President Trump Beats the Green Wave and the Liberal Media

Originally published at Fox News  Newt Gingrich

The big story of the 2018 election is how totally the news media missed the issue of what waves were building.

There was no red wave. If there had been, Republicans would have kept the House and had even more pickups in the Senate.

There was no blue wave. If there had been, Democrats would have gained control of the Senate.

There was an underreported green wave, which attempted to drown Republicans in left-wing money.

There was the usual anti-Republican liberal media wave, which tried to prop up Democrats.

This was a fascinatingly complex election in which unique Republican personalities won re-election as governors in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maryland — three clearly blue and one purple state in the Northeast.

The biggest change in this election was the sheer volume of money generated by left-wing billionaires and activist groups who hated Trump.

In congressional race after congressional race, Republicans suddenly found millions poured in against them on a scale that resembled Senate races in the past.

House Republicans had hurt themselves by allowing the number of House incumbent retirees to become larger than any time since 1930, when the Brookings Institutionstarted tracking it. Breaking an 88-year record for retirees is a tough way to start an off-year election for the incumbent president’s party.

Despite this institutional disadvantage, President Trump’s House losses were far less than either the 54 seats President Clinton lost in 1994 or the 63 seats President Obama lost in 2010.

Measured against the Clinton-Obama standard, you would have to give President Trump an A+ for keeping Republican House losses to a minimum – and setting the stage for a Republican majority comeback in the 2020 presidential election.

In the Senate, the President, working with Leader Mitch McConnell, put together a great, focused campaign that has reversed historic norms and gained seats. In fact, as I am writing this, it appears that enough Republicans will have won senate seats that it will be far more difficult for Democrats to have a shot at winning a Senate majority in 2020 than anyone might have expected.

The best example of the green wave’s failure is Congressman Beto O’Rourke. He became the darling of the media – the Left’s political rock star to battle Senator Ted Cruz (who the media despises). O’Rourke raised more than $70 million, a record for U.S. Senate races – and an amount we used to associate with presidential campaigns. After all the liberal media hype, and the sheer volume of money from the green wave, O’Rourke lost. Once again, the voters of Texas disappointed the liberal media by refusing to elect their darling.

Republicans gained Senate seats to an unprecedented degree, because President Trump personally crisscrossed the county holding massive rallies (which dwarfed the size of Obama’s rallies).

This was President Trump’s victory, and he and Senate Leader McConnell will use it well to continue getting judges and other nominees confirmed, to block left-wing actions by the Pelosi Democrats, and to set the stage for key legislative achievements the American people want (probably starting with infrastructure investments and reforms).

I will write in more detail in a few days on the green wave and the scale of the Left’s commitment to defeat President Trump.

For the moment, suffice it to say that the President defeated both the money wave and the liberal media – and had a very successful midterm election for a first-term president.

Inside Judicial Watch: THE LATEST REVELATION on Bruce Ohr & the Clinton-DNC Dossier

Inside Judicial Watch: THE LATEST REVELATION on
Bruce Ohr & the Clinton-DNC Dossier

In this edition of “Inside Judicial Watch,” JW Senior Attorney Ramona Cotca joins host Jerry Dunleavy to discuss the latest developments in our battle to get to the truth about the Department of Justice’s relationship with Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that produced the Clinton-DNC dossier on Trump.
 

The Democrats Have No Idea What Demons They Are Unleashing

Originally published at Fox News  Newt Gingrich

A few weeks ago, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) wrote an article for Vox explaining the movement’s goals – to end capitalism and radically change America.

In normal times, the declarations of a fringe party and ideology in America would not merit much attention. However, these are not normal times. A new Gallup pollshows that more Democrats have a favorable view of socialism than capitalism.

This pattern has been building for a while. Senator Bernie Sanders took socialism mainstream in the party during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. Since then, Democratic Party candidates have been increasingly attaching themselves to the ideology. Most notably, a telegenic young member of the Democratic Socialists of America named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated a senior Democrat in New York’s 14th Congressional District and has since been on a whirlwind media tour, spreading the gospel of socialism.

