NYC Asks Residents to Give Up Their Bikes for Illegals

Jacob Bruns
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NYC Asks Residents to Give Up Their Bikes for Illegals

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Officials in New York City have called on the city’s residents to give up their bikes to the incoming wave of illegal immigrants, the National File reported.

The city has called the “movement” Bike New York, and begged city residents to give up their bikes, helmets and other implements to help illegal immigrants–who they call “asylum-seeking folks”–transport themselves.

“Bike New York is looking to receive, repair & distribute bikes, helmets, locks & lights to help asylum-seeking folks move around,” and advertisement placed around the city by the local government says. “Donations will be accepted until February 28.”

Bike New York also posted an announcement on its website, noting that in partnership with the government, it has created a program to redistribute bikes to illegal immigrants.

They plan “to oversee a large-scale effort to receive, repair, and distribute donated bikes to recent arrivals from the southern border.”

They also aim “to provide an inexpensive and convenient way for them to access the jobs and services they need to get settled and acclimated in their new homes.”

The organization is also handing out taxpayer-funded helmets, locks and lights, so that the illegal immigrants feel safe in their new home.

“Those who receive a bike” will get the free gear “courtesy of New York City DOT,” according to the website.

New Yorkers have received little protection against the influx of immigration that they collectively desired for the rest of America.

Things have gotten so bad in the sanctuary city in recent months that New York City Mayor Eric Adams has threatened to send busloads of immigrants to Texas.

He also took a trip to the border, acknowledging the existence of what he called an “immigration crisis”

“Our cities are being undermined,” he said. “We don’t deserve this. Migrants don’t deserve this and the people who live in the cities don’t deserve this …There is no more room in New York.”

FTC Colluded w/ Foreign Governments to Challenge Mergers, Records Suggest

Ken Silva
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FTC Colluded w/ Foreign Governments to Challenge Mergers, Records Suggest

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Federal Trade Commission officials may have colluded with foreign regulators to block corporate mergers and acquisitions, according to internal FTC records released Thursday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The FTC records, which the Chamber of Commerce obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, detail the commission’s deliberations about biotech company Illumina’s plan to acquire Grail, a startup that specializes in cancer blood-testing.

Illumina announced its planned $8 billion acquisition in September 2020, and FTC officials began corresponding with competition regulators in the U.K, EU, Austria and France about the deal soon thereafter, records show.

The contents of the correspondence are heavily redacted, but the Chamber of Commerce argued that the timing of certain events strongly suggests that the FTC was talking with those regulators about how to block the deal.

In a press release about the records, the Chamber of Commerce noted that FTC initially challenged the deal in U.S. federal court, but “many public experts” predicted that the commission’s challenge would fail.

So instead, the FTC apparently turned to its counterpart in the EU to block the deal. The EU announced its intention to challenge the acquisition in April 2021, and a month later the FTC dismissed its own federal court challenge.

Illumina closed the deal in December 2021, but the acquisition is still uncertain. The Chamber of Commerce said the FTC could still sue to unwind the deal, and that the EU regulators are also still trying to block it.

The Chamber of Commerce said the FTC’s apparent collusion with foreign regulators is highly inappropriate for numerous reasons.

“Mergers are intensely fact specific to the transaction, and the competitive impact in the U.S. will be different than in foreign markets,” the Chamber said. “In the Illumina-Grail transaction, Grail has no business operations and generated no revenues from within the EU. Yet the European Commission decided to upend international norms by manufacturing a reason … to review [the deal].”

The Chamber further noted that the FTC heavily redacted the records it released on the grounds that the EU served as a “consultant,” which makes communications exempt under FOIA’s  “consultant corollary doctrine.”

The Chamber said it will be challenging the FTC’s redactions to fully reveal what commission officials were saying to their counterparts in the other jurisdictions.

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial Thursday about the Chamber’s disclosures, calling for the FTC to release the unredacted communications.

“The emails raise questions about the FTC’s methods, which have become more secretive and suspect under Chair Lina Khan. Have FTC officials solicited foreign counterparts to scuttle other deals they believe they are likely to lose in U.S. courts under the reigning consumer-welfare antitrust standard?” the WSJ editorial board said.

