Capitol wall still stands; 11 Iranians breach southern border

FPI / February 7, 2021

Soon after the riots on Jan. 6, a 7-foot non-scalable fence was erected around the U.S. Capitol and thousands of National Guard were deployed to guard against the "threat" of "domestic terrorism."

Officials in the D.C. "Swamp" have proposed a permanent wall be constructed around the Capitol.

Meanwhile, customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Feb. 4 that its agents arrested a group of 11 Iranians who illegally entered the United States through the southern border, where wall construction has been canceled.

In what some observers said was a rare show of sanity from a Democrat, D.C. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton slammed the proposal of a permanent Capitol wall in a letter to the Capitol Police Board:

“Permanent fencing would send the wrong message to the nation and the world, by transforming our democracy from one that is accessible and of the people to one that is exclusive and fearful of its citizens.”

New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik said: “This is the People’s House. I am adamantly opposed. There has been no threat briefing given to Members of Congress to justify this proposal.”

Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, co-chair of the Congressional Border Security Caucus, said the fence that now surrounds the U.S. Capitol demonstrates that the U.S. "ought to continue our fence on the border."

"The same people who tell me that fences don't work on the border want to have this fence and turn the Capitol into a military compound," Biggs said during an interview on the "Just the News AM" show. "So we don't know of any existing, emergent threat to the Capitol, but we do know of an existing, emergent threat to our nation through the border, people crossing the border illegally that are coming across."

Biggs added: "There's two things here: They built a fence because they know fences actually do work, so we ought to continue our fence on the border. And the second thing is, they came in with overwhelming military personnel. So they had an overwhelming amount of personnel to respond as a secondary response, if anybody tried to breach the fence, we don't have that on the border."

Though there were no incidents at the Jan. 20 inauguration, and no reliable reports of other impending threats, some 5,000 National Guard troops will keep the nation's capital a militarized zone through at least mid-March.

Gov. Ron DeSantis called home the 600 National Guard deployed from Florida to D.C., saying they "aren't Nancy Pelosi's servants."

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week ordered a “stand down” of the entire U.S. military for 60 days in order for commanders to address “extremism” in the ranks.

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Austin pledged that he would “rid our ranks of racists and extremists,” though he declined to offer details on how he planned to see that through.

“The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks,” Austin said.

The FBI has even paid visits to Americans simply for being in the nation's capital on Jan. 6 to hear President Donald Trump speak.

Tucker Carlson noted on his Thursday broadcast that Bank of America secretly turned over to the FBI data on 211 customers who might be of interest because they were in D.C. on or after Jan. 6. Federal investigators actually interviewed one of the individuals, who was eventually cleared.

"Imagine if you were that person? The FBI hauls you in for questioning in a terror investigation," he said. "Not because you have done anything suspicious. You haven’t. You bought plane tickets and visited your country’s capital."

Meanwhile, as Joe Biden and his Democrat allies see half of the nation as "domestic terror" threats and keep D.C. on militarized lockdown, the U.S. southern border is being opened for all to enter, legal or not.

In the case of the Iranians caught crossing the border, a news release from the CBP said that agents saw the group near San Luis, Arizona, on a bridge.

Border Patrol agents then “determined the group had illegally crossed the international border into the United States. The group was arrested and taken to Yuma Station for processing,” according to the release. “The five females and six males were all from Iran, a Special Interest Country.”

The agency said that Yuma Sector agents “regularly encounter people from all over the world,” including so-called “Special Interest Countries.”

“For the last two fiscal years, Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents have led the nation in apprehending illegal crossers from Iran. Yuma Sector agents apprehended eight Iranian nationals in [2020], compared to just 14 from all other border patrol sectors combined. So far in [2021], Yuma Sector agents have apprehended 14 nationals from Iran,” the agency said.

Another surge of migrants, many of them infected with covid, is expected after Biden canceled construction of the border wall.

“Biden is saying that he has no intention of ever securing America’s borders or preventing mass incursions of migrants, and that American taxpayers will continue to subsidize failing foreign economies and substandard living conditions through magnetic U.S. immigration policies,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Reform (FAIR).

Biggs said Congress needs to make sure that there are enough agents on the border working with "a substantial fence" to address illegal crossings, human trafficking, drug smuggling and others issues.

"If you don't control your border, you really don't have national security," he said. "It's very easy for anybody to get across our border today."

Free Press International