Should Haitians Be Allowed to Immigrate into America?

The Biden administration is not content to destroy the United States by allowing illegal immigrants to invade our nation. It is also pushing President Luis Abinader of the tiny nation of Dominican Republic “to accept 3 million Haitians.”

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) wrote that foreign officials tell him that their perception of the Biden administration is that “It’s better to be the United States’ enemy than its friend.” He wrote in his article published in The Daily Signal the “bad foreign policy” of the Biden administration encourages “chaos in our own region of the world.” He continued: 

Just look at what’s happening in the Dominican Republic. The Caribbean nation is facing extraordinary migratory pressure from neighboring Haiti, which has all but collapsed into anarchy. President Luis Abinader has made it clear he will protect Dominican sovereignty by enforcing deportations.

Yet the Biden administration, influenced by radical left-wing groups like Amnesty International, is pushing Abinader to accept 3 million Haitians at any moment. This is unfair to the Dominican Republic, a developing nation with limited resources that is already bearing significant burdens on Haiti’s behalf. Anyone who doubts this should consider the fact that more than a third of all births in the Dominican Republic are currently to Haitian citizens.

But encouraging illegal mass migration is also unfair to our country. The Biden administration seems unaware that many Haitians view the Dominican Republic as a steppingstone to Puerto Rico – and that a well-established smuggling ring to facilitate that journey already exists. Because our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico have their own fiscal constraints, illegal migrants who reach the U.S. territory would likely move on to the continental United States.

Like most Americans, I recognize that what is happening in Haiti is horrible and tragic. The breakdown of law and order, the displacement of more than 300,000 people, and the need of roughly 5 million for some form of aid – all of these are matters of grave concern.

Rubio showed his concern in several ways: (1) supported “the international peacekeeping mission that Kenya proposes to lead once Haiti has established a provisional government.

(2) “reintroduced legislation to preserve U.S. trade benefits for Haitian manufacturers, which could prove a lifeline to legitimate Haitian businesses in this time of crisis.” He then continued with his article.

But, like most Americans, I also recognize that no country should experience illegal mass migration – not the Dominican Republic, and not the United States. Illegal mass migration does no good for the nation people are migrating from.

When all able-bodied, law-abiding citizens leave their homeland, there is no one left to defend it from criminals and tyrants – and no one left to provide for the vulnerable who remain there. On a more fundamental level, though, I cannot support illegal mass migration because the job of elected officials is to protect their citizens first, not anyone else’s.

This is why I have asked the State Department to prioritize U.S. citizens trapped in Haiti, as well as their adopted Haitian children. Moreover, it’s why we cannot allow Haitian citizens to surge across our borders….

The tragedy in Haiti is great, but it’s no excuse for letting these threats increase.

What Is the Reason for the Senate Dismissal of a Trial for Mayorkas?

A historical precedent was set today when the United States Senate dismissed the House of Representatives’ impeachment case against Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security Secretary. According to Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal, the result was 51-48 on a party-line vote.

The interesting point to me is that my senior senator voted “present.” Then the Senate voted 51-49 to reject the second charge against Mayorkas. Since the Democrats hold a majority in the Senate because three independents vote with them, the only slight surprise is Murkowski, the fake Republican, a real RINO.

In dismissing the case, the Senate ended a year-long attempt by the House to hold Mayorkas accountable for the illegal immigration invasion at America’s southern border. According to Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal, Republicans had something to say about the situation.

·         Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “Democrats concluded that Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas’ defying federal law, ignoring the text of the [immigration] statute, deliberately releasing criminal illegal aliens over and over and over again, that’s just hunky-dory.” He warned that the dismissal “sends a message to other members of the Cabinet.

·         Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) declared the trial of Mayorkas to be unnecessary because it represents “the least legitimate, least substantive, and most politicized impeachment trial ever in the history of the United States.” He declared that the charges made by the House “fail to meet the high standards of high crimes and misdemeanors” and a “dangerous precedent” would be made for the future if the Senate validated the “gross abuse by the House.”

·         Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) did not agree with Schumer. He told his colleagues from the Senate floor after the vote that “it does not make any difference whether our friends on the other side thought [Mayorkas] should have been impeached or not.

“He was [impeached]. And by doing what we just did, we have in effect ignored the directions of the House, which were to have a trial…. This is a day that’s not a proud day in the history of the Senate.

·         Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) lamented on the Senate floor after the vote that “nothing like this has ever occurred.