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is challenging the FTC redactions. If the FTC doesn’t believe its coordination with foreign officials is improper, why hide it?”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Ben Stiller Refuses to Bow to Woke Mob for Acclaimed Blackface Role

Molly Bruns
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Ben Stiller Refuses to Bow to Woke Mob for Acclaimed Blackface Role

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Actor Ben Stiller refused to apologize to the cancel culture mob for the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder, which he wrote, directed and starred in.

Stiller responded to a tweet that accused him of apologizing for the movie, as it faces calls to be removed from streaming platforms, the Daily Wire reported.

“Please stop apologizing for doing this movie,” the tweet read. “It was and still is funny AF… Even funnier now with cancel culture the way it is… I was DYING laughing when I first saw it back in the day and so was everyone else.”

Stiller, 57, responded to the tweet saying he is “proud” of the movie and claimed it was “controversial” from the start.

Many users responded to Stiller, calling the movie “one of the funniest” they’ve seen and “perfect.”

The film centers around a group of actors shooting a war film and finding themselves in the midst of an actual war zone. The actors are forced to use their acting skills to escape.

One of the characters, a method actor named Kirk Lazarus played by Robert Downey Jr., gets skin pigmentation surgery to appear as a black man for the film.

Downey defended the use of blackface in the film, claiming in a 2020 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience that the purpose of the film is to showcase how wrong it is.

“I think that it’s never an excuse to do something that’s out of place and out of its time, but to me it blasted the cap on [the issue],” Downey said. “I think having a moral psychology is Job 1. Sometimes, you just gotta go, ‘Yeah, I effed up.’ In my defense, ‘Tropic Thunder’ is about how wrong [blackface] is, so I take exception.”

The movie previously came under fire for the use of the word “retard,” and was targeted by advocacy groups for people with disabilities, including the Special Olympics.

Dem. Gov. Whitmer Sandbagged Cost of Ford’s New EV Battery Plant by $750M

Wire Editor
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Dem. Gov. Whitmer Sandbagged Cost of Ford’s New EV Battery Plant by $750M

(Scott McClallen, The Center Square) When Michigan Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Ford’s new $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant last week, her office’s news release said it would cost taxpayers $1 billion.

Nine days later, state officials asked for $750 million more to prep the Marshall site – bringing the possible total cost, if approved by lawmakers, to $1.75 billion.

It’s unclear when state officials discovered an additional $750 million is needed for site preparation. Neither the Michigan Economic Development Corporation nor Whitmer’s office has responded to The Center Square’s requests for clarification.

The $750 million in proposed additional spending includes $330 million to the Michigan Department of Transportation for road improvements; $224 million for pad-ready site improvements; $100 million for water and wastewater improvements; and $75 million for land acquisition. Other projected spending includes $15 million for Norfolk Southern rail improvements; $5 million for building inspections; and $300,000 to fund fiber optics.

Rep. Andrew Fink, R-Hillsdale, told The Center Square that the subsidy plan is littered with problems.

“This project already had problems I’ve spoken of in the past, but now we find out that it’s actually three-quarters of a billion dollars more expensive than the administration first said, and some of the state subsidies will be going to a rail company that can’t keep its trains on the rails,” Fink said in a text message.

Rep. Phil Skaggs, D-East Grand Rapids, said the extra spending was “smart government.”

“None of this is going directly to the corporation” Skaggs said during a Wednesday hearing. “It is not a blank check to the corporation. It is simply smart government to build the infrastructure around which private enterprise can thrive.”

John Mozena, president of the Center for Economic Accountability, a nonprofit organization for transparent economic development policy, told The Center Square that taxpayers have subsidized the auto industry since the mid-1990s. Since then, Michigan has lost 183,000 manufacturing jobs statewide.

Mozena said if the additional spending is approved, the 2,500 jobs potentially created by this deal would cost taxpayers $680,000 for each job that may or may not be created.

Mozena noted that Ford Motor Company has reported $158.1 billion dollars in revenues and reaped $10.4 billion in earnings before interest and taxes. By comparison, Michigan’s fiscal year 2021 revenues were $91.3 billion.