So, the Vox article (or manifesto) is worth taking seriously.

Reading it, I was struck by two things.

First, it was remarkably honest.

The writer, Meagan Day, a member of the East Bay Chapter of DSA, explicitly debunks the apologists in the mainstream media trying to paper over the group’s radicalism. She quotes several prominent news “analysts” who argue that Democratic Socialism is just New Deal liberalism rebranded. She then dumps a bucket of cold water on them, writing, “[i]n the long run, Democratic Socialists want to end capitalism.”

In fact, she writes that the liberal, big government reforms which the movement has chosen to rally behind in partnership with the Democratic Party are simply stepping stones to this eventual goal.

“Social democratic reforms like Medicare-for-all are, in the eyes of DSA, part of the long, uneven process of building that support, and eventually overthrowing capitalism,” she writes.

This explicit goal of ending capitalism makes clear what Ocasio-Cortez meant when she said cryptically in a recent interview, that “[c]apitalism has not always existed in the world, and it will not always exist in the world.”

This is a clear threat to the system which has made us prosperous and the envy of the world, but I appreciate the honesty. Ultimately, the United States is a democratic republic. If Day, Ocasio-Cortez, and Senator Bernie Sanders want to try and convince most Americans to end capitalism and embrace a planned, totally redistributionist economy, they are welcome to use the democratic process to do so. It is up to those of us who know better to convince Americans of socialism’s folly (more on that in a later newsletter).

However, the second notable item in Day’s article suggests that Democratic Socialists don’t value democracy all that much. Day also identified herself as a staff writer at a New York-based, socialist magazine called Jacobin. In fact, several members of the Democratic Socialists of America are writers and editors at Jacobin magazine.

A magazine that would enthusiastically embrace this title is signaling that, like socialist movements of the past, the DSA is willing to drop the “democratic” part of their moniker and instead rely on the traditional method for socialist revolution – bloodshed, violence, and tyranny.

The Jacobins were the most violent and radical political group of the French Revolution. Led by Maximilien Robespierre, the group responded to a growing backlash against the revolution by executing anyone their so-called Committee of Public Safety deemed insufficiently loyal. The Jacobin clubs located throughout the country were used as a secret police force to root out dissent among politicians and the general populace alike. Historian Timothy Tackett estimates that almost 40,000 people were killed under the Jacobin control of the French government. Many were beheaded by guillotine in a grotesque public spectacle after a show trial, and others were brutally executed with firearms. In the case of one period in the city of Lyon, people were executed en masse by cannon fire. This period of carnage was known as the Reign of Terror.

A few years ago, Callista and I saw Dialogues of the Carmelites at the Washington National Opera. It is a moving, true story of the Carmelite Nuns who refused to denounce Christ at the peak of the Reign of Terror. (The French Revolution was virulently anti-Catholic – many churches were closed and reopened as “Temples of Reason.”) The nuns were beheaded for their unwillingness to denounce their faith. Moments before the guillotine dropped, they displayed the power of God’s love by singing hymns and renewing their vows.

A few years later we visited the Picpus Cemetery in Paris. It holds the graves of the martyred nuns and more than 1,300 victims of the Terror in a six-week period of 1794. It is a very sober reminder of what the Jacobins did during the Reign of Terror. It is not a record for which any American should advocate.

Christopher Hibbert’s The French Revolution contains more vivid details of the horrors the Jacobins inflicted upon the people of France. In one instance, he writes, “a woman was charged with the heinous crime of having wept at the execution of her husband. She was condemned to sit several hours under the suspended blade which shed upon her, drop by drop, the blood of the deceased whose corpse was above her on the scaffold before she was released by death from her agony.”