“We’ve been given a duty, we’ve been given the sole, exclusive power to try all impeachments. Try all impeachments…. Not some of them, not just those with which we happen to agree, not just those that we are happy that the House of Representatives undertook to prosecute, but all.”

·         Representative Mark Green (R-Tennessee), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said the following in a written statement after the Senate dismissed the case:

“However, just as Secretary Mayorkas has grievously failed in his constitutional duty, now so has the Senate…. Instead of addressing the serious charges against Secretary Mayorkas, the upper chamber has chosen to neglect its responsibility. This is an unprecedented failure by the Senate to do its duty, which, for the first time in our history, has outright refused to conduct an impeachment trial when given the opportunity to do so.”

Once again, Democrats showed that they are not interested in protecting Democracy. They are willing to break any law or precedence if it furthers their agenda.

How Should the Supreme Court Read 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2)?

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today in the case of Joseph Fischer, who is challenging a criminal prosecution for being in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. According to Seth Lucas at The Heritage Foundation, it is possible that the results from the Fischer case will “affect the pending federal indictment against former President Donald Trump in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.” Lucas reported the following: 

Although the case that the court heard Tuesday is about what happened on Jan. 6, the court isn’t going to decide whether Jan. 6 was a peaceful protest or an insurrection. Instead, the court agreed to hear Fischer’s case to decide a different question; namely, whether Fischer can be prosecuted under a federal law that forbids corruptly obstructing an official proceeding.

Rules about how to interpret a statute – think textualism – will therefore play a far greater role in the court’s decision than the justices’ views on whether an insurrection occurred.

In a discussion about 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), one of the laws that Fischer is charged with violating – “whoever corruptly … or otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” The charge was dismissed by the U.S. District Court, but it was reinstated by a “divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Fischer asked the Supreme Court to take his case and to rule on the meaning of Section 1512(c). His attorney, Jeffrey Green with the Northwestern Supreme Court Practicum, “urged the court to read Section 1512(c)(2) narrowly.” He then explained the reason for his request.

Congress passed Section 1512(c) … in the wake of the Enron financial scandal to prohibit tampering with evidence to be used in an official proceeding. Congress later added subsection (c)(2) to cover the gaps in the original statute and ban other forms of impairment.

By using “otherwise,” he argued, subsection (c)(2) was limited to similar kinds of obstructions as those that Section 1512(c)(1) – which covers tampering with documents or other objects with the intent to impair their integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding – sought to prohibit.

The solicitor general countered that subsection (c)(2) defined a different crime than subsection (c)(1), arguing that Section 1512 covers both tampering with evidence and obstructing an official proceeding. Under the government’s interpretation, Section 1512(c)(2) covers not only destroying documents that might be used in an investigation, but also attempting to impede Congress’ certification of election results.

With the above information as a foundation, the justices sought to “understand the relationship between the two subsections.”

·         Justice Sonia Sotomayor wondered “why the statute was not like a movie theater sign that read, “[Y]ou will be kicked out of the theater if you photograph or record the actions or otherwise disrupt the performance.” She noted that yelling was different from recording a performance, but both acts would result in being kicked out of the theater.

·         Justice Amy Coney Barrett wondered if the government could use the statute to prove that “Fischer did try to obstruct the delivery of Electoral College certificates.” Green said no because there is a difference between changing or altering a document and trying to stop a vote count.

·         Justice Samuel Alito observed that the statute could be read broadly or narrowly, but a broad reading might be “more straightforward.”

The justices asked Green lots of questions, but “they appeared more skeptical of the government’s broad reading of Section 1512(c)(2). There were enough justices who seemed willing to look at Section 1512(c)(2) narrowly. However, Lucas emphasized that even a decisive win would not mean freedom for Fischer and other Jan. 6 defendants. They still have other charges to face. Lucas noted that a win for Fischer “could affect special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump.” He reasoned further:

Smith has charged Trump with obstructing and impeding the electoral vote certification in violation of Section 1512(c)(2). A ruling that Section 1512(c)(2) is limited to obstructions of investigations, for instance, could make Smith’s efforts to convict the former president under that statute much harder, if not impossible. 

Who Is Robert Greenway?

My VIP for this week is Robert Greenway, a former member of the National Security Council and current director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation. As most Americans know, Iran sent more than 300 drones and missiles toward Israel Saturday night/Sunday morning Israeli time.

Together, the Iron Dome, David’s sling, and fighter planes from the United States, Great Britain, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia shot down 95 percent of the drones and missiles. The only injury reported is a 10-year-old girl who was hit by shrapnel.

