Category Archives: Terror

Does DHS Secretary Kelly Know RAPS?

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My friend Tom Del Beccaro explains in his summary at Forbes how the Federal government maintains primacy over the states for immigration law and item 8 U.S. Code Section 1182, which the liberal court chose never to previously challenge.

In spite of the 9th Circuit 3 judge panel ruling maintaining the stay on the Trump Executive Order for the travel restraining order, there is much work to do administratively as this continues to be challenged.

The data is private and protected:

Once the information is entered into the system, RAPS generates an appointment notice for the collection of fingerprints used to complete criminal and background checks and to create Employment Authorization Documents (EADs), as appropriate. The applicant will appear at a USCIS service center to provide fingerprints and confirm application information.

RAPS then automatically initiates several background security check processes: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Name Check, United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) and DHS’ Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) TECS, FBI Fingerprint, and the ENFORCE Alien Removal Module (EARM) (for a full discussion of the background check process, see Section 5.1). RAPS also stores the results of security checks.

Image result for USCIS Asylum Office Image result for USCIS Asylum Office

When a new application is entered into RAPS, it is forwarded to a USCIS Asylum Office for interview and adjudication.  Asylum Offices use RAPS to schedule an asylum interview to evaluate the claim of asylum status and to conduct various aspects of case maintenance such as address changes, updates of information pertaining to dependent claimants, to record preliminary and final decisions, and to generate decision documents. An individual who files for asylum may include in his or her application any spouse or child who is within the United States and appears for the asylum interview. This is because a grant received by the principal asylum applicant is conveyed to the spouse and children included in the family group if the spouse/child is in the U.S. and not otherwise barred from a grant of asylum.

RAPS is a comprehensive case management tool that enables USCIS to handle and process applications for asylum pursuant to Section 208 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) and applications for suspension of deportation or special rule cancellation of removal pursuant to NACARA § 203. DHS offices worldwide can access RAPS as a resource of current and historic immigration status information on more than one million applicants. DHS officials can use RAPS to verify the status of asylum applicants, asylees, and their dependents to assist with the verification of an individual’s immigration history in the course of a review of visa petitions and other benefit applications as well.

RAPS Typical Transaction

A typical transaction begins when an individual initiates the process to apply for asylum by completing and filing Form I-589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal, with a USCIS Service Center, or in certain circumstances directly with an asylum office. Service Center personnel receive the application in person or via mail and manually enter, most, but not all, of the information from a new application into RAPS.

As set forth in Section 451(b) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Public Law 107-296, Congress charged USCIS with the administration of the asylum program, which provides protection to qualified individuals in the United States who have suffered past persecution or have a well-founded fear of future persecution in their country of origin as outlined under INA § 208 and 8 CFR § 208. USCIS is also responsible for the adjudication of the benefit program established by Section 203 of the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA § 203) (discussed in more detail in Section B below), in accordance with 8 CFR § 240.60 and the maintenance and administration of the credible fear and reasonable fear screening processes, in accordance with 8 CFR §§ 208.30 and 208.31. USCIS developed RAPS and APSS in order to carry out its obligations in administering these benefit programs.

Functions

RAPS and APSS track case status and facilitate the scheduling of appointments and interviews and the issuance of notices (including receipt notices, appointment notices, and decision letters) at several stages of the adjudication process. USCIS Asylum Offices use RAPS and APSS to:

  • record decisions and to generate decision documents such as approval, dismissal, or rescission of an asylum or NACARA § 203 application,
  • denial of an asylum application,
  • administrative closure of an asylum application, or
  • referral of an asylum or NACARA § 203 application to Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR).

The systems also initiate, receive, and record responses for national security and background check screening and prevent the approval of any benefit prior to the review and completion of all security checks. Finally, the systems provide fully developed and flexible means for analyzing and managing program workflows and provide the Asylum Program with statistical reports to assist with oversight of production and processing goals.

Read more from the two DHS documents here and here.

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***

GAO Raps DHS for Failure to Get Security Data from Visa Waiver Countries

One of the requirements for allowing visa-free entry of tourists from countries in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) is that those governments share with us information on nationals with terrorism links and/or criminal histories. According to a report of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued in May 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has obtained those agreements with most of the countries, but more than a third of  the agreements have not been implemented, and no data have been received from them.

In addition, Congress has required reports from DHS on implementation of the VWP with each of the participating countries, but GAO found that DHS has failed to provide many of those reports when due.

