Chip Roy: Biden is ‘purposefully’ refusing to enforce US law with new immigration policies

Senator Chip Roy says that new immigration policies from the Biden administration are dangerous to Americans and immigrants.

Latest Stories

  • Pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood swears under oath he has evidence Mike Pence is a ‘traitor’

    Ally of former president called said he was 'prepared to file that evidence along with a considerable amount of evidence of election fraud' in response to separate case

  • Asian Man Beaten and Robbed of ‘Around $15K’ at Bank in the Bay Area

    In the latest of a new surge in anti-Asian attacks, a man was assaulted and robbed while trying to deposit “large sums of money” at a bank in San Leandro, California this week. The incident, which left the victim with minor injuries, occurred at the Bank of America branch at 1925 Marina Boulevard around 1:20 p.m. on Tuesday. Witnesses tell me this older Asian man was making a deposit at the Bank of America along Marina in San Leandro & was attacked & robbed.

  • Germany 'offered $1bn if US dropped sanctions against controversial pipeline'

    A new political row has broken out over a controversial gas pipeline between Russia and Germany after Angela Merkel’s government was accused of offering to spend $1bn (£720m) on American gas if the US called off planned sanctions against the project. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will allow Russian gas to be pumped directly to Germany, but the US has threatened to impose sanctions on any company involved with the project, arguing it will make Europe too dependent on Russia for its energy needs. Lobbying group Environmental Action Germany (DUH) this week published a leaked letter from Olaf Scholz, the German finance minister, to Steve Mnuchin, the then US treasury secretary, dated last August. In it, Mr Scholz offered to invest $1bn on new infrastructure to import American liquefied natural gas (LNG) at German ports if the US dropped the planned sanctions.

  • Iranian nuclear scientist killed by one-ton automated gun in Israeli hit: Jewish Chronicle

    The Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated near Tehran in November was killed by a one-ton gun smuggled into Iran in pieces by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, according to a report by The Jewish Chronicle on Wednesday. Citing intelligence sources, the British weekly said a team of more than 20 agents, including Israeli and Iranian nationals, carried out the ambush on scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh after eight months of surveillance. Shortly after his death Iran pointed the finger at Israel, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif writing on Twitter of “serious indications of (an) Israeli role."

  • Idaho man pleads guilty to rape and murder after innocent suspect spent 20 years behind bars

    'Today was a good day in that there's some finality to it,' says Angie Dodge's brother Brent

  • Lindsey Graham reads Neera Tanden negative Glassdoor reviews from old employees during confirmation hearing

    As Neera Tanden, President Biden's nominee to take over as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, sat Wednesday for her confirmation hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, read aloud some reviews her former employees at the Center for American Progress left on Glassdoor over the last few years. Graham noted that Tanden, the president of CAP, referred the committee to the reviews, some of which were far from flattering about the management at the public policy organization, even when the overall experience was considered positive ("Great experience, terrible management," one read.) "All I can say," Graham said after going through some of the negative comments, "is that this is not the unifying pick that I was looking for in this position." CONFIRMATION HEARING: Sen. Lindsey Graham reads negative Glassdoor reviews of Center for American Progress under Neera Tanden after she referred committee to them: “‘1 out of 5 stars. Terrible absolutely horrible.’” pic.twitter.com/u6hKaZWg0W — Forbes (@Forbes) February 10, 2021 Republicans like Graham weren't the only ones to raise concerns about Tanden. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the chair of the committee, joined some GOP colleagues in questioning Tanden about some inflammatory comments she previously made on Twitter. "Your attacks were not just made against Republicans," he said. "There were vicious attacks made against progressives. People I have worked with." Sanders acknowledged lawmakers are used to such criticism, but he clarified that "it's important" to refrain from personal attacks and instead express "differences on policy." Tanden told Sanders she regrets her past remarks and will change her approach if confirmed. .@SenSanders says it's important to "minimize the level of personal and vicious attacks." Asks Neera Tanden if she'll have a different approach at OMB.@neeratanden: "Absolutely...social media does lead to too many personal comments and my approach will be radically different." pic.twitter.com/QB6FAtrWQr — CSPAN (@cspan) February 10, 2021 More stories from theweek.comTrump's dumbfounding defenseTrump the phone guy is backThe 2021 Oscars will be broadcast from multiple locations

  • What next for the border in Northern Ireland?

