The Trump Administration is considering a measure that would empower United States Customs and Border Protection officials to hold interviews with potential asylum seekers and decide on the spot whether to allow illegal immigrants claiming asylum onto the next phase of immigration control.

The Washington Examiner reports that the Department of Homeland Security is “racing” to implement a new policy designed to “give federal law enforcement on the border the authority to conduct interviews with asylum seekers who fear returning to their home countries.”

Those so-called “fear interviews” are the first official step in the asylum process for immigrants who appear at the border seeking temporary citizenship status. Most, if not all. of the million-plus illegal immigrants who have arrived at the border in the first quarter of 2019 have been asylum seekers — often appearing at official border crossings as part of a so-called “migrant caravan” from Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador, and often as part of a family.

Officials at DHS hope that the new policy will help take part of the burden off Immigration and Customs Enforcement by lowering the number of claims to be processed by overwhelmed ICE agents.

“U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers would train Border Patrol agents on the southern border how to conduct ‘credible fear interviews,’ which immigrants must pass to go on to claim asylum,” the Examiner reports. “Agents would conduct the interviews shortly after apprehending people who have illegally crossed from Mexico to the U.S.”

The policy would take Customs and Border Protection agents off the front lines but would expedite deportations and provide some illegal immigrants with a definitive decision on asylum right away, if they don’t pass their “credible fear interviews.” ICE would handle only those immigrants whose claims seem to fit the United States’ official requirements for granting asylum.

Right now, CBP and ICE are processing the claims traditionally, going person-by-person. But while that process is fine for years when only a few hundred or few thousand people are crossing the United States’ southern border per month, the arrival of migrant caravans carrying thousands of asylum seekers at a time, has overwhelmed the system. ICE officials cannot process claims fast enough to get new asylum seekers out of border patrol custody within the requisite 72 days, and border patrol facilities aren’t equipped for long-term or high-volume situations.

When CBP can no longer handle crowds of immigrants, they now must “catch-and-release” at the end of 72 days, allowing asylum seekers to remain in the United States under minimal supervision until their immigration hearing date, typically 2-to-5 years from their arrival.

Under the new policy, instead of simply waiting for ICE to make decisions, DH “would essentially deputize law enforcement to carry out citizenship officers’ jobs in order to initially reduce the number of people who have passed that stage and are waiting on asylum decisions. Those calls usually take two to five years due to the current 900,000 cases waiting to be decided by fewer than 500 immigration judges nationwide.”

Under the new policy, DHS believes they can take the backlog down from 2-to-5 years to 2-to-5 weeks.

The White House is still outlining the exact provisions of the new policy, but the Examiner reports that the Trump Administration does not believe it will have to go through Congress to implement the change.

Do you think “Uncle Joe” is a good candidate for the Democratic nomination?

Abortion survivors joined with pro-life advocates for a special event in Times Square Saturday afternoon, where Christian ministry Focus on the Family broadcast a 4D ultrasound image of an unborn baby.

Several abortion survivors described their accounts to the crowd ahead of the 4D ultrasound demonstration. A crowd was gathered for the event that Focus on the Family planned in just under two weeks. 

Pro-life advocates took turns on the stage praying and proclaiming the sanctity of human life.

CNN lost 26 percent of its already tiny audience and dropped to 15th place during primetime in April.

Fox News remained in first place.

Throughout last month, CNN’s average total audience during the all-important primetime hours was a humiliating 767,000. CNN was not even able to attract a million average viewers. Fox News more than tripled the fake news outlet with 2.4 million viewers. MSNBC more than doubled CNN with 1.66 million.

KRAKOW, Poland — The first-ever delegation of U.S. ambassadors to the March of the Living, an annual Holocaust commemoration in Poland, received a warm welcome from participants at an opening ceremony Wednesday evening.

The Trump administration sent a sizable delegation, led by U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who was joined by: U.S. Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher; U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell; U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Callista Gingrich; U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and Lichtenstein Ed McMullen; U.S. Ambassador to Spain Duke Buchan; Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism Elan Carr; and Chairman of the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad Paul Packer.

Carr had just arrived from San Diego, where he delivered a stirring eulogy at the funeral of Lori Gilbert Kaye, the woman who sacrificed her life to save her rabbi during the synagogue shooting in Poway, California, last Saturday. “We are at war” with antisemitism, Carr declared.

Left-wing activists have forced Mastercard to hold a shareholder vote on the creation of a “human rights committee” that would monitor payments to the “far right,” with a view to cut off disfavored individuals and political groups from receiving money from supporters.

BuzzFeed reports that the proposed Mastercard human rights committee would “stop designated white supremacist groups and anti-Islam activists, such as Tommy Robinson, from getting access to money sent from donors using the company’s card payment services.”

The Board of Mastercard has opposed the proposal, urging stockholders to vote against it.

As the socialist country of Venezuela falls apart before our eyes — once the wealthiest country in South America, and now, after decades of socialism, a failed state — it is troubling to note that many in my generation wish to adopt the same system that led directly to the chaos we are seeing in that country. Almost half of those in the Millennial and Generation Z generations say they would prefer to live under socialism, and they are being rapidly herded to that position by the the prominent avowed socialists in the Democratic Party like Bernie Sander and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Following demographic trends, it is not inconceivable that we could have our own Venezuela moment in another 20 or 30 years.

But for anyone still on the fence about whether to advocate socialism or not, I think there is a very simple test that should clarify things for you. Take a look at the socialist countries in the world today. Would you like to live in any of these places? If socialism is a good idea — let alone a path to Utopia, which is how AOC presents it — then there should be in existence today a number of socialist countries that you, a socialist, might consider moving to. So, which one? Venezuela? North Korea? China? Tanzania? Sri Lanka? Nicaragua? Would you even want to spend a weekend in any of these places?

Of course, the socialist sympathizer in America will immediately cite Denmark or Sweden as socialist successes. The problem with calling the Nordic countries socialist successes is that they are not socialist at ll. Let the Prime Minster of Denmark speak for himself on the topic:

I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.

It seems a cottage near Copenhagen is out of the picture. The closest thing you can find to a socialist success story is Bolivia, which is not really a socialist success story. And, at any rate, would you actually want to live in Bolivia? Would you prefer it to here?

We could expand this hypothetical search to include historical places. Let’s say you could take either a plane or a time machine to your destination of choice. Which State-controlled wonderland of the past would you go for? Soviet Russia? Nazi Germany? Cambodia? Socialism and communism killed 100 million in the 20th century (and counting), so you might want to think twice before heading in any of those directions.

We can talk about the economic and philosophical problems inherent to the socialist model, but the proof is in the pudding. And this particular pudding is made with misery and starvation and tyranny and death on a scale previously unknown to mankind. Perhaps we should take the hint. One or two examples of socialism failing might not be enough to discredit it. But a century of chaos, bloodshed, and poverty brought on by this system of governance should be a sufficient sample size. If you’re still not convinced, flights to North Korea are pretty affordable. Just try not to get arrested and tortured to death while you’re there.

The Florida House voted Tuesday in support of legislation allowing districts to arm teachers, thereby sending the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) desk.

On April 24, Breitbart News reported that the legislation, SB 7030, had passed the Florida Senate and was headed to the House. WJCT reported that SB 7030 passed by a vote of 22-17, with every Senate Democrat voting against giving teachers the option of being armed for classroom defense.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that the bill passed the House by a vote of 65-47.