Leaders in Israel say the nation will respond to Iran’s attack but will do so in its own time and in its chosen way. As the world waits to see what Israel does, Greenway offered his ideas.

I can see a number of scenarios in which this does escalate to a regional and potentially even a global conflict…. I can see fewer ay in which we prevent that from occurring….

[If a larger conflict is to be avoided in the Middle East, the U.S. will need] to radically alter its policy and approach toward Iran and Israel….

[U.S. policy changes toward Iran should include] to deny it the resources necessary, and to restore deterrence, with the support of Israel and our partners and allies.

In a podcast with Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal, Greenway explained the options that Israel has as it considers its response to Iran’s attack over the weekend. He included how U.S. Middle East foreign policy is affecting the conflict. When asked the response that he expects from the White House, Greenway replied:

Well, I don’t know that this administration has a long range of options to consider against Iran. It’s this sort of policy that it’s pursued remarkably consistently and unfortunately, ill-advised, is to appease Iran and attempt to encourage them toward better behavior. The “don’t, don’t, don’t” which again and again, as we’re watching them do, do, do.

And so, in this case, I don’t think the administration is going to take action other than to constrain Israel, unfortunately, who has now been attacked in an unprecedented way for the first time from Iran and has to respond publicly because the attack was public. What that looks like, I think we’ll find out in the coming days, perhaps weeks, before the full range and decision is made on their end.

But I think the U.S. decision and the announcement to say so publicly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I think at this point we ought to be preserving our communications for our enemies and providing support and assistance to our friends. In this case, we’re warning Israel not to act any further as opposed to Iran that just launched an unprecedented number of missiles, drones at our closest ally in the region.

And so I think what we can expect is Israel’s response will come. I think it may take the other side of Passover for that to happen, but there’s no question that they have to respond because this was done on an international stage. And their response has to be equally visible to all in order to restore deterrence so that you don’t have a new red line, which is that any time Iran feels like it’s been slighted or it’s been attacked, then it has the right to launch hundreds of projectiles across several countries into a sovereign state without risking a response.

And I think the U.S. role here is ill-advised, it ought to be to discourage Iran and to encourage Israel to restore deterrence. We ought to be supporting them in that effort.

Allen asked several other questions about what Israel’s response might be and how it would affect the United States. You can find the rest of the podcast here. 

Should Non-Citizens Vote in Elections?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is an announced legislation to require proof of citizenship to vote. According to Fred Lucas, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) was standing next to former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago last Friday when he announced legislation to protect the voting right of citizens. Lucas reported the following about the meeting.

Johnson said that polling showed 78% of Americans supported requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote. He suggested he would put the bill straight to the full House for a vote, bypassing the committee process.

“When we put this bill on the floor, you’re going to see a recorded vote by Republicans and Democrats. You’ll see that Republicans stand for election integrity,” Johnson said. “We’ll be able to ask this very important question of the Democrats. They are going to have to go on record. Do you believe that Americans and Americans alone should be the ones who vote in American elections? We are about to find out.”

According to Lucas, 7.2 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States since Biden was inaugurated. That makes a lot of people who could make a difference in the results of our elections. Lucas noted that Trump addressed both issues when he spoke.

“We have a border that’s open. We have a lot of problems in our country. We have an election problem and that’s really what we’re here to talk about today,” Trump said. “I would like to demand that our border be closed because we have millions of people coming into our country, millions and millions of people at levels that nobody is reporting, nobody is going to talk about.”

Johnson indicated that the new legislation would require state to clean up their voter rolls to remove noncitizens from their databases, which come from the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. He also stated that the border crisis today results from many actions taken by Biden. In answer to constant questions about why, Johnson said the following.

“Because they want to turn these people into voters. Right now the administration is encouraging illegals to go to their local welfare office to sign up for benefits. Guess what? When you go to a welfare office, they also ask if you would like to register to vote. Many people, we think, are going to do that.”

Biden’s direction to every agency of the federal government, including social service offices, was meant to boost voter registration. That direction was made in early 2021, so several million illegal immigrants may already be registered to vote in American elections.

Lucas noted that the House is acting on other legislation to try to control the damage of having too many people in the nation illegally. The House is also working on legislation to require a question about citizenship on the Census form. This legislation would also stop the counting of noncitizens when making congressional maps.

Lucas wrote that he has written a book “The Myth of Voter Suppression” that “details how several watchdog groups found voter registration rolls filled with ineligible foreign citizens, dead people, and people who have long moved out of a state.” These unlawful voter names are still on the rolls “despite the National Voter Registration requirement to update voting lists.”

