Trump threatens to close southern border over migrant surge

President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border, complaining that Mexico and several Central American countries were not doing enough to prevent the wave of migrants flooding north toward the U.S., an influx that border officials say is straining their resources. 


 “Mexico is doing NOTHING to help stop the flow of illegal immigrants to our Country. They are all talk and no action,” Trump tweeted. “Likewise, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have taken our money for years, and do Nothing. The Dems don’t care, such BAD laws. May close the Southern Border!”

The president’s threat and his renewed gripes about Mexico and so-called Northern Triangle governments come as the number of migrant families arrested at the border soared this month, putting immigration officials at what U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan called a “breaking point.”  



McAleenan postponed an appearance before Congress on Wednesday to travel to the border, where he said the Border Patrol is on pace to arrest more than 55,000 family members in the month of March, a more than 500 percent increase over 2018 arrest levels.  

Trump has previously accused Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador of misusing U.S. aid meant for improving conditions on the ground, aid intended to prevent migrants from wanting to come to the U.S. in the first place. In December, the president threatened to cut off that aid altogether.




POLITICO reported earlier this week that confusion over Trump’s tweets has created a logjam in the White House budget office, preventing that aid money from being dispersed.  Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen traveled to Honduras on Wednesday to address the issue, meeting with Northern Triangle government leaders. 



There, Nielsen announced what she called “a HISTORIC agreement to confront the root causes of the crisis on our border.”  “Working with Central American govts to increase security & prosperity in the region has been one of my greatest priorities,” she tweeted.

 She did not go into detail.  Trump’s complaints also come amid the fight over his declaration of a national emergency at the southern border, which is set to stand after Congress failed to override his veto of lawmakers' effort to block the declaration. The battle is now being waged in the courts.



 He’s sought to shift billions of dollars from the Pentagon’s budget toward his efforts to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, a cornerstone promise of his 2016 presidential campaign.

SOURCE : POLITICO

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A Muslim soldier says her command sergeant major forced her to remove her hijab

Sgt. Cesilia Valdovinos was at a chapel at Fort Carson, Colorado, for a suicide prevention briefing on March 6 when she says her command sergeant major grabbed her by the arm, took her outside and made her remove her religious head covering in front of others.

The senior noncommissioned officer believed that Valdovinos, 26, who has an approved exemption from her brigade commander to wear a hijab in uniform, was wearing her hair out of regulations underneath it, she told Army Times on Tuesday.

“To me, it was the same thing as if they had asked someone to take their top off,” the soldier, a member of the 704th Brigade Support Battalion, said.

No one had asked her whether her hair was in a regulation bun, she added, before demanding that she remove the garment.

She took off the scarf portion of the covering first, she said, but Command Sgt. Maj. Kerstin Montoya demanded she completely expose her hair. When she removed the cap underneath, which covers her hairline and underneath her chin, the length of hair came loose from its bun.

The battalion adjutant, who accompanied Valdovinos and Montoya for the inspection, says that the senior NCO tapped the sergeant on her shoulder before leading her outside of the chapel.

“Upon removing her hijab it was evident her hair was completely down,” Capt. Brooke Smith said in a statement. “CSM Montoya told her to get her hair back in regulation and not let it happen again. At no point did CSM Montoya touch the soldier or yell at her (at all or within earshot of other soldiers).”

Valdovinos claims her hair was tied up under the hijab. The under-cap has an extra length of fabric inside, she explained, that she wraps around her bun to secure it before pulling the cap down. That’s why her hair came loose when she removed it, she said.

It was the first time since receiving her waiver that the soldier had ever been confronted about her hijab, she said. But not the first she felt targeted as a Muslim in the Army.

In an Equal Opportunity complaint filed on March 7, she said, she described her first sergeant referring to her as “the girl with the hood.” A culinary specialist, she said, she was recently reassigned from an on-post dining facility to her battalion’s headquarters company after objecting to cooking pork products.

And previously, she added, she reported to her company commander that while deployed last year, another soldier referred to her as a terrorist. The captain did not escalate the claim, she said.

“I take all reports of soldiers disrespecting another soldier’s religious beliefs, observances, or traditions very seriously,” Col. David Zinn, the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division commander who signed Valdovinos’ exemption memo, said in a statement. “There is currently an inquiry regarding Sgt. Valdovinos’ claim. I will ensure our unit continues our tradition of placing a high value on the rights of our soldiers to observe the tenets of their respective religions or to observe no religion at all.”

The inspection was a blatant act of Islamophobia, according to the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which represents Valdovinos.

“Unless this CSM, who wretchedly denigrated our MRFF client by ordering her to take off her hijab in public, enjoys the extraordinary powers of X-ray vision, it would have been impossible for this CSM to have even seen the hair of our MRFF client,” Mikey Weinstein said in a statement.

The under-cap is an integral part of the approved hijab, he added.

“I wish they would just ask me if they have questions,” Valdovinos said.

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Former DNC chair Donna Brazile Take Over Judge Jeanine`s Spot to join Fox News .

Former interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile is joining Fox News as a commentator, the network said on Monday.

The longtime Democratic operative will offer commentary on both Fox News and Fox Business, and her move comes as some in the Democratic Party have accused the channel of functioning as state-run television for President Donald Trump, especially after an article in the New Yorker outlined how intertwined the network is with Trump’s White House.

Brazile in a statement said she was “delighted” to join the network and said she was eager to represent Democrats for Fox News viewers, who she argued don’t “hear enough from Democrats.”

She acknowledged that she might catch heat from members of her party for the move, saying that “my response is that, if we've learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we can't have a country where we don't talk to those who disagree with our political views.”

Prior to serving as the head of the Democratic National Committee briefly during the 2016 election, Brazile had been a longtime commentator on networks like ABC and CNN. The latter severed ties with Brazile just weeks before the election after WikiLeaks published emails in which she tipped off members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign about questions at a debate and town hall during the Democratic primary.

A source with knowledge of internal workings at Fox News nodded at those accusations, saying Monday that Brazile will not have anything to do with the debate or town hall process at the network. The network, however, will not be hosting any Democratic primary debates after the DNC announced that Fox News was not a suitable host following the publication of the New Yorker article.

Brazile’s contributorship begins immediately, with her first appearance coming Monday afternoon on Dana Perino’s “Daily Briefing.”

Though Fox News consistently tops ratings lists over rivals CNN and MSNBC, it has also come under scrutiny for controversial behavior by former top executives and hosts at the network.

The network cleared house in 2016 when then-CEO Roger Ailes was accused of sexual harassment, and Bill O’Reilly, then one of the channel’s biggest stars, was similarly removed after news broke that the network had settled multiple sexual harassment claims on his behalf.

More recently, two of the network's most popular hosts have attracted scrutiny for controversial remarks. Tucker Carlson came under fire last week after liberal media watchdog Media Matters posted audio of him making disparaging comments about women and talking about child rape.

And Judge Jeanine Pirro’s weekend show was pulled this past Saturday, a step that drew fierce criticism from the president, after a rebuke from the network over Islamophobic remarks she made about freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

Brazile made no mention of those controversies in her announcement that she would join the network, nor in an op-ed posted on Fox News’ website in which she acknowledged that she’d made “more than my fair share” of mistakes. Instead, she touted an emphasis on civility and welcomed her ideological opposites on the network challenging her beliefs.

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