“Ford’s last annual earnings release said that the company was sitting on $32 billion in cash and $48 billion in liquid assets,” Mozena said in an email. “Clearly, they can afford to pay for their own mission-critical infrastructure just like any other company would, and more so than inflation-squeezed Michigan taxpayers.”

One Democrat swore to vote against the spending. Rep. Dylan Wegela, D-Garden City, tweeted that the deal “makes no sense for Michigan.”

“This deal makes no sense for Michigan. The math just doesn’t add up,” Wegela said. “We need to invest in communities, not corporations. Ford made over $10 Billion in profits last year. They do not need any more taxpayer money. This is now the 3rd handout in two months. I’ll be voting no again.”

Group Names Chicago, New Orleans as U.S. Murder Capitals

Wire Editor
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Group Names Chicago, New Orleans as U.S. Murder Capitals

(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) Chicago recorded 697 total homicides in 2022, far more than any other city in the United States, but New Orleans had the highest murder rate per capita, according to a new report from a nonprofit research group.

Chicago had more total homicides in 2022 than Philadelphia (516), New York City (438), Houston (435) and Los Angeles (382), which rounded out the top five, according to a report from Wirepoints, an Illinois-based research and news organization that surveyed 2022 crime data from 75 of the largest U.S. cities.

New Orleans had the highest homicide rate in the nation in 2022 with 74.3 homicides per 100,000 people. It was followed by St. Louis (68.2), Baltimore (58.1), Detroit (48.9) and Memphis (45.9), Wirepoints found.

The total number of homicides and the rates are different ways to look at the same problem, said Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints.

“You can’t ignore when one city has the most murders in the country. Especially 11 years in a row. And so that’s why it’s also really important to look at the total number of homicides. Chicago has almost 700 homicides. A city that’s much, much larger, like New York, has fewer than 500. So your rates matter, but so does the outright number.”

The difference between New York City and Chicago was stark in 2022, Dabrowski said. Chicago, with about 2.7 million residents, reported 697 homicides and a homicide rate of 25.8 per 100,000 people. New York, with about 8.5 million residents, reported 438 homicides and a homicide rate of 5.2 per 100,000 people.

“In Chicago, we’ve got the trifecta of [Mayor] Lori Lightfoot and her anti-policing rhetoric. You’ve got [Cook County State’s Attorney] Kim Foxx and her goal to decriminalize crimes. And you got Tim Evans, the chief judge, who has created a revolving door by not sentencing strictly,” Dabrowski said. “New York is pursuing, generally, a tougher stance on crime.”

Dabrowski said 95% of the homicide victims in Chicago were black or Latino.

The nation’s lowest homicide rates were concentrated in the West, according to the report. The cities with the fewest homicides out of the 75 surveyed were Plano, Texas, and Gilbert, Arizona. Plano reported 1 homicide and Gilbert reported 3.

The safest of the nation’s 75 largest cities by homicide rate was Plano, Texas, with 0.3 homicides per 100,000 people. Plano was followed by Gilbert, Arizona, (1.1), Henderson, Nevada (1.6), Chandler, Arizona (3.2) and San Jose, California (3.6). Of the 10 cities with the lowest homicide rates, all but one were located west of the Mississippi, according to the report.

All but one of the 10 cities with the highest homicide rates were located on or east of the Mississippi River in 2022.

The difference is likely a combination of factors, Dabrowski said.

DeSantis Announces New Initiative to Combat Illegal Immigration

Wire Editor
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DeSantis Announces New Initiative to Combat Illegal Immigration

(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday an extensive legislative plan to address the border crisis.

His proposal comes as record numbers of foreign nationals have illegally entered through the southern border and made their way to Florida or are continuing to be apprehended by state and federal law enforcement officers as they attempt to enter Florida illegally by sea.

Florida’s “fight against Biden’s border crisis” plan includes “increasing penalties for human smuggling, strengthening statutes for the detention of illegal aliens, requiring universal use of E-Verify, enhancing penalties for document falsification, and prohibiting the issuance by local governments of ID cards to people who are not lawfully in the country,” the governor’s office said.