The recommendation of agency (GAO-16-498) is that, “DHS should (1) specify time frames for working with VWP countries on the requirement to implement information-sharing agreements and (2) take steps to improve its timeliness in reporting to Congress on whether VWP countries should continue in the program.”

FAIR has consistently pointed to the VWP as a national security threat and called for its termination. This GAO report underscores the security flaw and finds that it is exacerbated by cavalier implementation by DHS

 

Putin Financing Marine Le Pen’s Presidential Run

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Marine Le Pen’s links to Russia under US scrutiny

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Ms Le Pen’s Front National party has made no secret of the fact that it has taken foreign loans to help bankroll its presidential campaigns because, it has argued, French banks refuse to stump up the funds.

But in light of allegations of Russian interference in the US election of Donald Trump, scrutiny has now turned to Ms Le Pen, who is polled to reach the final round of France’s presidential elections in May.

In an extract of a letter dated November 28 to James Clapper, who heads up 17 American intelligence organisations and agencies, he notes that the Front National “publicly acknowledged that it had received a $9.8 million loan from a Russian bank with links to the Kremlin, allegedly brokered by a sanctioned Russian Duma deputy, according to French press reporting.”

The bank in question was First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB) in Moscow. Mr Turner goes on: “In February 2016, the FN asked Russia for a $30 million load to fund the FN leader Marine Le Pen’s 2017 campaign. More here from the Telegraph.

dgse franceFITSANAKIS: France’s primary intelligence agency warned the country’s government this week that Russia has launched a secret operation to try to influence the outcome of the upcoming French presidential election in favor of the far right. According to the Paris-based weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, France’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) has notified the country’s leadership that a covert operation by the Kremlin is already underway, and is expected to intensify in the run-up to April’s election. The spy agency allegedly believes that Russian efforts aim to promote Marine Le Pen, leader of the ultra-right National Front. Le Pen wants to curb immigration to France and remove the country from the European Union.

In an article published on Wednesday, Le Canard Enchaîné said the DGSE’s warning has alarmed the Élysée Palace. The paper also said that French President François Hollande, who chairs the country’s defense council, has decided to devote the entire agenda of the council’s next meeting to the subject of Russia’s alleged interference in the election. Anonymous sources told the paper that, according to a classified DGSE report, Russian spy agencies are using automated systems designed to “fill the Internet with tens of millions” of articles, images and memes that support the National Front candidate. Additionally, several news media that are controlled by Moscow will try to discredit Le Pen’s rivals for the presidency. At the same time, websites such as WikiLeaks —which some American commentators accuse of working with Moscow— will publish leaked information designed to damage Le Pen’s competitors.

The Le Canard Enchaîné allegations sound very similar to accusations leveled against the Kremlin by American intelligence agencies and by members of the United States Democratic Party. However, these allegations have not been supported by concrete evidence, and Russia denies that it had any involvement in last November’s presidential election in the US, which was won by Donald Trump.

*** Meanwhile…. As top U.S. commanders are sounding the alarm of the forgotten war in Afghanistan due to the terror factions operating there including the even more deadly Taliban, Russia is legitimizing them to counter NATO. Are the Western leaders nurturing relationships with the Kremlin good with that as coalition countries have troops in Afghanistan?

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In part from The Hill:

“The Russian involvement this year has become more difficult,” Gen. John Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “First, they have begun to publicly legitimize the Taliban. This narrative that they promote is that the Taliban are fighting Islamic State and the Afghan government is not fighting Islamic State and that, therefore, there could be spillover of this group into the region. This is a false narrative.”

“I believe its intent is to undermine the United States and NATO,” he later added.

Nicholson was testifying about the current situation in Afghanistan, which he called a stalemate that he needs a few thousand more troops to break.

Among the challenges in the country are the actions of external actors such as Pakistan, Iran and Russia, Nicholson said.

He said Russia’s meddling in Afghanistan started in 2016 and continues to increase.

In addition to spreading a narrative that the Taliban is fighting the Afghan branch of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Russia has also organized a series of meetings to discuss the future of Afghanistan without inviting the Afghan government, Nicholson said. More here.

 

Venezuela Gave Passports to Terrorists, Syria and Iraq?

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Venezuela may have given passports to people with ties to terrorism

Toledo, Spain (CNN): The stunning postcard-perfect vista surrounding Misael Lopez in this town about one hour from Madrid belies his constant anxiety, even fear.