    This was first published in The Telegraph's Refresher newsletter. For more facts and explanation behind the week’s biggest political stories, sign up to the Refresher here – straight to your inbox every Wednesday afternoon for free. What’s the story? The UK and EU are at once again at loggerheads over how to resolve difficulties at the Northern Irish border, following threats against port staff and fresh calls for the Government to abandon the Northern Ireland Protocol. Britain’s departure from the European Union and the end of the Brexit transition period mean that there must be customs checks on goods entering the EU single market by travelling between the UK and the EU via Northern Ireland. The perennial issue for legislators has been how to check goods without imposing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic: something all sides have pledged to avoid since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. But the solution agreed between the UK and EU in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement – the Northern Ireland Protocol – has not been running as smoothly as hoped. Teething difficulties at the ports in Northern Ireland have been exacerbated by the European Commission’s threat on January 29 to block vaccines leaving the EU, which would effectively have imposed a hard border on the island. The Commission’s brief triggering of Article 16 of the Protocol was quickly rescinded, but not before tensions between unionists and republicans in Northern Ireland were inflamed by the sudden prospect of a border. Threats were made against port workers and loyalist graffiti was daubed on walls around Larne and Belfast. Northern Irish police say there is no indication of paramilitary involvement, but customs officials were sent home for their own safety. Michael Gove, who is responsible for dealing with border issues in Northern Ireland on behalf of the UK Government, has condemned the Commission for opening a “Pandora’s Box” and called for the extension of a “grace period” in the Protocol. The grace period, which would have ended in April, allows goods to travel across the border without some of the checks that will eventually be required, in an attempt to smooth the transition. It is hoped that an extension would allow the issues to be resolved before further checks are imposed. Looking back The Northern Ireland Protocol was Boris Johnson’s solution to the Northern Ireland border issue. Removing the hated backstop from Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement – and collapsing the Conservative Party’s agreement with the DUP – Mr Johnson instead agreed that some checks would take place on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, if they were “at risk” of travelling onward into the EU. That resolution was a controversial one. For DUP politicians, any checks on goods travelling between the four nations of the UK represent an unacceptable breach of the country’s own internal market. The EU was eventually satisfied by the Northern Ireland Protocol and agreed it with Mr Johnson’s Government in October 2019. But it did not come into force until the end of the Brexit transition period on January 1, after which the UK was finally no longer treated as an EU member state. For the Irish Government, which was opposed to Britain leaving the EU from the start, the issues in recent weeks are less to do with the EU’s vaccine threats and more to do with Brexit itself. In a radio interview last week Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, said: “I would be open to advocating for modest extensions of grace periods when appropriate to try to, first of all, reassure people that we're listening to them in Northern Ireland, because we are, and then, secondly, so that we can ensure that businesses can operate as best they can under the protocol. "But that's not the same thing as scrapping the protocol and it's important to make a strong distinction between the two." Mr Coveney signalled the Irish Government would be open to an extension of the grace period, but said any settlement could not involve a renegotiation of the protocol and, by extension, the Withdrawal Agreement. Meanwhile, my colleagues report that the EU is almost certain to accept a time-limited extension to between three and six months, not the two years Mr Gove has requested. Anything else? The picture in Northern Ireland is further complicated by continued DUP calls for the UK Government to trigger Article 16 itself, and abandon the protocol altogether. The party is pursuing a series of political moves aimed at undermining the mechanism, including a boycott on engagement with the Irish Government on issues related to its operation and a vow to oppose any protocol-related legislation at the Assembly. Other parties in the Stormont power-sharing agreement say the DUP’s goal of scrapping the protocol altogether is “unrealistic”, and it should focus on cooperation with other Northern Irish parties. The Northern Ireland Assembly ultimately has a veto power over the protocol, but only in a vote every four years. Until then, the SDLP, another party in the agreement, said unionists “need to learn the lesson that they should have learned a number of times over the past 100 years – the British Government will let you down and if you keep going to the right you're going to end up in a worse position when you come back to the table”. The Refresher take For Brexit-watchers, the spectre of UK ministers in negotiation with the EU over Northern Ireland is familiar. But if both sides cannot agree to an extension of the grace period that is long enough to resolve the issues at the border technically and peacefully, then more customs checks will be imposed. The EU has little choice but to accept Mr Gove’s demand for an extension, since it was partly the Commission’s foolishness that caused the latest tensions. Notwithstanding the vaccines debacle, the last few weeks have exposed fragilities in a customs arrangement that exporters and citizens were promised would be solid. Mr Gove and his counterparts have an important but difficult few weeks ahead.