With this legislation, Florida is continuing to crack down on the smuggling of illegal aliens, stopping municipalities from issuing ID cards to people here illegally, and ensuring that employers are hiring American citizens or those here legally,” DeSantis said at a press conference at the Hangar One Club in Jacksonville. “Florida is a law and order state, and we won’t turn a blind eye to the dangers of Biden’s Border Crisis. We will continue to take steps to protect Floridians from reckless federal open border policies.”

DeSantis made the announcement less than two months after issuing a state of emergency after several hundred people began arriving in the Florida Keys on rustic vessels overwhelming first responders and local law enforcement. The influx of people illegally landing in Florida from multiple countries was “particularly burdensome for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office,” DeSantis’ office said last month, which has 194 deputies and limited resources dedicated to providing public safety.

DeSantis also made the announcement as state and local law enforcement agencies continue to bust human and drug smuggling operations stemming from the southern border. When announcing the arrest of over 200 people last week, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said over half of the female sex trafficking victims were illegally in the U.S., telling Americans, “Wake up. There is a crisis at the border.”

“Human smuggling, drug trafficking, and a host of other criminal activities are steadily spilling across the Southern Border and into our state, as bad actors seek to exploit the hard-earned wealth and hard-won freedoms of our citizens for criminal gain,” said Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass. “In tandem with our continued vigilance and cooperation with our law enforcement partners across the state, the initiatives championed today by Governor DeSantis will help to keep Floridians safer than ever, protecting our citizens from malefactors who are illegally in our state and removing them from our communities altogether.”

Part of DeSantis’ legislation plan includes invalidating all out-of-state licenses issued to “unauthorized aliens,” requires those registering to vote to affirm they are U.S. citizens and legal residents of Florida, prevents illegal foreign nationals from being admitted to practice law in Florida, and eliminates out-of-state tuition fee waivers for illegal foreign national students. It also requires hospitals to collect data on the citizenship and immigration status of patients and “the costs to provide care to illegal aliens” and regularly report this data to the governor and state legislature.

The plan also increases penalties for human smuggling in response to recommendations made by a grand jury impaneled by the Florida Supreme Court at Governor DeSantis’ request. Once passed by the legislature and signed into law, penalties for those who knowingly transport, conceal, or harbor an illegal alien within or into Florida would be increased to a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, with a $5,000 fine, and five years of probation, per count.

It also makes the smuggling of illegal aliens under age 18 a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, per count. The proposal also allows smuggled individuals to be detained by law enforcement as material witnesses.

State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill and the former chair of the Republican Party of Florida, said the border crisis is “a direct result of the federal government refusing to enforce immigration laws” established by Congress. He also said, “The problem is so bad that the federal government should declare itself its own disaster area.”

“It is reckless and an abomination, and our governor will not stand by idly as this open-borders agenda continues to take over our families, friends and our communities. As a matter of fact, he will boldly push Florida as the blueprint by which other states should fight illegal immigration.”

DeSantis’ proposal also builds on previous actions he’s taken, including issuing an executive order prohibiting state agencies from “providing support for the resettlement of illegal aliens in Florida” and prohibiting the licensing of facilities that house unaccompanied minors.

He also signed bills into law prohibiting government contracts with private entities that assist the Biden administration in resettling illegal foreign nationals to Florida, requiring all public employers, contractors, and subcontractors to use E-Verify to determine employment eligibility, and allocating $12 million to transport illegal foreign nationals to sanctuary states, “bringing the border crisis to the communities that support Biden’s open border policies.”

He also created a strike force consisting of state and local law enforcement officers to interdict human smuggling and human trafficking and to seize illegal weapons being transported throughout Florida. So far, they’ve made 200 felony charges, nearly 40 human smuggling charges, and 66 drug charges and seized over $500,000 worth of illicit drugs, his office said.

Hospital CEO Testifies that Illegals May Pose Health Risk: ‘Many Are Very Sick’

Ken Silva
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Hospital CEO Testifies that Illegals May Pose Health Risk: ‘Many Are Very Sick’

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The House Judiciary Committee travelled to Arizona this week to examine the situation on the border and hold a hearing about what should be done—but Democrats stayed home, calling the trip a “stunt.”