Make no mistake: This is the history of violent revolution, religious oppression, and dictatorship that Jacobin magazine, the DSA, and opportunistic Democrats are embracing – whether they know it or not. Senator Sanders, and more have recently shared articles from Jacobin magazine on their social media accounts. Representative Keith Ellison once sent a Jacobin piece to everyone in Congress.

It is hard to imagine a modern-day Reign of Terror happening in America. But consider the recent phenomenon of outrage mobs on social media demanding people be fired and ostracized for expressing un-PC points of view. Think about the left-wing activists taking over classrooms to prevent conservative voices from speaking. Think about the rash of people being attacked for wearing MAGA hats. Think about the violence of Antifa.

Perhaps it is not so difficult to imagine.

While I do not know Ocasio-Cortez, I have interacted with Senator Sanders numerous times in my career. He is an earnest guy, and I seriously doubt he would countenance violence in pursuit of his socialist goals.

He should keep in mind, however, that the Jacobins eventually turned on Robespierre (in fact they executed him). So perhaps Senator Sanders and the other Democrats rushing to embrace Democratic Socialism should be a little more careful about the demons they are unleashing to win elections.

lawsuit that claims the county failed to follow a state constitutional amendment protecting road construction funds.

Cook County seeks dismissal of lawsuit claiming violations of state constitution, state could see same challenge

·         By Cole Lauterbach | Illinois News Network

Victoria Lipov | Shutterstock.com

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Lawyers representing Cook County want a judge to toss a lawsuit that claims the county failed to follow a new state constitutional amendment aimed at protecting road construction funds.

If the county loses, it could put a massive hole in its budget. And the state of Illinois could be next.

A group of associations representing the construction trades sued Cook County alleging it moved $250 million meant for road, bridges and other projects to other things not related to construction. That was outlawed in 2016 when voters passed the Safe Roads “Lockbox” amendment.

The constitutional change, which was supported by a majority of voters, requires funds put into special accounts meant for roads, bridges and other construction funds to be restricted to those purposes.

Before the amendment was passed, it was commonplace for state lawmakers to authorize money be “swept” from special funds like this and then the debt would be forgiven at a later date. When construction industry groups pushed for the constitutional change ahead of the 2016 election, they said lawmakers had diverted billions in gas tax revenue designated for road work to shore up budgets.

Mike Sturino, president and CEO of the Illinois Road & Transportation Builders Association, said Cook County hasn’t been honest with its budgeting.

“When an elected official promises to raise revenue based upon transportation so that it can be reinvested to be used more as a user fee instead of a tax, the people who they represent deserve to be leveled with,” he said. “What we’ve found time and again are diversions, sweeps of money that were promised for infrastructure were being spent on unrelated uses.”

His group is looking into a number of other units of government that it suspects aren’t abiding by the constitutional provision, including the state of Illinois itself.

“The state of Illinois is one of the governmental bodies that we’re looking at to make sure they’re in compliance,” he said. “We have a number of inquiries going on throughout the state.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The hearing for the dismissal plea is set for Aug. 24.

Trump addressing America as the piggy bank of the world

Steve Balich Editors Note: To be logical is considered crazy by the anti-Trump Socialist Democrats, So called Moderate Democrats, Establishment Republicans, and Globalist from all groups. The media is the useful idot for all of these anti-Trumper's. I don't see how anyone can say we have had fair trade and Trump is creating a trade war. I guess they deny the facts. We have been on the loosing side of a trade war for a long time. Thank God Trump is fixing it.

When you look at this graph,  you might get a good idea of where President Trump is coming from!!!! 

Now... lets have a show of hands..... how many of you think the United States of America has been getting screwed for the last 25 years?? 

Would Democrats vote to pass a law reaffirming that you must be an American citizen to vote in all American elections

Democrats’ Electoral Strategy: Let Non-Citizens Vote

Originally published at Fox News

In San Francisco, immigrants who are in the country illegally are now eligible to register and vote in school board elections. Of course, this is clearly illegal under the California Constitution.

Article II, Section 2 of the California Constitution says, “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may vote.”