That’s because the former legal adviser to the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq is revealing secrets he says his government doesn’t want disclosed.
“I’m concerned about my safety and my family’s safety everywhere I go,” Lopez said as he walked the cobble-stoned streets of Toledo.
Lopez, 41, says he reported what he says was a scheme to sell passports and visas for thousands of dollars out of the embassy and repeatedly turned down offers to get a cut of the money. But it was the response from his government — which has denied his allegations — that surprised him the most.
CNN and CNN en Español teamed up in a year-long joint investigation that uncovered serious irregularities in the issuing of Venezuelan passports and visas, including allegations that passports were given to people with ties to terrorism. The investigation involved reviewing thousands of documents, and conducting interviews in the U.S., Spain, Venezuela and the United Kingdom.
One confidential intelligence document obtained by CNN links Venezuela’s new Vice President Tareck El Aissami to 173 Venezuelan passports and ID’s that were issued to individuals from the Middle East, including people connected to the terrorist group Hezbollah.
The accusation that the country was issuing passports to people who are not Venezuelan first surfaced in the early 2000s when Hugo Chavez was the country’s president, interviews and records show.
A Venezuelan passport permits entry into more than 130 countries without a visa, including 26 countries in the European Union, according to a ranking by Henley and Partners. A visa is required to enter the United States.
Over the course of the CNN investigation, Lopez provided documents that show he repeatedly told Venezuelan officials about what he discovered. But he said instead of investigating his allegations, the government targeted him for disclosing confidential information. U.S. officials were also made aware of his findings.
“You cannot be a cop, and a thief at the same time,” Lopez said. “I decide to be a cop and do the right thing.”
Doing the right thing has cost him.

Unwelcome surprise

It didn’t start out that way.
Lopez, a lawyer who worked as a police officer in Venezuela, said he thought becoming a diplomat was a great career opportunity, which would also allow him to serve his country. With that in mind, he moved to Baghdad to start his new life at the Venezuelan Embassy.
But, he recalled, he got an unwelcome surprise on his first day in July 2013.
His new boss, Venezuelan Ambassador Jonathan Velasco, gave him a special envelope, he said.
“He gave me an envelope full of visas and passports,” Lopez recalled. “He told me, ‘Get this, this is one million U.S. dollars.’ I thought it was like a joke. Then he told me here people pay a lot of money to get a visa or a passport to leave this country.”
About one month later, Lopez said he realized it was no joke.
An Iraqi employee of the embassy, who was hired to be an interpreter, told him she had made thousands of dollars selling Venezuelan passports and visas, he said. And he could make a lot of money, too.
But Lopez said he told her it was wrong and he refused.
The employee pressed the issue, telling him there were thousands of dollars to be made, he said, even discussing an offer to sell visas to 13 Syrians for $10,000 each.
And, Lopez, said, she told him he could get a cut of the money, too.
Again, he said he refused.
“I suspect it might be terrorists; that’s why I reject, of course, immediately,” Lopez said.
And he said it just got worse.

Lists of names

Lopez said he was stunned when he found a document inside the embassy. It was a list of 21 Arabic names with corresponding Venezuelan passport numbers and Venezuelan identification numbers. A Venezuelan immigration official told CNN that a cross-check of the passport numbers indicated that the passports are valid and match the names on the list Lopez found — meaning the people on the list could be able to travel using those passports.
But incredibly, a publicly available database in Venezuela examined by CNN shows 20 of the 21 identification numbers are registered to people with Hispanic names — not the Arabic names listed on the passports.
Lopez kept investigating what was going on inside the embassy. He said he even found the case of a convicted drug dealer with an Iraqi identification certificate that appears to show he was born in Iraq. But the man had a Venezuelan passport that said he was born in Venezuela.
He kept evidence and notes of what he found.
Concerned that the passport and visa scheme was continuing without his knowledge, Lopez investigated the embassy employee who he said had offered to sell passports. He took photos of her desk where he says he found the embassy’s official stamp, used to authenticate visas, as well as sheets of papers printed with the Venezuelan government seal.
He eventually fired the employee. Lopez did not have any other documents that would confirm the allegations against her.
The employee did not respond to repeated requests from CNN for comment.
In April 2014, only nine months after he started the job, he emailed a report to Ambassador Velasco about the alleged selling of passports and visas. By then, he said he was convinced that Velasco knew about what was going on inside the embassy.
“He’s been there since 2008,” Lopez said. “How could he (have) been there so long, couldn’t notice that?”
He said Velasco did nothing and even threatened to fire him.
By 2015, frustrated that no one would investigate, he took what he found to Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s foreign minister. His emailed report said there was “fraudulent issuing of visas, birth certificates and Venezuelan documents.”
He said nothing happened.

