Border Security

President Donald Trump’s ability to accelerate his lagging deportations agenda hinges on congressional Republicans figuring out what they’re going to cut to pay for it.

White House border czar Tom Homan has pleaded with GOP lawmakers for more money for months as the White House has struggled to launch the mass deportation campaign the president promised. Top administration officials have been in close touch with the Hill about the figures they need to ramp up removals...

President Donald Trump sent a memorandum to four federal department heads Friday night instructing them to allow the military to use and take jurisdiction of federal land along the US-Mexico border.

The newest effort from the Trump administration to secure the southern border includes authorizing the military to take control of public land along the border.

“The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past,” a White House memorandum said.

The U.S. military will take control of a strip of federal land that spans three states along the southern border in an effort to stem illegal immigration, a memorandum Friday by President Donald Trump said. 

Five senators who visited the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, criticized the migrant mission there over the weekend as a waste of resources, after the Pentagon estimated that the operation had cost $40 million in its first month.

The Senate delegation on Friday toured Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities where about 85 migrants were being held, including in a prison that for years housed wartime detainees linked to Al Qaeda.

President Donald J. Trump was sworn into office a mere 10 weeks ago and his efforts to seal up the U.S. border have succeeded under nearly any criteria imaginable.

Cost Savings:

ABC News reported over the weekend that the mission to secure the Southwest border cost taxpayers $330 million through mid-March, including more than $40 million for Guantanamo Bay alone.

The Trump administration’s move to detain people for Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has cost taxpayers $40 million in its first month, according to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who called the price tag “exorbitant.”

Three members of the punk band, the UK Subs – including Iggy Pop’s bass player Alvin Gibbs – were denied entry into the US.

The musicians are the latest foreign nationals to run into trouble with immigration at US airports since Donald Trump entered office.

The UK Subs, who have toured the US previously without incident, were due to perform at a punk festival in Los Angeles and flew into LAX.

The French government’s claim that a scientist was denied entry into the United States because of an opinion he expressed about the Trump administration is “blatantly false,” a U.S. official has said.

The U.S. military has deployed additional forces to the southern border in response to escalating threats from Mexican drug cartels, including the potential use of explosive-laden drones against Border Patrol agents.

The deployment, which includes elements of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT), 4th Infantry Division, marks a significant escalation in border security operations.