"Have you ever been to the U.S.-Mexico border?” “No.”One word. That may have been the most revealing moment of New York City Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent interview with the New York Times.Sanctuary policies are easy to defend from a podium at New York City Hall. They are much harder to defend before communities that have already paid the price.Mamdani defended his city’s sanctuary policies, which he reinforced after taking office by signing an executive order reaffirming them.The problem is not so much that Mamdani has never visited the border. It is that he seems unwilling to understand why communities that lived through the border crisis reached a very different conclusion.That lesson is visible far beyond the Rio Grande.Consider Goliad County in South Texas. The rural county has about 7,000 residents and sits roughly 160 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Sheriff Roy Boyd described how the crisis transformed the community he serves.Boyd’s office averaged 77 arrests a year during the five years before 2021. From 2021 through 2024, that average jumped to 413. Deputies discovered 16 cartel stash houses, and pursuits involving suspected human smugglers became routine.Residents began hearing voices and movement on remote properties after dark. Many no longer felt safe alone in their own homes.Those facts expose what Mamdani’s answer overlooks. The border crisis did not remain at the border. Cartel activity and illegal immigration reached inland communities that lacked the personnel and equipment to confront them. Former Border Patrol agent and Texas Public Policy Foundation senior fellow Ammon Blair calls cartels “hybrid threats.”As Blair puts it, “Cartels don’t just smuggle. They destabilize.” Boyd has described them as “contractors and subcontractors” in a network moving migrants and drugs from the border into Texas’ largest cities.That reality changed Texas’ response. In 2021, as illegal crossings surged under President Joe Biden, Goliad became one of the first inland counties to declare a local disaster. Boyd suggested giving local law-enforcement agencies flexible grants for overtime, new officers, patrol vehicles, and other equipment.Those grants became part of Operation Lone Star.According to Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, Operation Lone Star has produced more than 535,700 apprehensions and referrals, 57,400 criminal arrests, and 47,500 felony charges. Texas law enforcement has also intercepted more than 779 million lethal doses of fentanyl.RELATED: The revolution will not be televised — it will be livestreamed in 4K Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty ImagesBoyd later launched the Operation Lone Star Task Force, which allows local agencies to share deputies, intelligence, and resources across jurisdictional lines while targeting human smuggling, cartel activity, and organized crime.New York has felt the downstream effects too. Former Mayor Eric Adams warned that the migrant crisis would “destroy New York City.” Mamdani nevertheless continues to defend sanctuary policies that impede cooperation with federal immigration authorities.Goliad’s experience carries a national lesson. Criminal organizations do not recognize state boundaries. The same networks that move people across the border traffic drugs, weapons, and money into communities nationwide. They exploit ports of entry, the northern border, and weaknesses far from either frontier.The farther those networks spread, the more Americans discover that border security is not someone else’s problem.Mamdani may be proud of New York City’s sanctuary stance.His one-word answer showed more than where he has never been. It revealed what he refuses to see.Sanctuary policies are easy to defend from a podium at city hall. They are much harder to defend before communities that have already paid the price.
Senator Lisa Murkowski’s concerns about the SAVE America Act are legitimate, and they can be fixed with amendments rather than a no vote.
The post Exclusive—Jenny Beth Martin: Senator Murkowski, Let’s Get You to ‘Yes’ on the SAVE America Act appeared first on Breitbart.
Stephen Miller's recent argument that physical beauty reveals moral character hasn't gone quite according to plan. Miller raised eyebrows Saturday after telling attendees of a State Department high-level diplomatic meeting that he noticed a common trait among "leftwing terrorists."“You look at these violent antifa demonstrations and you see any photograph of those who were assembled — to be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person,” he said. “Not one looks normal. They’re all deformed in some way — in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism.”These comments stunned MSNOW analyst Luke Russert because Miller seemed to be suggesting the moral high-ground was his. Miller famously orchestrated President Donald Trump's first-term immigration policy that put children in cages and faced backlash when leaked emails showed he distributed white nationalist content replete with racist theory based on debunked science. So Russert was surprised when Miller "tried to claim the religious high ground" — and again relied on looks to do it. “The leftist looks at what is beautiful and what is good and what is natural and is filled with envy and hatred,” Miller said. “The leftist looks at a perfect family with the perfect life and a perfect job and perfect kids that go to church every Sunday and is filled with a feeling of inadequacy and jealousy."Russert admitted he was unpersuaded by Miller's argument that Democrats were jealous of his beauty — admittedly on religious grounds. "His suggestion that people’s physical appearance reveals their moral character runs contrary to themes repeated throughout the Bible," Russert wrote. "Jesus says, 'Stop judging by appearances, but judge justly.'"Yet it is worth noting that Miller was carping on a topic his snarkier critics often use to attack him: physical appearance. When Miller in May lobbed an anti-trans insult at state Rep. James Talarico (D-TX), currently running to replace replace John Cornyn in the Senate, the Democratic Party didn't take it lying down. "The Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate," Miller said of Talarico, who is not transgendered. Replied the Democratic Party, "Shut up you ugly f---."
The Sentencing Project highlights the perverse consequences of the felony murder rule, a vestige of British law that still prevails in federal courts and all but two states.
The threat led the Secret Service to urge President Trump to fly out of Turkey on the old plane, raising questions about the security of the Qatari-donated jet.