At Thursday’s hearing—held at Yuma, Arizona’s city hall—committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the Democrats could have learned a lot by participating.

“It’s a shame not one Democratic member would join us on this trip, despite having weeks of notice. It’s a shame but not surprising. In fact, Democrats have called this a stunt. This is no stunt,” Jordan said.

Jordan said he and the other committee Republicans toured the border Wednesday night to examine the unfinished border wall. He added there were about 200 illegal crossings that night.

“What we learned from them, what we saw last night on the border—it’s disappointing they’re not here,” he said.

According to recent data from Customs and Border Patrol, U.S. border encounters have increased from about 400,000 per year in the 2010s to 1.6 million in 2021 and 2.2 million last year—marking new record highs.

At Thursday’s hearing, Yuma Regional Medical Center CEO Dr. Robert Trenschel testified about how that influx is overwhelming his hospital.

“Our hospital saw an increase in the number of migrants seeking care beginning in the late fall and early winter of 2021,” he said. “Some migrants come to us with minor ailments but many of them come in with significant disease. We have had migrant patients on dialysis, cardiac catheterization and in need of heart surgery. Many are very sick.”

Trenschel said his hospital spent some $26 million on treating illegal migrants last year. This doesn’t include payments for hotel rooms, taxis and car seats, he said.

“While this is a huge number that we have validated the point is that any number is not acceptable. It is an unsustainable model to have a hospital like ours bear the entire burden of paying for migrant health care,” he said. “No business or service can survive on-going large-scale expense without any offsetting revenue.”

Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines also testified at the hearing, telling committee members that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas lied to him when visiting the border last year.

According to Lines, Mayorkas promised to fix nine out of the 11 gaps in Yuma’s border infrastructure—but to date, he hasn’t fixed any.

This baffled committee member Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who said this is all the more reason to impeach Mayorkas.

“If he’ll lie to Mr. Lines and the community here, he’ll lie to us,” Gaetz said.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Trump Torches Ga. Grand Jury as ‘Illegal Kangaroo Court’

Adrienne Ferguson
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Trump Torches Ga. Grand Jury as ‘Illegal Kangaroo Court’

(Adrienne Ferguson, Headline USA) In the wake of a rouge foreperson making a roundly-criticized media tour, former President Donald Trump blasted the Georgia grand jury that has been investigating his challenge to the flawed 2020 election.

The jury’s foreperson, Emily Kohrs, went on a whirlwind media blitz this week, disclosing the inner workings of the grand jury and strongly indicating that several indictments loomed, including one for Trump.

“This Georgia case is ridiculous, a strictly political continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt of all time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.  “Now you have an extremely energetic young woman, the (get this!) ‘foreperson’ of the Racist D.A.’s Special Grand Jury, going around and doing a Media Tour revealing, incredibly, the Grand Jury’s inner workings & thoughts. This is not JUSTICE, this is an illegal Kangaroo Court.”

Trump’s legal team agreed and criticized the Fulton County prosecutor for a “clown-like” investigation.

“This type of carnival, clown-like atmosphere that was portrayed over the course of the last 36 hours takes away from the complete sanctity and the integrity and, for that matter, the reliability” of the investigation,” Trump attorney Drew Findling told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The judge overseeing the Georgia grand jury told the AJC that he had informed jurors that “They cannot discuss their deliberations,” but waffled on what that actually meant.

“So the question becomes what deliberations are, and I explained that would be the discussions they had amongst themselves when it was just the grand jurors in the room … when they were discussing what do we do with what we’ve learned,” Judge Robert McBurney said.

In a succession of interviews with the media on Tuesday, Kohrs said that she believed Trump being sworn-in after a subpoena would have been “cool.”

According to Kohrs, the panel voted against subpoenaing the former president because of concerns about time and resource constraints. Additionally, Kohrs expressed her “sadness” and “frustration” if the district attorney chooses not to press charges during an interview with CNN.