  • Thai protesters take to streets in protest at royal insults law

    Hundreds of Thai protesters gathered in Bangkok on Wednesday to demand the release of four activists remanded in custody pending trial on charges of insulting Thailand's king, a crime punishable by 15 years in prison. Many protesters banged pots and pans, borrowing from nightly displays of discontent in neighbouring Myanmar at last week's coup, while some held Myanmar flags to show support for the country's pro-democracy movement. The Bangkok demonstration had originally been organised to show solitary with protesters in Myanmar, but it morphed into calls to change or end the strict "lese majeste" law after the four activists were detained on Tuesday.

  • President Biden Is Keeping Schools Closed

    Six months ago, when President Joe Biden was candidate Joe Biden, he spoke of “a crisis being felt all across the United States of America.” The crisis was school closures. Millions of children were staring at laptops rather than learning in a classroom. Biden said: “This is a national emergency. President Trump doesn’t have a real plan for opening schools safely. He’s offering nothing but failures and delusions.” Six months later, the education crisis abounds, and now-President Biden is so far just making it worse. At Tuesday’s press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the new White House goal was “to have the majority of schools, so more than 50 percent, open by Day 100 of his presidency.” She defined that as “some teaching in classrooms, so at least one day a week, hopefully it’s more.” This isn’t just walking back a promise; it’s completely erasing one. According to school-data aggregator Burbio, we are already well past Psaki’s spring milestone today, and we were before Biden took office. Over 60 percent of school districts are already open with at least a “hybrid” model. “Hybrid” colloquially means two to three days a week of in-person learning. One day a week was not originally part of this debate. It’s a new and lower standard — one Team Biden has introduced. At first, I thought the transgression was simply they had put the issue on the backburner and were not paying attention to it, given the strange one-day-a-week utterance. But after 24 hours of blowback, Psaki was asked to clarify these remarks and she doubled down, calling the plan “bold and ambitious.” And sticking to the one-day standard, she said they hoped to exceed it. Again, this supposed bold and ambitious plan was exceeded before the inauguration. Politico Playbook said: “It is a goal so modest and lacking in ambition as to be almost meaningless.” President Biden’s ambitious rhetoric around schools was always going to have a collision course with his teachers’-union benefactors, who simply do not want schools to fully reopen any time soon. Not even after teachers got priority in vaccinations, and K–12 schools received over $68 billion in 2020 to mitigate COVID issues. I just didn’t expect that he would be breaking a core campaign promise so early in his presidency. So what’s holding Biden back from keeping his word? The White House would argue it’s funding, ventilation, and class sizes. Let’s look at each in turn. As mentioned, Congress allocated over $68 billion in 2020 for COVID mitigation in K–12 schools. So far, most of this money has not been spent. That hasn’t stopped the Biden administration from demanding another $130 billion. But let’s ignore the currently unspent billions of dollars for a moment and ask the essential question: Will more funding help? In fact, the schools that are currently open five days a week in America are parochial schools, which generally have less per-pupil funding than their public counterparts, and public schools that don’t compete with the per-pupil wealth of closed but well-funded districts such as Chicago, Fairfax County, San Francisco, and others. The issue is will, not resources. Ventilation is simply a crutch to excuse doing nothing. It was a problem identified early in 2020, again to mitigate the return to school before a coronavirus vaccine was available. The $68 billion Congress authorized provided funding specifically for ventilation. But most schools did little or nothing in the past year to improve ventilation, and it is more likely that we finally return to school before any substantive changes are made to the thousands of schools that remain shuttered. The absence of new ventilation systems has not held back the majority of schools that have opened up to some degree without disruption. Meanwhile, focusing