Topic: The Border
“CBP should restart and expand use of the horseback-mounted Border Patrol. As part of this announcement, the Secretary should clear the records and personnel files of those who were falsely accused by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of whipping migrants and issue a formal apology on behalf of DHS and CBP.”
Fact check: There’s no evidence suggesting that horse-mounted border control efforts were halted because of the Del Rio incident, despite spurious headlines to the contrary.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security here.
“Mandatory appropriation for border wall system infrastructure.”
This is costly performative nonsense. First of all, it’s pointless to have a wall if you’re not going to man it, since ladders and shovels are things that exist, and second, if you’re going to man the border, you don’t need a wall – borders can be more efficiently manned with technology and numbers than with physical barriers. At least he’s not claiming erroneously that Mexico will pay for it. Put simply, walls don’t work. View our Bite-Sized Brief about that here.
Moreover, “mandatory appropriation” is deliberately vague and quite likely would encompass forced government seizure of private lands in support of building a wall. If it’s “mandatory”, I’m guessing that they’re going to roundly ignore the Eminent Domain requirement that the landowner must be justly compensated, but the author (perhaps purposely) does not specify this.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security and support for my above claim here.
“Congress should amend the Homeland Security Act and portions of the TVPRA to move detention of alien children expressly from the Department of Health and Human Services to DHS.”
There would be no reason to move the responsibility for detained immigrant children to the Department of Homeland Security from Health and Human Services other than cruelty. Currently, HHS manages programs specifically designed to meet the needs of children. Removing these in favor of leaving them in the care of an agency whose primary directive is law enforcement, would lead to neglect and lack of care.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security and support for my above claim here.
“[The Department of Defense will] Assist in aggressively building the border wall system on America’s southern border. Additionally, explicitly acknowledge and adjust personnel and priorities to participate actively in the defense of America’s borders, including using military personnel and hardware to prevent illegal crossings between ports of entry and channel all cross-border traffic to legal ports of entry.”
This is another argument for militarizing the border, which Christopher Miller argues for this as well in Section 2.1, and I talk more about the implications there.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.2: Department of Homeland Security here.
“The federal government’s obligation to shift national security–essential screening and vetting resources to the forged border crisis will necessitate an indefinite curtailment of the number of USRAP refugee admissions.”
It’s interesting that Skinner would use the word “forged” here, which can also mean “counterfeit.” It’s almost a Freudian slip. The “border crisis” is indeed a manufactured talking point by Republicans. Trump even blew up a bipartisan border control measure in January because he wanted to continue to campaign on the issue, and resolving the problem would “look too good” for Democrats, since they’re the ones in office currently. It follows logically that since it can wait until Trump is in office to do anything about it, the border must not be as big an issue as they’re claiming it is. Biden later used executive action in June to drastically tighten the border.
So it would seem that Skinner’s recommendation here is simply a means of permanently denying refugees entry to the United States. Even citizens of El Paso, Texas say that there is no “border crisis”, and that the militarization of the border, not immigration, is what’s making their communities unsafe.
Full contextual analysis of Section 2.3: Department of State here.
“The department has failed to do its part to stop the flood of fentanyl and other deadly drugs that are flowing across our borders and decimating families and communities across the United States.”
“In addition to finalizing the southwestern land border wall, the next Administration should take a creative and aggressive approach to tackling these dangerous criminal organizations at the border. This could include use of active-duty military personnel and National Guardsmen to assist in arrest operations along the border—something that has not yet been done.”
“The next Administration must prioritize the economic prosperity of ordinary Americans. For several decades, establishment “elites” have failed the citizenry by refusing to secure the border, outsourcing manufacturing to China and elsewhere, spending recklessly, regulating constantly, and generally controlling the country from the top down rather than letting it flourish from the bottom up.”
We’re off to a bad start, here, considering that many of the policies the Heritage Foundation has touted throughout Project 2025 would result in economic devastation. I address that every time it comes up under a specific mandate. Second, are they arguing that their particular brand of fascism wouldn’t be “controlling from the top down”? They’re literally arguing for staffing the entire federal government with regime loyalists. It’s throughout this document.
Third, they praise Reagan throughout this document, who gave us trickle-down economics, which not only didn’t work but is the opposite of “letting it flourish from the bottom up.”
Pay attention to their actions, not their words. Their guy (Trump) is the one who killed the bipartisan border control bill, so he could continue to campaign on it as an issue. Obviously, the border can’t be that big of a problem if it can wait to be addressed.
As for economically disengaging from China, as is argued for in the Foreword of Project 2025, the results of that, at this point, are also economic devastation.
Full contextual analysis of Section 4: The Economy here.