However, the pro-illegal immigration, sanctuary state-supporting Democratic majority in Sacramento has no interest in enforcing the law when it’s being ignored by fellow Democrats. After all, their long-range plans for a ruling majority depend on continuous law breaking to get enough non-Americans to vote. The Californians who don’t support their radical views, can simply be eclipsed by non-citizen voters who will.

As the San Francisco ABC News affiliate reported, the county’s District 7 Elections Supervisor Norman Yee said, ”We want to give immigrants the right to vote.”

Cal Thomas captured what is going on in a July 19 column entitled “The Name of the Game: Votes for Democrats.”

As Thomas points out, this is only the beginning of a much larger strategy.

“Who doubts this is the first step by the left and Democrats toward full voting rights in state and eventually in federal elections? The claim by lawyers will be that it is discriminatory to allow undocumented immigrants to vote in local and state elections and not for members of Congress and for president. At bottom this is what the entire immigration debate is about.”

Thomas concludes, “For Democrats, it’s a perfect cover for their ultimate goal: importing votes.”

With a broader critique than Thomas, the Investor’s Business Daily also editorialized on July 19 that “Yes, Democrats Are Now The Party Of Open Borders.”

The editorial board pointed out that only 18 Democrats voted in favor of a recent congressional resolution voicing support for our U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and the many federal and state officers who assist them. In fact, 35 Democrats voted against the bill and 133 voted “present” to avoid putting a solid opinion on record.

At the same time, the board noted that most congressional Democrats are standing idly by as eight of their members have sponsored a bill to abolish ICE, and many others are supporting a bill that would make it nearly impossible for ICE to do its job.

As the editorial board put it:

“Democrats want to neuter the one agency responsible for enforcing border security. They want to make it easy for illegals who cross to stay in the country. And they want to give them the right to vote. 

“Leading Democrats also adamantly oppose building a secure border wall. They support ‘sanctuary cities’ that actively protect illegals from deportation. And they want to grant every illegal in the country amnesty.

“...the Democratic Party has been driving to the far left on a wide range of issues for many years. The only difference now is that its veneer of moderation has eroded to the point where Democrats can't hide their extremism any longer.”

As I wrote in my New York Times bestselling book Trump’s America: The Truth About Our Nation’s Great Comeback, the U.S. immigration system is indeed troubled. But it will never be fixed until we re-establish security at the borders and refocus on immigrants who want to come here legally – so they can actually become American.

A sound immediate step would be for Congress to pass a law reaffirming that you must be an American citizen to vote in all American elections. Let’s see how many Democrats would oppose this simple requirement.

In God We Trust/ In media and Government be aware

By Bob Livingston


Have you heard of the Shirky Principle? In 2010 Clay Shirky was giving a speech and while talking about his book Cognitive Surplus said, "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." 

This is why we cannot trust the government, its institutions, corporations, organized religion, or any group that seeks to maintain and extend its authority over us. To the extent that we trust authority is the extent to which we diminish our freedom. 

By the same token, the more we are dumbed down, the more we trust authority. Is there a vested interest in dumbing down the people?

If you have observed the protocols of power as in the book The Prince by Machiavelli, you have probably concluded that dumbing down the population is an organized effort that eventually guarantees political power to the ruling elite. This is accomplished gradually, through stealth. 

According to Webster's Third International Dictionary, "stealth" means, "something stolen, the act or action of proceeding secretly or imperceptibly." 

And according to Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Edition, stealth means, "secret or the act of stealing when the victim is unaware of the theft. Any secret, sly, or clandestine act to avoid discovery and to gain entrance into or to remain within residence of another without permission." 

In my view, stealth needs further definition. Stealth should be categorized as being in existence where there is total unawareness by the victim(s). Also stealth should be characterized as being secretly operative over very long periods of time, so as to be sacrosanct and institutionalized. 