What Can We Learn from Jacob 5?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Jacob 5-7 in a lesson titled “The Lord Labors with Us.” The lesson was introduced with the following information. 

There are many, many people who haven’t yet heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you ever feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the task of gathering them into the Lord’s Church, what Jacob said about olive trees in Jacob 5 has a reassuring reminder: the vineyard belongs to the Lord. He has given each of us a small area to assist in His work – our family, our circle of friends, our sphere of influence. And sometimes the first person we help gather is ourselves. But we are never alone in this work, for the Lord of the vineyard labors alongside His servants (see Jacob 5:72). God knows and loves His children, and He will prepare a way for each of them to hear His gospel, even those who have rejected Him in the past (see Jacob 4:15-18). And then, when the work is done, all those who have been “diligent in laboring with [Him] … shall have joy with [Him] because of the fruit of [His] vineyard” (Jacob 5:75).

The principle I have chosen to discuss tonight is “Jesus Christ is the Lord of the vineyard” (Jacob 5). This chapter is a story with symbolic meaning. It describes trees, fruit, and laborers. However, it is actually teaching about how God interacts with His people throughout history. Some of the symbols in the story are as follow: Lord of the vineyard (Jesus Christ), vineyard (the world), the time olive tree (Israel or those who have made covenants with God; see Jacob 5:3). There are other symbols. As you read Jacob 5, look for what the wild olive trees, good and bad fruit, and other symbols represent. It may be helpful to understand that Jacob 5 is all about gathering the children of Israel.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints produced a short video titled “Jacob Teaches the Allegory of the Olive Trees” (Gospel Library). It is about six minutes long and teaches how to care for olive trees. 

President Russell M. Nelson taught, “Anytime you do anything that helps anyone – on either side of the veil – take a step toward making covenants with God and receiving their essential baptismal and temple ordinances, you are helping to gather Israel. It is a s simple as that” (“Hope of Israel” [worldwide youth devotional, Juen 3, 2018], ChurchofJesusChrist.org).

What can you do to help gather Israel? What do you feel the Lord would have you do today in His vineyard? There is work enough for all of us. The Lord will reward us for service in His vineyard (Jacob 5:75). Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught that the Lord loves effort. We will be blessed for our efforts no matter whether we succeed in our efforts or not. The first person that we should gather to Jesus Christ is ourselves. Once we become valiant workers in His vineyard, we will be helping to gather His children. 

Is the Federal Government Spying on You?

The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is the fact that Americans should be free from the government spying on us. We learned through the “Russia, Russia” investigation of Trump that the FBI and the federal intelligence agencies had been working secretly to keep Donald Trump from being elected President of the United States in 2016. Then they continued to sabotage his presidency. They did this under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Now, a two-year extension of FISA is up for a vote in the House of Representatives. Tucker Carlson, founder of Tucker Carlson Network, authored an article that was later edited for length and published at The Daily Signal. 

Tucker described how we learned that the federal government and intelligence agencies were spying on Trump without a warrant. First, he “whispered about this, then shouted about it, was roundly denounced as a conspiracy nut, a lunatic. But in the end, he was vindicated. It was true.” Tucker continued:

These agencies spied on Trump, and they leaked some of what they learned to the media, which used it against Trump. Then these agencies concocted false stories about Trump. They tried to crush Trump completely in 2016 and then for the entire course of his presidency. Then they did the same thing in 2020 during the presidential election.

And they’re doing it still. They’re trying to put him in prison for the rest of his life. So if we take three steps back, what you have here is what we’re seeing now.

For the third time in three consecutive cycles, secretive federal agencies are trying to rig our presidential election. This is what the Democrats refer to as democracy, and they’re trying to defend it. But of course, it’s the opposite of democracy. It’s, in fact, the end of democracy in any semblance of a constitutional republic we ever had. 

If you have a secret police force threatening people, spying on them, and working secretly the levers of political power, then you don’t have a democracy. You have no control over really anything as a voter.

Tucker explained that the House vote on FISA is to be made tomorrow, and members of the FBI and the intelligence agencies have been lobbying members of the House of Representatives. He likened this activity to an FBI agent coming to your house on election day and forcing you to vote for their favored candidate.

Tucker blamed what is happening in our nation on liars in Congress. He said that the House intel committee is a pawn of the intelligence agencies. Tucker said that he knows the intelligence agencies are spying on Americans because they spied on him for daring to text with a foreigner.