President Trump called off his order, at least temporarily, for authorities to round up and deport “millions” of illegal aliens. He said that he was withholding the order to encourage Congress to enact legislation to stop the recent surge of illegal immigration into the U.S. often facilitated by bogus asylum claims. He said that if Congress doesn’t act, deportations will begin.

 Read more at washingtonpost.com

Democrats in a number states are taking steps to promote voting by illegal aliens, charges voter fraud expert Eric Eggers who heads the Government Accountability Institute. One example he cites  was the law recently passed in New York state allowing illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses. Said Eggers, “This is the first step towards he expansion of a number of things that normalize the rights of illegal aliens. It’s only a matter of time before we see the expansion of illegal alien voting in state elections and eventually the Left is pushing for illegal alien voting in federal elections.

Read more at breitbart.com 

At the recent rally of his supporters in Orlando, Florida, President Trump strongly denounced the policies of Democrats on illegal immigration.

He stated, “On no issue are Democrats more extreme and more depraved than when it comes to border security. The Democrat agenda of open borders is morally reprehensible. It is the greatest betrayal of the American middle class and, frankly, American life. Illegal mass migration brings in millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs, wages, and opportunities against the most vulnerable Americans — cutting off their path to the American dream. ”

Read more at breitbart.com

Ken Cuccinelli, newly appointed acting Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, is wasting no time in getting down to the business he was hired to do. In the past week, he emailed officers in his agency charged with interviewing asylum seekers, admonishing them to hold would-be asylees to higher standards than has been common recently. Citing the wide divergence between asylum seekers admitted and those eventually granted asylum, Cuccinelli instructed the officers to employ a stricter reading of the “credible fear” standard when evaluating  a migrant’s application.

Asylum is a special status granted to persons who have fled their home country because of a credible fear of persecution. It is not intended and should not be granted to persons leaving for other reasons, such as economic.

A 2017 survey of migrants from the “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, Honduras , and El Salvador showed that fewer than 4% exclusively said they were fleeing violence.  Matt O’Brien, a FAIR official, told the Daily Caller, “The vast majority of current Central American asylum seekers—by their own admission—are economic migrants who do not qualify for asylum, because they are not subject to persecution….”

It is this fact that Cuccinelli is instructing his asylum officers to address and to discontinue the essentially rubber-stamp process currently being employed.

Ken Cuccinelli had a good reputation among immigration hawks coming into his job. Actions like the above are a good start, but they will be met by plenty of opposition from the open borders enthusiasts. Let’s hope he sticks to his guns.

For more, see BuzzFeed.

Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson cited the numerous ways California is becoming a dysfunctional state, with a dwindling middle class and a high level of poverty. He described it as the symbol of “everything that’s gone wrong with America.” Immigration advocates claim that immigration is always culturally and economically enriching. California is the state with both the highest percentage and number of immigrants. So where’s the enrichment?

Read more at foxnews.com

Last night, President Trump tweeted the following:

So far, that’s all we really know.  All else is speculation.

The Washington Post speculates that Trump is referring to the implementation of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) blitz of illegals that has been in preparation for months. The administration has learned to keep such operations secret because local officials in “sanctuary cities” are prone to tipping off their illegal populations.

According to the Post, Trump and  senior immigration adviser Stephen Miller have been encouraging Homeland Security officials to “arrest and remove thousands of illegals whose deportation orders were expedited by the Justice Department this year as part of a plan known as the ‘rocket docket.'”

The paper further speculates that Acting ICE director Ronald Vitiello and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen were removed from their posts when they hesitated to implement that plan, fearful of public outrage at the sight of its being applied to migrant children.

Former FBI and Border Patrol official Mark Morgan, who replaced Vitello, has said publicly that his agency will pursue the removal of illegals who have been issued deportation orders and that this will include families with minor children.

DHS officials say that virtually all family units that have entered the United States illegally since 2017 are still here. Some are still awaiting adjudication on asylum claims, but most have simply skipped out on court hearings and disappeared into the country.

We’ll see what the sweep is able to do.

For more, see the Columbus Dispatch.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation banning sanctuary cities and counties in Florida. A sanctuary jurisdiction is one that city is a city that forbids its employees to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement.

DeSantis stated,  “I am proud to sign the bill presented to me by the Florida Legislature to uphold the rule of law and ensure that no city or county jurisdiction can get in the way of Florida’s cooperation with our federal partners to enforce immigration law. This is about public safety, not about politics. We must do everything within our power, and use all the tools available to us, to ensure that our communities are safe.”

Read more at foxnews.com

The deal struck by President Trump with Mexico that avoided implementation of his threatened tariff–a deal that has been roundly criticized on the left and the right–may be bearing some fruit.

This weekend appeared to show an uptick in immigration law enforcement within Mexico and on her borders.

Armed soldiers wearing black armbands signifying the newly created Mexican National Guard were spotted checking identification and removing undocumented passengers at a checkpoint near Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, in Chiapas.  Elsewhere in Chiapas, National Guardsmen searched for migrants and smugglers among backroads in the darkness.

In the gulf coast state of Veracruz, 791 illegal migrants were removed from tractor-trailer trucks and the drivers arrested.

Outside Comitán in Chiapas on Sunday, National Guardsmen manned roadblocks, and illegal Honduran migrants could be seen in a nearby holding cell.

Also on Sunday, National Guardsmen were spotted patrolling along the Suchiate River, which forms Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, an area that previously had been open to illegal border crossers.

Although these are for the most part merely anecdotal reports from individual reporters, they are welcome signs.  So far, however, they might indicate only a token effort on the part of the Mexican government to present a show of cooperation. The deal struck between the U.S. and Mexico  set into motion a 45-day clock, during which Mexico must show effective migrant control to avoid the tariff.

The use of the National Guard, which had recently been created for more domestic crime prevention, is an apparent indication of good faith.  Another such indication is a change at the top of Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM), the federal agency charged with controlling migration within the country.  On Friday, the director of that agency, a sociologist named Tonatiuh Guillen, resigned, and was replaced by the former head of Mexico’s prison system, Francisco Garduno. The INM  then announced that  1,000 immigration agents had been deployed in the north and south of Mexico and that by Tuesday, 6,000 National Guard troops would be patrolling the southern border with Guatemala.

We hope the Trump administration is verifying these moves and that they keep up the pressure. The clock is ticking.

For more, see ABC News.