Examples are the Federal Reserve and its companion, the IRS. Time bestows legitimacy. This means that millions of people are born into the system who never question its legitimacy, legality or morality. The more generations that pass the more entrenched the stealth. So again, time bestows legitimacy and suffocates inquiry. 

Institutions deepen the hold of the system by lobbying to maintain the status quo, always to the detriment of the people. Lawyers, accountants and tax preparation companies lobbying to maintain a complex tax system is another example of stealth, operating below the threshold of knowledge for most people. 

The few who understand stealth can understand government and predict the future. This my friends is a very, very small number of people. It is my prayer that all readers of these Alerts will understand stealth no later than reading thisAlert. If so, you will be translated from the frivolous to reality. 

The gatekeepers do not want you to live in reality. They want you to believe that there is only "matter" on Earth, no spirit, no soul, no God. 

These gatekeepers — the elites, the materialists, the corporatists and the globalists — have created an intentional obstruction to block off the realm of God and create a place of "science." 

Scientific "facts," the work-a-day world necessary for paying the taxman, the constant distractions — these consume the crowd. They have so much noise in their lives that they have no time nor imperative to understand this shift away from faith and liberty and toward a world where they are led to believe that only what is created and sanctioned by man will sustain them. That only the institutions of man are reliable and trustworthy. That only that which has been officially researched and concluded by "science" (this is the opposite of what true science does) is fact. They do not perceive that this is undermining every vestige of their lives and their future. 

The stealth system has a cover of very sophisticated propaganda. Trust in the system guarantees the propaganda cover. People who trust the system never inquire past the propaganda and that is by far the majority, but not you. 

Most readers of this letter are probably willing to believe that our health and our finances really depend on our capacity to have contrary opinion. That is that we can survive in direct relationship to our believing just the opposite of the pronouncements of authority in matters of religion, politics, health and finance. 

The power of propaganda has never been better illustrated than in medical orthodoxy and the tax system. Although we have written on this before, the power of this deception boggles the mind and is a constant source of amazement. 

The public is confused simply because they can't tell that the medical industrial complex is a sickness system instead of a health system. They can't tell the difference between real money and an IOU written on green paper in their wallets. The differences are life or death. 

The system operates on the certainty that the crowd will believe the propaganda cover. If the crowd stopped believing the propaganda, the stealth system would collapse and human liberty would return. Also when the stealth collapses, the vast army of parasites, like ex-government consultants, lawyers, doctors, accountants etc. would have to get honest work. Oh, they are not all bad, but many are. 

How do we escape the system of stealth? 

Start believing just the opposite of all religious, economic and geopolitical pronouncements. This alone will catapult you into reality. 

If the trauma is too severe, return to slavery. You will be welcomed to become a "Taxpayer" again. 

Key to understanding propaganda: Governments never allow individual or media attacks on their preferred methods of stealth i.e., the esoteric monetary system, "spirituality, orthodox medicine, corporatism and politics. 

The stealth system knows the propaganda value of phony opposition. Feigned opposition as in political parties keeps the simple blinded and all debate is on spurious issues. Decoys are as important to the stealth system as they are to duck hunters. Spurious debate is a constant diversion. It is noise. 

The most "educated," professional, and sophisticated thinkers are conditioned and limited unless and until they escape the stealth parameters of thought. Until we believe that reality is outside the box, we can do no better than frivolity, diversion and self-deception. 

We can never know "cause and effect." When you encounter an educated fool, escape as fast as possible lest you be tainted with nonsense. People who never question authority, custom and tradition, are unthinking fools. The morality of authority is that any means justify the end. 

Chicago is broke and under Democrat Control for too many decades

Another Reason to vote Republican!!!! 

Chicago is broke and under Democrat Control for too many decades.

Of the 38 former elected Chicago officials currently receiving pensions, 15 former aldermen see yearly payouts exceeding $100,000, according to documents from the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, or MEABF. Two additional aldermen receive annual pension payouts just a few thousand dollars shy of $100,000. On average, the 15 former aldermen collecting six-figure annual pensions have accumulated $768,500 in total gross pension benefits. Four of those ex-aldermen have accumulated more than $1 million in gross benefits.

