own. For example, in just the past 6 weeks alone: A U.S. Border Patrol officer was assaulted by a criminal alien that crossed the border in Arizona.   Two suspected MS-13 gang members from Honduras were arrested last week after they illegally entered the United States.   A group of 306 Central Americans gave themselves up to Border Patrol agents in the Arizona desert, where smugglers often leave sick or abused migrants for dead after they cross the border illegally.   Border Patrol officers arrested four narcotics smugglers in Texas—discovering more than 190 pounds of drugs.   Border Patrol agents arrested two convicted sex offenders in Arizona, both convicted of crimes involving minors.   Watch how smugglers easily exploit America’s southern border. Get the facts: A crisis that is too urgent to ignore Photo of the Day Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead President Donald J. Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen examine weapons and drugs confiscated by U.S. border officials at a roundtable in McAllen, Texas | January 10, 2019 The White House • January 28, 2019 The table is perfectly set: It’s time for Democrats to join On Friday, President Donald J. Trump set the table for a bipartisan compromise on immigration reform, reopening the Government and giving Congress a three-week window to continue negotiations to fully fund American border security. “Over the next 21 days, I expect that both Democrats and Republicans will operate in good faith,” the President announced from the White House Rose Garden. “If we make a fair deal, the American people will be proud of their Government for proving that we can put country before party.” Border security shouldn’t be controversial. In fact, America has built 654 miles of barrier over the past 15 years. It’s time to listen to our Border Patrol agents and finish the job, securing areas of the border where criminals, drug cartels, and human traffickers continue to exploit vulnerabilities in our infrastructure. “We do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shining sea—we never did. We never proposed that; we never wanted that,” the President said Friday. “Our proposed structures will be in pre-determined high-risk locations that have been specifically identified by the Border Patrol to stop illicit flows of people and drugs.” Experts agree. “The president is right. The wall works,” said Mark Morgan, President Obama’s former Border Patrol Chief. Need more evidence? On Friday—the very day President Trump announced a 3-week window for negotiations—U.S. border agents seized two duffel bags filled with 17 long-arm rifles, shotguns, and ammunition on a ranch near the U.S.–Mexico border in Texas. It’s common for guns and money to flow across the border in exchange for illicit drugs. Republicans are ready to make a deal that puts a stop to this lawlessness. It’s time for sensible Democrats to join them. Many have already broken ranks with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment that border walls are “immoral.” They’re right to do so: The safety and security of American citizens must always come before politics.  Watch President Trump’s message—“Build a wall and crime will fall!” More: President Trump announces the end of the shutdown   Photo of the Day Official White House Photo by  Shealah Craighead President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem. Yesterday, January 27, marked the observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  | May 23, 2017 Crisis at Our Southern Border Is Real and Growing Worse Without the Wall “The federal government has reopened, but the talking points pushed by the Democrats about the southern border remain the same. They falsely say ‘there is no crisis.’ They claim that a barrier or wall would do nothing to curb illegal immigration or drug smuggling, which is demonstrably untrue,” Buck Sexton writes in The Hill. For example, “human smugglers for the cartels use the surrender of family units as a diversionary tactic. Once Border Patrol is engaged in one area, the smugglers will use that opportunity to run drugs onto American soil.” Click here to read more. “As a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) special agent on the southern border who fought sex trafficking for over a decade, I can say with certainty that the issue of the border wall should be not about power and partisan politics. It should be about the children – the tens of thousands of them who have been and are being trafficked into the U.S. and forced into the commercial sex trade,” Timothy Ballard writes for Fox News. In 2006, Matthew Hemsley arrived in America on a working visa to help establish a church in Charlotte, he recounts in The Washington Post. “By now, my three daughters had grown up in the United States. This was their home. I wanted to secure my wife and my children’s futures here,” Hemsley writes. “Twelve years later, on Jan. 19, I had one of the most surreal moments of my life: I was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in the Oval Office by President Trump.” “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Tuesday that it arrested 118 illegal immigrants in New York in a five-day raid this month, more than 107 of whom were convicted criminals or had pending charges against them -- and the agency slammed local politicians for protecting them and endangering the public,” Adam Shaw reports in Fox News. “Now that many sanctuary cities, including New York City, do not honor ICE detainers, these individuals, who often have significant criminal histories, are released onto the street, presenting a potential public safety threat,” ICE said in a statement Tuesday. “Private payrolls grew in January at a much faster pace than expected,” Fred Imbert reports for CNBC. “Companies added 213,000 jobs this month.” Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi said the “job market weathered the government shutdown well” as American businesses continued to hire strongly. President Trump Hits Venezuela with New Sanctions as U.S. Steps Up Pressure on Maduro “The Trump administration stepped up its pressure campaign on Venezuela’s socialist president Monday, hitting the country’s state-owned oil company with sanctions and calling on other nations to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate interim president,” Dave Boyer reports for The Washington Times. “The United States is holding accountable those responsible for Venezuela’s tragic decline,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. Click here to continue reading. In the Washington Examiner, Anna Giaritelli reports that U.S. Border Patrol officials seized bags full of rifles, handguns, and ammunition found near the southern border last week. “An unnamed citizen called the agency after seeing a group of suspected illegal immigrants carrying large bags on nearby land Friday. The area is about 25 miles east of the international border.” In the Indianapolis Business Journal, Brad Rateike writes that after meeting with the women and men of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, it becomes clear that the crisis at our southern border is all too real. “In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to hear the president and Congress discuss next steps for border security. Whatever those may be, rest assured that after my trip there, I know firsthand that there is a real problem at the border, and there’s nothing manufactured about that.” “President Donald Trump has donated his salary from the third-quarter of 2018 to the federal agency that researches alcoholism and alcohol-related problems. The White House says Trump donated $100,000 to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,” The Associated Press reports. “His older brother, Fred Jr., died in 1981 after struggling with alcoholism, and the president has said he learned from his brother's experience.” There is “a wave of disabled Americans joining or returning to the U.S. labor force, breaking a long-running trend that had pushed millions to the sidelines of work,” Eric Morath writes in The Wall Street Journal. “These workers have benefited from a tight economy with a very low overall unemployment rate—3.9% in December, just above lowest level since 1969.” Thanks to President Trump, China's Economy Is Rapidly Decelerating “President Trump is exposing China’s economic vulnerability, showing that the communist nation cannot maintain its rapid growth without it patently unfair mercantilist trade policies,” former executive Andy Puzder writes in Fox News. “For the first time in decades, the U.S. has openly challenged Beijing’s aggressive trade manipulations, slapping targeted counter-tariffs on Chinese goods and pressuring the Communist regime to change its protectionist policies. So far, the strategy has been remarkably successful, forcing Beijing to lower its tariffs on U.S. automobile manufacturers by 25 percent while continuing to negotiate with the White House on a potential trade deal.” Click here to continue reading. Lost amid the mainstream media’s coverage of the border security debate is this factoid from a recent ABC/Washington Post poll: “Most American voters believe the United States is doing ‘too little’ to keep illegal aliens from coming to the United States,” Timothy Meads reports for Townhall. That figure includes four in five Republicans, more than a third of Democrats, and a majority of independents, Meads adds. “The Trump administration’s announcement Wednesday to recognize Venezuelan National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela amid the current popular uprising against the anti-democratic socialist Maduro regime was an act of brilliant statecraft,” Jon Hartley writes in Fox News. “Thanks to the U.S.-led coalition endorsing Juan Guaidó as interim president, Venezuelans now have hope for a new leader who has promised to host free and fair elections.” Yesterday marked the observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Forbes, Ewelina U. Ochab discusses the Elie Wiesel Act that President Trump signed earlier this month—“an act aimed at improving the US response to mass atrocities.” Among other measures, the act prioritizes the prevention of genocide as a matter of America’s national security interest. More: Read President Trump’s Proclamation for Holocaust Remembrance Day