Going to the FBI

Eventually, with nowhere else to turn, Lopez contacted an FBI official at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. The two met at a restaurant across the street from the embassy, and the official sent Lopez’s information to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., a law enforcement source said. The FBI would not comment about what happened with the information.
For Lopez, it was his final attempt to get something done.
But it was too late.
By the end of 2015, the Venezuelan government accused Lopez of “abandoning his post” and removed him. A police official showed up at his home in Venezuela with a document that said he was under investigation for revealing “confidential documents or secrets.”

Looking for answers

In an email, Velasco strongly denied Lopez’s allegations.
“This embassy is ready open to be audit [sic] and investigated for any international organization and intelligent [sic] Services as well, I don’t have nothing to hide or fear. I be sure [sic] that under my duties this embassy don’t never [sic] and ever sell Venezuelan nationalities, this will be a joke for all the international security organization [sic] and we already cooperate with the (Iraqi) government and international intelligent [sic] service,” the email read in English.
In an attempt to get answers, a team from CNN en Español traveled to Caracas last June. In a letter, the government restricted CNN’s coverage to stories related to tourism, weather, alternative energy sources and relations among the different government institutions in Venezuela.
Rodriguez, the foreign minister, ignored reporter Rafael Romo when he tried to question her at a press event.
A government official told the CNN en Español team that any questions about the passport allegations would be grounds for expulsion from the country.
On a second visit to Caracas last August, a CNN en Español producer and videographer were forced to leave the country after Venezuelan authorities impounded CNN camera equipment at the airport.
Last September, Rodriguez represented Venezuela at the United Nations General Assembly. Inside the UN, she again ignored CNN’s attempt to ask her questions.
Finally, CNN was able to speak with her as she was walking with a small group on the sidewalk across from the UN. As she walked away from the crews, she said, “You’re going to hurt yourself for following the lies of a person who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” She said allegations of selling passports and visas were “totally” false.
But it’s not the first time allegations about Venezuelan passports have been made public.

Links to terror

U.S. lawmakers heard reports about Venezuelan passport fraud during congressional hearings as far back as 2006. In fact, a congressional report warned, “Venezuela is providing support, including identity documents that could prove useful to radical Islamic groups.”
And a state department report at the time also concluded that “Venezuelan travel and identification documents are extremely easy to obtain by persons not entitled to them.”
Roger Noriega, the former US ambassador to the Organization of American States and former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in prepared remarks before a congressional in 2012 that “Venezuela has provided thousands of phony IDs, passports and visas to persons of Middle Eastern origin.”
Noreiga, who is now managing director of Vision Americas and works for a conservative think tank, told CNN that evidence began to emerge in 2003 in Venezuela that passports were being issued to non-Venezuelans.
“I absolutely believe, and I state it so publicly, that if we do not get our arms around this problem, people are going to die, either our allies or our own personnel or facilities are going to be attacked by networks abetted by the Venezuelans,” Noriega said.
The U.S. State Department declined CNN’s request late last year for an interview, instead emailing a link to its 2015 country terrorism overview. That report concluded, “There were credible reports that Venezuela maintained a permissive environment that allowed for support of activities that benefited known terrorist groups.”
A 2013 confidential intelligence report from a group of Latin American countries obtained by CNN says that from 2008 to 2012, 173 individuals from the Middle East were issued Venezuelan passports and IDs. Among them were people connected to the terrorist group Hezbollah.
The official who ordered the issuing of the passports, the report said, is Tareck El Aissami, who was appointed vice president of Venezuela in January. He is the former minister in charge of immigration as well as a governor.
El Aissami “took charge of issuing, granting visas and nationalizing citizens from different countries, especially Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Iranians and Iraqis,” the report said.
He did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Ghazi Nasr Al-Din

Ghazi Nasr Al-Din
Another high-profile Venezuelan linked to terrorism is Ghazi Nasr Al-Din, a former Venezuelan diplomat who worked in the country’s embassy in Syria. He is “wanted for questioning” by the FBI for “his fundraising efforts” with Hezbollah contributors, according to a notice on the FBI website. The bureau confirmed that the information was still active, but would not comment further.
U.S. officials say he has “facilitated the travel” of Hezbollah members to and from Venezuela, according to a 2008 press release from the U.S. Treasury Department.