Some of the same officials responsible for fueling the city’s $36 billion pension crisis are among the system’s biggest beneficiaries. Taxpayers, on the other hand, are not benefitting from this unstable pension system. In 2016, Chicago City Council approved a new tax on water and sewer services proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to help shore up the city’s underwater pensions. But the water-and-sewer tax isn’t the only recent example of local leaders turning to taxpayers in an attempt to rescue a broken pension system. In August 2017, Cook County implemented a short-lived tax on soda and other sugary drinks. The county’s collapsing pension plan would have consumed most of the revenues from the tax. Fortunately, the Cook County Board of Commissioners quickly voted to repeal the soda tax after it was met with significant backlash from taxpayers. Overpromising pension benefits while underfunding the system that delivers those benefits has led to a growing burden for Chicago taxpayers and looming uncertainty for city retirees. As with state worker pensions, retirement systems for Chicago and Cook County employees are in desperate need of reform. Pension loopholes enabled by a 1991 state law have contributed to the substantial pension payouts received by retired Chicago aldermen. The plan, pushed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, gave special pension perks to Chicago aldermen and other city officials. Among these perks is eligibility for elected officials to receive monthly retirement benefits amounting to up to 80 percent of their final month’s salary. Nonelected city employees enrolled in MEABF are eligible under the law to receive retirement benefits amounting to up to 70 percent of their average monthly salary earned during their last four years of service. The law also allowed aldermen and other elected officials to earn maximum pension benefits after 20 years of service, compared with the nearly 30 years required for all other employees enrolled in the system. But that’s not all. The law also permits aldermen to effectively buy their way to eligibility for maximum pension benefits, without having served the required 20 years. Former Ald. Thomas Allen, 38th Ward, for example, served only 17 years but was able to purchase additional “pension credits” at a cost lower than the value of the retirement benefits he’d receive. Allen currently receives a gross annual pension of nearly $106,000, according to MEABF records. But that isn’t the only lofty income the former alderman collects from taxpayers. Since 2010, Allen has also earned an annual salary upwards of $190,000 serving as a Circuit Court of Cook County judge. While these loopholes have certainly driven the growth of the city’s pension liabilities, the precarious nature of defined-benefit pensions are the fundamental cause of their unsustainability. Establishing a 401(k)-style retirement system for future government employees would serve as a prudent alternative to defined-benefit pensions. This system, in fact, has already served more than 20,000 state university employees over the last 20 years. To cure the fiscal dysfunction plaguing Chicago and Illinois, state and local lawmakers must address the instability of defined-benefit pensions. Until then, the short-term advantages of inflated retirement benefits will continue to fuel growing costs for taxpayers – and uncertainty for future retirees.

Eddie Damstra Writer  Illinois Policy

The Immigration Scandal No One Is Talking About

The Immigration Scandal No One Is Talking About

Mark Metcalf / 

For decades, immigration officials misled members of Congress about the extent to which illegal aliens failed to attend court hearings. (Photo: CactuSoup/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

Mark Metcalf

Mark H. Metcalf served in the administration of George W. Bush in posts at the Justice and Defense departments, including a judgeship on the Miami Immigration Court. He is a Kentucky prosecutor and a veteran of Iraq.

Among the least talked about scandals in Washington is how immigration officials spent decades misleading Congress about the number of migrants evading court. I discussed that scandal at length in my last article.

In advancing this decadeslong effort, no accounting trick and no false narrative was out of bounds. Never in any year did these officials tell the real story of a court system in crisis. Brave rhetoric and bleached numbers consistently camouflaged the courts’ disarray.

“The fight against terrorism,” the Bush and Obama administrations boldly declared from 2005 through 2012, “is the first and overriding priority of the Department of Justice. … A key component of this effort is the securing of our nation’s borders and the repair of the immigration system as a whole. The application and enforcement of our immigration laws remain a critical element of this national effort.”