Headline USA’s Mark Pellin contributed to this report

SBF Used Loans, ‘Straw Donors’ to Hide Political Donations: Indictment

Ken Silva
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SBF Used Loans, ‘Straw Donors’ to Hide Political Donations: Indictment

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Prosecutors unveiled new charges against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on Thursday, including new details about how he allegedly used “straw donors” to mask his political contributions to Democrats and Republicans alike.

FTX’s political contributions have been a subject of controversy since it collapsed last year. It’s been revealed that SBF contributed at least $40 million over the last two years—making him the second-largest Democrat donor behind George Soros—while fellow former FTX executive Ryan Salame was the 10th largest GOP donor with at least $19 million in contributions.

All told, FTX lawyers estimate that the company and its staff spent $93 million on political contributions.

However, the DOJ’s new indictment against SBF indicates that the total contributions could be a lot more. The new indictment does not estimate a grand total for FTX or SBF’s political donations, though it does say 300 “unlawful” political contributions totaling tens of millions of dollars.

According to prosecutors, FTX used affiliate company Alameda to make more than $100 million in political contributions in the months before the 2022 midterms—even though Federal Election Commission records reflect no political contributions by Alameda to candidates or PACs.

SBF concealed Alameda’s donations by having that entity make “loans” to FTX employees, who would then serve as Bankman-Fried’s “straw donors,” prosecutors say. This allowed SBF to allegedly evade contribution limits on individual donations to candidates to whom he had already donated.

“For instance, shortly before the midterm elections, an FTX employee was directed to ‘wire $107k from Bankman-Fried’s personal to New York State Democratic Committee,’ but then was asked by Bankman-Fried to ‘update this to a 107k contribution from [another FTX executive],” the indictment states.

In another instance, SBF directed a left-leaning FTX executive to make a donation on his behalf to a congressional candidate affiliated with pro-LGBTQ issues. SBF allegedly told this unnamed FTX executive that “in general, you being the center left face of our spending will mean you giving to a lot of woke shit for transactional purposes.”

The indictment doesn’t list a specific instance of SBF using a straw donor to secretly support Republicans, but it does make the general allegation that he used an openly conservative employee to make a financial contribution.

FTX announced earlier this month that it will be seeking to claw back its political donations, giving recipients until the end of this month to return the funds.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas in December and was brought to the United States soon afterward. FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, when it ran out of money after the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run.

He is free on a $250 million personal recognizance bond. The bail arrangement allows him to live with electronic monitoring at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Border Patrol Forced to Rescue Illegals from a Texas Sewer

Contributing Author
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Border Patrol Forced to Rescue Illegals from a Texas Sewer

(Headline USA) The U.S. Border Patrol was forced to rescue more than a dozen illegal immigrants from a Texas sewer this week after their attempt to sneak into the country backfired.

Seventeen illegal immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador entered El Paso, Texas by traveling through the U.S. wastewater system via openings on the Rio Grande River. However, they were unable to get out of the sewers because the drains were welded shut by authorities to prevent migrants from using the sewer system to circumvent customs agents.

As a result, U.S. Border Patrol and the town’s fire department had to use a circular saw to pry open the storm drain and rescue the illegal aliens. 

“Agents are deployed regularly to interdict this commonly used method and to rescue migrant lives commonly placed in danger by smugglers,” the agency said on social media.

The migrants were sent back to Mexico after being taken into custody by immigration officers, the agency reported.

“It’s like an all-day, all-night thing,” El Paso resident Rosalina Tapia said of the influx of illegal immigrants. “[Smugglers] picked our complex as a pickup zone.”

Late last year, illegal immigrants started camping out in El Paso’s airport after the city ended its charter busing program, by which it sent illegals to sanctuary cities like New York.

“Our airport right now is really bad,” El Paso City Council member Claudia Rodriguez said at the time. “Some people are sleeping in the airport.”

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, has come under fire for failing to take the migrant crisis seriously. Despite pressure from his city council, Leeser has refused to declare a state of emergency in the city.

This decision could be the result of pressure from the White House, which reportedly asked Leeser not to declare an emergency due to fear that it would make President Joe Biden look bad.

“He told me the White House asked him not to,” El Paso International Airport aviation director Sam Rodriguez said when asked why Leeser had turned down the city council’s request for an emergency declaration.

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