A “crisis” (from the Greek κρίσις – krisis) is any event that is going (or is expected) to lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community, or whole society.

Fact: More Americans will die from drugs this year than were killed in the entire Vietnam War.

Fact: Our southern border with Mexico is a pipeline that permits vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl to enter our country illegally.

Fact: Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone.

Fact: 90 percent of the heroin in our country came across our southern border.

Fact: Last month, 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States.  These children are used as human pawns by vicious smugglers and ruthless gangs.

Fact:  60,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border last year, a 25 percent increase.

Fact: One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico. Women and children are the biggest victims by far of our broken system.

Fact: The cost of dealing with the effects of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion dollars a year in the United States.

Facts according to a study released in 2011 by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) reported on incarcerations, arrests and costs of criminal immigrants (gao.gov/assets/320/316959.pdf):

The number of criminal illegal immigrants in federal prisons in 2010 was about 55,000; the number incarcerated in state prison systems and local jails was approximately 296,000 for the year 2009.

Based on the GAO’s sample of criminal immigrants, it’s estimated that the study population of these 249,000 criminals had actually been previously arrested around 1.7 million times, averaging about seven arrests per person. That translated into a half-million drug related offenses, 70,000 sexual offenses, 213,000 assaults, 125,000 arrests for larceny/theft and 25,000 homicides.

The makeup of those criminal immigrants incarcerated in federal prisons: 68 percent were citizens of Mexico and almost 90 percent were from one of seven Latin American countries: Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

The GAO study states the cost to incarcerate these criminal illegal immigrants in federal prisons and for federal reimbursements to states and localities ranged from about $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion annually, 2005-2009.

According to Victor Davis Hanson, a scholar at the Hoover Institution, the 30,000 illegal immigrants behind bars in California alone costs the state $1 billion annually. In addition, the state spends another $10 billion annually in entitlements for illegal immigrants.

And remember, all of these numbers are from 7-8 years ago.  We can only expect that these numbers have increased on a yearly basis, and are quite worse by now.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, “In 2013, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) freed 36,007 convicted criminal aliens from detention who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings. Many of the 36,007 convicted criminal aliens freed from ICE custody had multiple convictions including: 193 homicide convictions; 426 sexual assault convictions; 303 kidnapping convictions; 1,075 aggravated assault convictions; 1,160 stolen vehicle convictions; 9,187 dangerous drug convictions; 16,070 drunk or drugged driving convictions; and 303 flight escape convictions.” (cis.org/ICE-Document-Details-36000-Criminal-Aliens-Release-in-2013)

U.S. Census data shows that the overall population of immigrants is at an all-time high of 41.3 million. As many as 8 million immigrants have entered the United States since President Obama came into office, including 2.5 million illegally, either by crossing the border or overstaying their visa.

So, do we have a crisis on our hands?

Remember, a “crisis” is any event that is going (or is expected) to lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community, or whole society.

Any reasonable person would have to say the answer to that question is “YES,” we have a national security, humanitarian, social, economic and public safety crisis on our hands, and President Trump has stated as much.

“Over the last several years, I’ve met with dozens of families whose loved ones were stolen by illegal immigration,” President Trump added. I’ve held the hands of the weeping mothers and embraced the grief-stricken fathers.  So sad.  So terrible.  I will never forget the pain in their eyes, the tremble in their voices, or the sadness gripping their souls. How much more American blood must be shed before Congress does its job?”

After President Trump’s address to the nation, in which he asked for a paltry $5.7 billion dollars help secure our southern border with some kind of barrier or wall, Senator Charles Schumer from New York and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gave the Democrat response on the issue.

Pelosi and Schumer, basically condemned Trump’s words and what they called his “obsession” with building a border wall.

“President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis and must reopen the government,” Pelosi said.

Manufacturing a crisis?

Manufacturing a crisis?

Have you been listening, Nancy?  Have you looked at the numbers?  Have you seen the pictures of “the caravan” in Tijuana, Mexico, and at the border?

President Trump has brought manufacturing back to America, but he doesn’t need to do any manufacturing here.  The facts are out there for everyone to plainly see.

