Border Patrol agent brutally killed. Political class silent

The biggest story you won’t hear today in the mainstream media is the tragic murder of a Border Patrol agent in southwest Texas, in what appears to be an ambush at the hands of illegal aliens.

Early Sunday morning, Border Patrol Agent Rogilio Martinez was murdered while responding to a call about suspicious activity in the area. His partner, whose name has not yet been released, was injured in the attack and remains in serious condition.

While the DHS has not yet released any details of how the agent was ambushed, Brandon Darby and Ildefonso Ortiz of Breitbart Texas have some details from an exclusive interview with the head of the border agent union:

This should be a national emergency. Unlike domestic crime, invasion from international drug cartels and illegal aliens are completely avoidable. We spend trillions of dollars on dubious overseas wars, yet few in Washington want to take our own border, sovereignty, and security seriously.

Senator Ted Cruz and President Trump were quick to respond Monday:

Border Patrol Officer killed at Southern Border, another badly hurt. We will seek out and bring to justice those responsible. We will, and must, build the Wall!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2017 

Our condolences and prayers go out to the family and friends of Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez, who was killed this morning in the line of duty. pic.twitter.com/izaihfIt2k

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 19, 2017

However, if the president is going to continue to focus on “a DACA fix” and not announce an end to amnesty and make demands for border security, this tweet is worthless.

Members of the National ICE Council have already accused this administration of keeping Obama holdovers (despite promises to the contrary) and continuing egregious rules of engagement that make it hard for them to apprehend illegal aliens. They have launched a new website, JICReport.com, to expose the broken promise made to immigration agents, even though President Trump incessantly and proudly touted the endorsement from the ICE union throughout the campaign. 

It is truly a disgrace that we have politicians in both parties who prioritize amnesty, the antecedent to our insecure border, over protecting America’s sovereignty and security. Why should border security and interior enforcement be held hostage for amnesty?

Even if one believes in amnesty, the notion that prioritizing America’s security is on par with amnesty is preposterous. Yet, there are billions of dollars flowing to D.C. lobbyists to promote illegal aliens and the cayote smuggling business.

At present, leaders in Congress are planning to pass amnesty in December instead of border security. Meanwhile, border crossings are once again surging and the administration has reinstated the catch-and-release policies of the Obama administration.  

If Trump were serious about his campaign promises, he would make the following demands for the end-of-year legislation:

• End sanctuary cities, a desire of 77 percent of voters in 11 crucial battleground states. Yet, the courts are preventing the president from punishing them, which is why Congress must include the provision in the budget bill.
• End all welfare and education magnets for illegal immigrants.
• Fix the asylum loophole and the smuggling loophole for Central Americans
• Empower states to better enforce immigration law.
• Severely limit or completely end the role of Article III courts in litigating aliens into status.
• Finally implement visa tracking, as required by the 1996 law.
• Finally construct the border wall, as required by Congress since 2006. Since we no longer care about the national deficit as it relates to wasteful spending, there should be no limitations on funding the most important job of the federal government.
• Beef up ICE, detention center, and legal assets.

We have a war on our southern border, not halfway around the world

Finally, there is one missing element here. It’s time for our government to treat our border crisis like the military, diplomatic, and state emergency it is.

The hallmark of a first-world country is that it has full operational control over its borders — and certainly its interior.

We have our troops spread out in 140 countries but we refuse to deal with the instability on our own border. We are engaging in economic development and diplomatic pandering all over the world but we won’t use statecraft to properly redress the problems on the other side of the Mexican border.

There should not be one inch of America soil that is destabilized by violent foreign nationals, yet this incident — the death of Rogilio Martinez — occurred roughly 30 miles north of the border, near Van Horn, Texas.

It’s time to finally hold the Mexican government accountable and create a buffer zone south of the border to clear out the violent activity. We are concerned about violence in lands that have had perpetual violence, such as Somalia, Yemen, and Niger, but because the southern border is inextricably caught up in the immigration debate, the politicians refuse to confront the security issue.

We should also restructure our economic development programs, such as the Merida Initiative, to ensure that the funds go to stabilizing Mexico and beefing up its law enforcement rather than corrupt politicians who have ties to the cartels. It’s time the Mexican government knows that we are committed to a stable Mexico and that if it joins with us we will be its best friend. If not … we will do what it takes to protect our side of the border first.  

According to the National Drug Threat Assessment, most of the heroin in this country, which is tearing our communities apart, is coming from and/or through Mexico. With everyone wringing their hands over the opioid problem, nobody wants to even consider going after the drug cartels.

Perhaps, more than any issue, the border issue demonstrates how today’s politicians just don’t represent the American people anymore. Article IV Section 4 of the Constitution guarantees the states protection against invasion. Former Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story observed that “the southern states, being more peculiarly open to danger from this quarter, ought to be particularly tenacious of a constitution, from which they may derive such assistance in the most critical periods.”

One would expect the State Department to be using every tool of statecraft to coerce the Mexican government into cooperating with our operation on the border or risk backlash. Instead, it is busy promoting “National Transgender Day of Remembrance.”

Amazingly, he federal government has done everything it shouldn’t do in the matter of internal state affairs but has ignored its most solemn responsibility. The unelected branch of the federal government – the judiciary – has prevented both the federal and state governments from clamping down on illegal immigration while offering no help on the border.

As James Madison warned in Federalist 45, “[T]he more adequate, indeed, the federal powers may be rendered to the national defense, the less frequent will be those scenes of danger which might favor their ascendancy over the governments of the particular States.”

What will it take for our government to finally recognize the biggest security problem and prioritize the needs of all Americans over special interests? Hopefully, we won’t need more dead border agents to get its attention.