Leaks in the process

What allegedly happened in Iraq is no surprise to General Marco Ferreira, who was in charge of Venezuela’s immigration office in 2002.
Today, Ferreira is living in Miami after being granted political asylum after he supported a 2002 failed coup against Venezuela’s then-President Hugo Chavez. He told CNN that he personally witnessed corrupt senior officials ordering passports for people who were not citizens when he was running the department. He added anyone could get a passport at a local office because each worked independently.
He said it was “very easy” to assume someone else’s identity.
“One of the problems was the corrupted people that was working in that place,” Ferreira said. “The second one was the fragility of the system because everything was very old and they have a lot of leaks in the process.”
He said it was “very, very easy to go and be Venezuelan, or pretend being born in Venezuela.”
Asked about what Misael Lopez described as the alleged passport and visa-selling operation at the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq, he said he was not surprised.
As for Misael Lopez, he’s living modestly in Spain, where he also has citizenship; he knows he can’t go back to Venezuela.
With his safety always an issue, he still says he had to tell his story. And going public, he hopes, will help protect him and his family.
“I did the right thing and I’m proud it,” he said. “No regrets at all.”

Trump’s Guantanamo Detention Center Executive Order

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Image result for fleury merogis prison Image result for fleury merogis prison

Fleury-Merogis located in France is the largest prison in Europe. While French leadership say they don’t want a newer version of Guantanamo, perhaps they should just visit the facility in Cuba. This article regarding common criminals in France housed with terrorists is a summary with 2 opposing views given how the inmates there are managed. What is really at issue for sentencing of terrorists in Europe is the how short the time really is for those involved in terror and militant actions.

In the United States, we are soon to be facing another scary condition, the release of terrorists after serving their full sentence. Now what? Well, I had the pleasure of interview Patrick Dunleavey on this very topic. (Segment 3 and 4)

The draft executive order for Guantanamo is found here. It is not in final form, nor has it been signed.

NYT/WASHINGTON — The Trump White House is nearing completion of an order that would direct the Pentagon to bring future Islamic State detainees to the Guantánamo Bay prison, despite warnings from national security officials and legal scholars that doing so risks undermining the effort to combat the group, according to administration officials and a draft executive order obtained by The New York Times.

White House officials have detailed their thinking about a new detainee policy in an evolving series of drafts of an executive order being circulated among national security officials for comment. While previous versions have shown that the draft has undergone many changes — including dropping language about reviving C.I.A. prisons — the plan to add Islamic State detainees to the Guantánamo population has remained constant.

The latest version of the draft, which circulated this week, would direct Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to use Guantánamo to detain suspected members of “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces, including individuals and networks associated with the Islamic State.”

The White House has kept similar language in the draft order despite warnings from career government national security officials that carrying out its plan would give federal judges an opportunity to reject the executive branch’s theory that the war against the Islamic State is legal, even though Congress never explicitly authorized it. The issue could arise when reviewing an inevitable habeas corpus lawsuit filed by an ISIS detainee.

The Obama administration first argued in late summer 2014 that the Islamic State was part of the existing armed conflict that Congress authorized in 2001 against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But while the Islamic State got its start as Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq more than a decade ago, that theory is disputed because the two groups later split and went to war with each other.

“It raises huge legal risks,” said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and former senior Justice Department official in the Bush administration. “If a judge says the Sept. 11 authorization does not cover such a detention, it would not only make that detention unlawful, it would weaken the legal basis for the entire war against the Islamic State.”

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, did not respond to an email seeking comment on the issue.

The Times reported on Feb. 4 that the White House had limited the draft order so that it focused on carrying out President Trump’s vow to keep the Guantánamo prison open and use it for newly captured detainees. That draft of the order dropped the ideas of reopening C.I.A. prisons and permitting interrogators to use harsher techniques than those now allowed in the Army Field Manual.

That report was based on accounts by people familiar with a version that circulated last week. But a new draft order circulated this week, titled “Protecting America Through Lawful Detention of Terrorist and Other Designated Enemy Elements,” includes some revisions. The latest version, unlike the previous one, explicitly revokes President Barack Obama’s January 2009 executive order directing the government to close the prison by January 2010, a deadline it failed to meet.

The revised text also dropped references to revitalizing the use of the military commissions system at Guantánamo for prosecuting terrorism suspects, and instead focused exclusively on detention policy — like its directive to use the prison to detain captured Islamic State suspects without trial.

