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Daily Caller

Biden Admin Touts Reduction In Border Crossings While Flying In Hundreds Of Thousands Of Migrants

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Jason Hopkins

 

 

The Biden-Harris administration on Monday boasted about the recent reduction in illegal border crossings, despite the latest immigration data also showing hundreds of thousands of migrants have been allowed into the U.S. via different pathways created by the White House.

Since President Joe Biden announced an executive order in June limiting the number of unlawful crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border, encounters between ports of entry have fallen by over 50%, according to a press release by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). However, the press release also revealed that more than half a million foreign nationals have been flown in via a mass parole program, and nearly a million others have scheduled appointments with the U.S. government in hopes of entering.

“CBP continues to enforce the Securing the Border interim final rule and deliver strong consequences for illegal entry, and encounters between ports of entry remain at their lowest level in years,” acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller boasted in the CBP press release.

Nearly 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans have been flown into the country and granted parole under an initiative launched by the Biden-Harris administration known as the CHNV program, according to the CBP press release. Additionally, around 813,000 migrants have scheduled appointments to present at ports of entry via the CBP One app since its introduction in January 2023.

Border Patrol agents encountered roughly 58,000 migrants attempting to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border in August, according to the latest CBP data. This number marks the first uptick in illegal crossings at the southern border since February, in which there had been a steady decline every month.

Initially launched for Venezuelans in October 2022, CHNV was later expanded in January 2023 to include Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians. The parole program grants foreign nationals two year authorization into the U.S. and work permits, provided they have not previously entered the country illegally and pass other vetting processes.

The Department of Homeland Security had temporarily paused CHNV in August after reports found massive fraud, but then quickly resumed the mass parole program just a few weeks later. An internal audit discovered a litany of red flags, such as over 100,000 CHNV forms being completed by fewer than 4,000 applicants and Social Security numbers by sponsors belonging to a deceased individual, among other discrepancies.

House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green has previously referred to CHNV and the CBP One app as a “massive shell game” that allows otherwise inadmissible aliens to enter the country lawfully in lieu of crossing the border illegally.

The administration also noted that, since Biden’s executive order went into effect in June, DHS has deported more than 131,000 foreign nationals to over 140 countries and nearly tripled the percentage of noncitizens processed for expedited removal.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Daily Caller

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Resets The Energy Policy Playing Field

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Make no mistake about it, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed into law on Friday by President Donald Trump falls neatly in line with the Trump energy and climate agenda. Despite complaints by critics of the deal that Majority Leader John Thune struck with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to soften the bill’s effort to end wind and solar subsidies from the Orwellian 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the OBBBA continues – indeed, accelerates – the Trumpian energy revolution.

Leaders in the oil and gas industry, hamstrung at every opportunity by the Biden presidency, hailed the bill as a chance to move back into some semblance of boom times. Tim Stewart, President of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told his members in a memo that, “For the oil and gas industry, the bill…signals a transformative opportunity to enhance domestic production.”

API CEO Mike Sommers also praised the OBBBA as a positive step for his members: “This historic legislation will help usher in a new era of energy dominance by unlocking opportunities for investment, opening lease sales and expanding access to oil and natural gas development.

While leaders of organizations like those must curb their enthusiasm to some extent in their public statements, they and their peers must be somewhat amazed at how much real substantive change the thin GOP majorities shepherded by Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to stuff into this bill. This industry, historically an easily demonized bogeyman for Democrats and too often ignored by previous Republican presidents, does not experience days as encouraging as July 3 was in the nation’s capital.

Even so, many Republicans, especially in the House, remained unsatisfied by amendments the Senate made to the bill related to IRA subsidy rollbacks. To help Speaker Johnson hold the party’s narrow House majority together, President Trump committed the executive branch to strict enforcement of the new limitations, and promised the White House will work with congressional allies to move a major deregulation package ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

But the OBBBA as passed is chock full of energy and environment-related provisions. FTI Consulting, a business consultancy with a major presence in Washington, DC, published a quick analysis Thursday that projects natural gas and nuclear as the biggest winners as the OBBBA’s impacts begin to take hold across the United States. Interestingly, the analysis also projects battery storage to expand more rapidly over the next five years even as wind and solar suffer from the phasing-out of their IRA subsidies.

The side deal struck by Thune and Murkowski is likely to result in significant new investment into wind and solar facilities as developers strive to get as many projects on the books as possible to meet the “commenced construction” requirement by the July 4, 2026 deadline. The bill’s previous language would have required projects to be placed into service by that time. But even that softer requirement will almost certainly cause a flow of capital investment out of wind and solar once that deadline passes, given the reality that many of their projects are not sustainable without constant flows of government subsidies.

What it all means is that the OBBBA, combined with all the administration’s prior moves to radically shift the direction of federal energy and climate policy away from intermittent energy and electric vehicles back to traditional forms of power generation and internal combustion cars, effectively reset the policy playing field back to 2019, prior to the COVID pandemic. That was a time when America had become as energy independent as it had been in well over half a century and was approaching the “Energy Dominance” position so dear to President Trump’s heart.

Trump’s signing of the OBBBA gives the oil and gas, nuclear, and even the coal industry a chance at a do over. It is an opportunity that comes with great pressure, both from government and the public, to perform. That means rapid expansion in gas power generation unseen in 20 years, rapid development of next generation nuclear, and even a probable chance to permit and build new coal capacity in the near future.

Second chances like this do not come around often. If these great industries fail to grab this brass ring and run with it, it may never come around again. Let’s go, folks.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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‘They Don’t Know What The F*ck They’re Doing’: Trump Unloads On Iran, Israel

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Harold Hutchison

President Donald Trump expressed frustration Tuesday after Iran broke a ceasefire, prompting retaliation from Israel during a gaggle with reporters on the White House lawn.

Trump announced the ceasefire Monday, saying it was supposed to take effect at 1 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, but Iran fired missiles at Israel Tuesday. Trump vented, saying the countries had been “fighting so long” they couldn’t make peace.

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“You know, when I say okay, now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour just drop everything you have on them,” Trump said. “So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either. But I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because the one rocket that didn’t land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn’t land, I’m not happy about that.”

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard, that they don’t know what the fuck they are doing,” Trump added.

The United States struck facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan related to Iran’s effort to develop nuclear weapons early Sunday morning local time, using as many as 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators in the operation, which involved a 37-hour flight by seven B-2A Spirit bombers.

The American strikes came ten days after Israel launched a military operation targeting the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has responded with repeated missile attacks on Israeli cities and a refusal to resume negotiations over its efforts to pursue nuclear weapons.

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