the debate on the importance of class size is a way to disguise proposing that kids will go to school two days a week indefinitely. The idea is that a full class increases risk, so we need to cut class sizes in half. But nobody realistically believes that America is about to double its school-building capacity, at least not in the next year. Anyone whose kid has gone to class in a trailer behind a school building knows that it takes years to develop plans for new buildings, personnel, and district lines. The two-day-a-week hybrid model, with its implicitly smaller class sizes, was created to get kids back into the classroom before a vaccine was available. Inept school boards kept delaying the end of this temporary measure. Now, after it has been done for so long, it is being deceptively embraced as the post-vaccine ideal. This is simply nuts. After teachers in closed school districts are vaccinated, schools should be open full-time, five-days-a-week, just as so many of their counterparts already are doing (and as some were doing before vaccines were even available). Now that teachers are being vaccinated, for whom are we making these vast infrastructure changes anyway? It’s not for the teachers, whose risk will thankfully soon be measured in decimal points. And it’s not for children, who — public-health officials often and repeatedly remind us — are not significant spreaders or victims of this virus. In fact, the major health crises facing children today — depression, suicide, lack of confidence, academic failures, lack of socialization, poor nutrition, insufficient exercise — are being caused by the closures, not by the virus. In September 2020, Joe Biden said: “President Trump may not think this is a national emergency, but I think going back to school for millions of children and the impacts on their families and the community is a national emergency. I believe that’s what it is.” If this was a national emergency six months ago, and remains one today, where’s Joe? Some would argue that he should have more time, and that patience is required. He’s only been in office a few weeks. But we shouldn’t be surprised that many parents are simply out of patience. Others argue that advocating for school openings is anti-teacher. It’s a convenient way to shut down debate, because teachers are often underpaid and undervalued and thus not open to critique. But I love my kids’ teachers, who are doing the best they can. This is about being pro-children, not anti-teacher. In September, President Biden said: “Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos haven’t stepped up. We’re all seeing the results. Millions of students are now starting the new school year in the same way they finished the last one, at home. At home. Parents are doing their best, but more and more they’re finding themselves at wit’s end struggling to balance work and childcare and educational duties or worrying about their lost paycheck and how they’ll make ends meet while trying to keep their kids on track with remote learning.” Under Biden’s current plan, he has failed to live up to the standard he set for Trump. It’s time for Biden to purposefully engage this issue. He has enormous influence over unions and those who are advocating for kids to remain locked out of in-person instruction indefinitely. He has a serious group of public-health advisers who can persuade nervous parents and teachers of the low risks they face returning to the classroom (especially after a vaccine). As Joe Biden said six months ago on this subject: “Mr. President, where are you? Where are you? Why aren’t you working on this? Mr. President, that’s your job. That’s what you should be focused on right now. Getting our kids back to school safely.”

  • Mom charged with abuse after 12-year-old daughter’s suicide, Missouri authorities say

    Her daughter died by suicide on New Year’s Day. Now a Missouri mom is charged in the death.

  • House impeachment managers present a montage of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack

    On the first day of former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, House impeachment managers show a video montage of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

  • Army War College Commandant Suspended Pending Investigation

    Maj. Gen. Stephen J. Maranian has been suspended until the completion of an investigation.

  • Stimulus checks would be capped at $100,000 income under Democrat plan. What we know

    Here’s who would get stimulus checks under the plan by House Democrats.