In the 2012 version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, Congress bolstered the government’s power to imprison suspected members of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces by authorizing such detentions without reference to the Sept. 11 attacks. But while it has provided funds for military operations against the Islamic State, it has never explicitly authorized combat or detention operations against it.

In summer 2014, when the group swept out of Syria and began rapidly conquering swaths of Iraq, Mr. Obama launched a bombing campaign to curtail its advances. At the time, he put forth the theory that the group’s early ties to Al Qaeda were sufficient to bring it under the Sept. 11 war authorization without new action from Congress.

Nevertheless, in 2015, the Obama administration asked Congress to enact an authorization for use of military force against the Islamic State. Lawmakers disagreed about whether it should place limits on the use of ground forces or impose an expiration date, and Congress never acted on the proposal. Congress has continued to give no sign that it has the will or the consensus to explicitly authorize war on the Islamic State.

Last year, an army captain sued Mr. Obama, arguing that the war was illegal because Congress had not authorized it. A Federal District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit without ruling on the legal merits, saying the plaintiff lacked standing to bring the case.

But any Islamic State detainee at Guantánamo would have legal standing to get a court to rule on the question of whether the group is legitimately part of the war against Al Qaeda.

Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor who worked at the Pentagon during the Obama administration, said there were other reasons bringing an Islamic State detainee to Guantánamo for indefinite detention, as opposed to prosecuting him in civilian court, might raise problems: Foreign allies, he said, might refuse to turn over prisoners or assist in detention operations if that was the administration’s goal.

But even if that turns out not to be the case, he said, the legal risks of bringing a suspected member of the Islamic State, sometimes referred to as ISIL, are “very serious.”

Trump Targeting BLM and Drug Cartels with Executive Action

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These 3 signatures today on Executive Orders will aid the newly sworn in U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. As a matter of personal opinion, President Trump did not go far enough, he should have declared all known drug cartels and their operatives terror organizations and should have done the same with Black Lives Matter along with known gang operations and members. Yet, Trump promised to restore law and order and this is a step in the right direction.

Related reading: Chicago Murder Capitol due to Gangs and Illegals

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Trump signs executive orders on crime, law enforcement

CBS: President Trump signed three executive actions Thursday aimed at bolstering law enforcement and targeting violent crime and criminal drug cartels.

The first executive order, according to what Mr. Trump outlined during the signing ceremony in the Oval Office, is meant to direct the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to “undertake all necessary and lawful action to break the back of the criminal cartels that have spread across our nation and are destroying the blood of our youth and many other people.”

The president signed the action Thursday after swearing in Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Among other powers, the action gives broad authority to increase intelligence and lawn enforcement information sharing with foreign powers in order to crack down on “transnational criminal organizations” and their subsidiaries. It also instructs an interagency panel to compile a report on crime syndicates within four months.

“These groups are drivers of crime, corruption, violence, and misery,” the order reads. “In particular, the trafficking by cartels of controlled substances has triggered a resurgence in deadly drug abuse and a corresponding rise in violent crime related to drugs.”

Mr. Trump hinted at exercising his executive power to combat drug cartels earlier this week while talking with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

“We have to do something about the cartels,” the president said in the interview, a portion of which aired Monday. He said he’d spoken with his Mexican counterpart, President Enrique Peña Nieto, about working together on the issue.

“We’ve got to stop the drugs from coming into our country,” Mr. Trump told O’Reilly. “And if he can’t handle it — maybe they can and maybe they can’t or maybe he needs help — he seemed very willing to get help from us, because he has got a problem and it’s a real problem for us.”

The president signed two other actions Thursday, including one that creates a task force within the Justice Department dedicated to “reducing violent crime in America.”

The “Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety” will have administrative and financial support from the Attorney General’s office, according to the text of the order.

The last action directs the DOJ to implement a plan to “stop crime and crimes of violence against law enforcement officers.”

The order itself instructs the department to “pursue appropriate legislation…that will define new Federal crimes, and increase penalties for existing Federal crimes, in order to prevent violence against Federal, State, tribal, and local law enforcement officers.” That recommended legislation could include “defining new crimes of violence and establishing new mandatory minimum sentences for existing crimes of violence.”

The order also directs a thorough evaluation of all grant funding programs currently administered by the Justice Department.

“It’s a shame what’s been happening to our great — truly great — law enforcement officers,” the president said at the signing. “That’s going to stop as of today.”