Both administrations insisted that immigration courts serve “as the front-line presence nationwide in immigration matters.”

The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>

Yet court officials’ words and actions didn’t match up with a “front-line presence.” While nearly a million people ran from court over the last 22 years—meaning 37 percent of all those free pending trial failed to appear for their hearings—no alarm was sounded by those in charge.

The courts’ 2007 annual report is just one example of the misleading numbers court officials pushed out for congressional oversight and public consumption each year.

“The overall failure-to-appear … rate decreased,” officials stated, “to 19 percent in 2007 from the five-year high of 39 percent in 2006.” This was pure whitewash. Accurate accounting showed the failure-to-appear rate in 2006 was 59 percent—51 percent higher than court executives admitted. Nor was the real failure-to-appear rate in 2007 a lowly 19 percent. It was 36 percent, nearly double what the courts reported to Congress.

But gaming failures to appear in court was just one dynamic that officials suppressed to the point of dishonesty. Others, like unexecuted deportation orders, received scant official mention, but got out anyway.

“All should be troubled,” wrote immigration appeals Judge Edward Grant in 2006, “by the fact that only a small fraction of final orders of deportation … are actually executed.”

Records confirm this. Of the 1,254,152 aliens who were ordered deported from 1996 through 2016, 76 percent of them—953,506 to be exact—remained in the U.S. They not only remained, but grew.

From a total of 557,762 unexecuted removal orders in 2008 were added 395,744 through August 2016—a 71 percent increase in less than eight years. Despite expanded enforcement since 2017, court records say failures to appear in court will only increase and with them, experience shows, unexecuted removal orders.

None of this is new—yet nothing has been done. Failures to appear in court have predicated evasion of removal orders for years and are chronic symptoms of an immigration system turned upside down.

A 1989 Government Accountability Office audit on immigration courts foreshadowed today’s extremes. It concluded that “aliens have nothing to lose by failing to appear for hearings” and noted that over the preced­ing 30 years illegal entry into the United States increased by 2,200 percent—from 45,000 in 1959 to 1.2 million in 1989—and, as illegal entry grew, so did failures to appear in court.

The Government Accountability Office’s audit also addressed cause and effect—and it didn’t blame illegal aliens. “Disregard for the courts,” it stated, stemmed from a “lack of repercussions.” Few aliens, it said, faced any “adverse consequences,” deportation included.

A 2006 Justice Department inspector general’s report agreed, stating the “program for deporting illegal aliens had been largely ineffective” and that “89 percent of nondetained aliens released into the U.S. who were subsequently issued final orders of removal were not removed.”

For a watchful public, these failures prove the gross inadequacy of federal response to problems now years in the making. All involve frail courts, feeble enforcement, and the willingness of government executives to hide embarrassing truths that worsen the causes underlying them.

What’s more is that in human terms, these trends also bring tragedies.

Algerian-born immigrant Ahmed Ferhani was arrested by New York City police on robbery and narcotics charges in 2010. Facing deportation, he remained free pending trial, then fled court in 2011. He was later arrested—but not before plotting attacks on Manhattan synagogues and the Empire State Building.

Jose Alfaro, a Salvadoran national, was ordered deported in 2002. Despite two later arrests, he remained at-large for nine years before murdering three people in Manassas, Virginia, on Feb. 10, 2011.

Kesler Dufrene, a Haitian national and twice-convicted burglar, was ordered deported upon completing his Florida prison sentence in 2010. Still, Immigration and Customs Enforcement released him, and on Jan. 2, 2011, he gunned down two adults and a 15-year-old in North Miami.

From these self-inflicted failures that now tarnish our immigration institutions, a simple lesson emerges: The nation that can elevate the immigrant must likewise sanction the violator.

Immigration done right—by attracting the talented, redeeming the persecuted, and removing the offender—dignifies and enriches us all. The systemic disorder America now faces does neither.