  • Trump loyalist Josh Hawley ignores impeachment trial evidence by sitting in gallery to review paperwork

    Senator Josh Hawley, a bellwether of Donald Trump's "stop the steal" movement to overturn the 2020 election results, was watching the second day of impeachment proceedings against the former president from the gallery above the chamber. The Trump loyalist, a first-term Missouri Republican, was seen at various points with his legs crossed, his feet propped up on the chair in front of him, and reviewing some sort of paperwork in a manila folder, according to several reporters with a view of the room from their seats in the press gallery. Mr Hawley, along with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and a handful of other Republicans, voted against the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory on 6 and 7 January, even after a pro-Trump mob interrupted the day's proceedings with a bloody insurrection.

  • 'I don't want to come back:' As Trump trial opens, Democrat recalls daughter's fear during riot

    The leader of the Democratic team prosecuting Donald Trump's impeachment trial welled up in tears on Tuesday as he recalled his 24-year-old daughter and son-in-law hiding in fear in the U.S. Capitol during the rampage by the former president's supporters. U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin, now in his third two-year term representing parts of Maryland and a constitutional law expert, was defending the legality of considering impeachment charges against a former president. When he invited his family to witness the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to certify Democrat Joe Biden's presidential election victory, Raskin, 58, was also mourning the Dec. 31 death of his 25-year-old son.

  • Singaporean Professor Lectures for 2 Hours, Dies Inside After Realizing He was Muted the Whole Time

    Dong Wang is an associate professor from the Department of Mathematics at the National University of Singapore (NUS). YouTube users who claim to be in the class reported that they had done "all sorts of things" to get his attention, but he simply ignored them.

  • Car of missing Texas woman found in lake 30 years after disappearance

    Carey Mae Parker was 23 when she went missing from Quinlan, Texas on March 17, 1991.

  • Former Israeli ambassador calls out Biden with awkward tweet for not calling Netanyahu

    Ambassador Danon tweeted out a list of ten countries whose leaders Mr Biden has spoken to and added: 'Might it now be time to call leader of Israel, closest ally of US?'

  • Trump reportedly avoided calling Biden a 'predator' in ads because it would 'open up his own can of worms'

    Former President Donald Trump apparently had his limits when it came to attacking his political rivals. Throughout the 2020 campaign season, Trump had the final say over which campaign ads made it onto the air and which were tossed out. He made those decisions at regular White House viewing sessions, where his top White House aides and campaign officials would gather to laugh at and workshop ads, including some too "out there" even for the former president, Axios reports. A few times a month, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale would bring his laptop to the White House and sit "so close" to Trump that it sometimes "bothered" him, a source tells Axios. Parscale would then play through a reel of campaign ads, including many inspired by "young, pro-Trump fans who sent their ideas" to him, Axios continues. One targeted CNN's Don Lemon and his coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests, while another showed President Biden coughing to allege he was unwell, a source said. Trump would often "burst out laughing" at some of the wilder spots, but then conclude they were too "brutal" or "weren't worth the backlash" he'd get, the source told Axios. One subject Trump particularly avoided was Biden's inappropriate touching of women, Axios reports. At one point, Trump's campaign drew up an ad featuring clips of women who'd accused Biden of inappropriate contact, and then finished with a clip of Vice President Kamala Harris declaring "I know a predator when I see one." But as one source close to the campaign said, "He never wanted to run the predator or women's-style ads against Biden, because he was afraid he was going to open up his own can of worms." Read more about Trump's campaign ad critiques at Axios. More stories from theweek.comTrump's dumbfounding defenseTrump the phone guy is backFed Chair Powell says lower unemployment rate hides true 'deterioration' of labor market

  • Alabama set to carry out its first execution during pandemic

    Alabama is preparing to execute an inmate by lethal injection in what would be the state's first death sentence carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Willie B. Smith III, 51, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday at a south Alabama prison for the 1991 shotgun slaying of Sharma Ruth Johnson. It would be the first execution carried out by any state in 2021, although there have been federal executions, according to a list maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center.