“Much of what we have heard from President Trump throughout this senseless shutdown has been full of misinformation and even malice,” Pelosi, standing next to Schumer, charged. “The President has chosen fear.  We want to start with the facts.”

No Nancy, the President has not chosen fear, he has chosen to address the reality and the seriousness of the situation, as opposed to kicking this political football down the road once more.

“The fact is: On the very first day of this Congress, House Democrats passed Senate Republican legislation to re-open government and fund smart, effective border security solutions,” Pelosi said, referring to bills that did not include funding for Trump’s border wall.

The “smart, effective border security solutions” that you and Chuck support, Nancy, are all good, but they are all reactive and not proactive.  Drones and other types of electronic surveillance will produce nice pictures of illegal immigrants running across the border, but they are not going to stop anybody.  A physical barrier or wall will.  Walls work.

“But, the president is rejecting these bipartisan bills which would re-open government, over his obsession with forcing American taxpayers to waste billions of dollars on an expensive and ineffective wall, a wall he always promised Mexico would pay for,” Pelosi continued.

The President, during his address, emphasized that the wall “would very quickly pay for itself,” and added that “the wall will also be paid for, indirectly, by the great new trade deal we have made with Mexico.”

Schumer and Pelosi seemed to think that federal employees missing a paycheck or two during the shutdown was more of a crisis than hundreds of families who have lost loved ones at the hands of illegal immigrants in our country.

These federal employees will get back pay.  These poor families will not get their sons, daughters, wives and husbands back.

“The symbol of America should be the Statue of Liberty, not a thirty-foot wall,” Schumer concluded.

Yes, Senator Schumer, “The symbol of America should be the Statue of Liberty,” but I’m afraid the symbol right now is of an illegal immigrant jumping over a pathetic 6 foot fence and breaking into our country.

Responding to Pelosi’s widely reported comment that a wall would be “immoral,” President Trump concluded his address by saying, “Some have suggested a barrier is immoral.  Then why do wealthy politicians build walls, fences and gates around their homes? They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside.”

According to Marc A. Thiessen for The Washington Post, “Trump won the night.  Schumer and Pelosi lost.”

Thiessen added that, “Speaking from the Oval Office for the first time during his presidency, Trump embraced our country’s tradition as a nation of immigrants, declaring ‘America proudly welcomes millions of lawful immigrants who enrich our society and contribute to our nation.’ He then offered a cogent explanation why he believes we face what he called ‘a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul’ along our southern border.”

“He laid out his solution, which he explained were ‘developed by law enforcement professionals and border agents’ and includes funds for cutting-edge technology, more border agents, more immigration judges, more bed space and medical support, and $5.7 billion for a ‘physical barrier’ that he called ‘just common sense.’”

“The president did not unilaterally declare a national emergency. Instead, he called for compromise and said, ‘To those who refuse to compromise in the name of border security, I would ask: imagine if it was your child, your husband, or your wife, whose life was so cruelly shattered and totally broken?’”

“He was, in short, presidential.”

“Pelosi and Schumer failed to use the one word that millions of Americans were longing to hear, compromise.  But Trump did.  That is why the president won the night.  Schumer and Pelosi appealed to their base, while Trump made an effective appeal to persuadable Americans.”

“Until now, Trump has owned the 18-day government shutdown that prompted this address, because he’s the one who started it.  But if Democrats continue to attack him, and won’t entertain any compromise, soon the shutdown will be all theirs, because they’re the ones who have refused to end it.”

Radio and TV talk show host Mark Levin called Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “pathological liars” and “scam artists” following their response to President Trump’s Oval Office address on the border wall.

“Let’s keep a few things in mind when you watch Schumer and Pelosi, they are pathological liars,” he continued. “They have been in Congress over half a century. What the hell have they done about the border? They are part of the scam artists. They get amnesty, legalization, citizenship, and never secure the border.”

Democrats are well known for not letting facts get in the way of a good political argument, and this argument is no exception.

But in the end, we ARE dealing with a real “crisis” here and it is way past due that we effectively and realistically deal with it.

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Thank you, MrEricksonRules.