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More troops being dispatched to the southern border

The Pentagon will deploy 1,000 more troops to the southern border next week, a senior U.S. defense official said Friday afternoon.

The additional forces will bring the total to nearly 6,000 active-duty and National Guard personnel deployed in support of the Department of Homeland Security at the border with Mexico, one week after President Trump declared a state of emergency to free up funding for a promised border wall.

SOME 5,200 TROOPS DEPLOYING TO BORDER

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday the House will vote Tuesday to reject Trump’s national emergency when Congress returns next week. The president has promised to veto any such effort to undo his emergency declaration, which is also being challenged in the courts.

Trump wants to spend roughly $6 billion from the Pentagon budget, $2.5 billion from its drug interdiction program and $3.5 billion from the military construction bill, to pay for the wall.

For years, it has been the practice to request approval from Congress before reallocating Defense Department funds, the senior defense official said, but also told reporters a congressional sign-off is “not required.”

More than 5,000 U.S. active-duty forces were ordered to the southern border in late October ahead of the midterm elections, and as a caravan of thousands of migrants traveled up toward the U.S. from Central America.

Since then, the mission has been extended two times.  Earlier this year, Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan said U.S. forces would remain on the border through the end of September, due to the painstaking work of laying more than 100 miles of barbed wire, and offering aviation, surveillance and other support.

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So far, U.S. troops have strung roughly 70 miles of concertina wire, said the official.

“We’re laying down another 140 miles of concertina wire, about 30 percent done with that,” the official added.

Source: Fox News National

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Turkish ruling party wants Istanbul election voided, redone

Turkey's ruling party has asked for a recent municipal election it lost in Istanbul to be invalidated.

The Justice and Development Party, or AKP, filed its "extraordinary objection" to the March 31 election with Turkey's electoral board on Tuesday. Citing alleged irregularities, the party previously pushed for a recount of votes, and the process is still underway in one Istanbul district.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP and its ally won a majority of local election votes across Turkey but lost in the capital of Ankara. In Istanbul, unofficial contested results give the mayoral candidate of the main opposition party, Ekrem Imamoglu, a 13,827-vote lead over AKP's candidate.

The electoral board is expected to rule on the party's request after all recounts are complete. If it accepts AKP's objection, Istanbul could repeat the election on June 2.

Source: Fox News World

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Iran’s oil exports fall in March even before further U.S. clampdown: sources

FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf
FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf, Iran, July 25, 2005. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

March 21, 2019

By Alex Lawler

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran’s oil exports have dropped in March to their lowest daily level this year, according to tanker data and industry sources, even before Washington formally requires importing countries to reduce purchases to avoid infringing U.S. sanctions.

Shipments are averaging between 1.0 and 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) so far this month, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and three other companies that track Iranian exports. That’s lower than February, when shipments were at least 1.3 million bpd.

Shipments have dropped from at least 2.5 million bpd in April 2018, the month before U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed sanctions, fueling a year of economic crisis in the country.

Tehran has vowed to keep exporting oil despite U.S. efforts to reduce its shipments to zero, but the export decline could be another indicator of economic pressure from the embargo.

In a new year speech on Thursday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Islamic Republic had resisted U.S. sanctions and called on the government to boost national production to face enemy pressures.

For the oil market, the drop in Iranian shipments will add to an OPEC-led oil supply cut and comes ahead of U.S. plans to clamp down further on Iranian exports from May, after ending of the current round of fairly generous waivers from sanctions.

Still, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, which began cutting production from Jan. 1 to bolster prices, are unlikely to be in a rush to change course, analysts say, without concrete signs of a shortage.

“We do expect less Iranian oil exports after May,” said Sara Vakhshouri of energy consultant SVB Energy International.

“However, we don’t think that OPEC will increase its production in anticipation of lower Iranian oil exports, but only if there are clear signs of further Iran and/or Venezuelan export cuts in the market,” Vakhshouri said.

Venezuela, an OPEC member, is also under U.S. sanctions which have curbed its exports.

Iran’s export levels have become more opaque since U.S. sanctions on the country’s oil sector took effect in November, although estimates of March supplies are falling into a narrower range than in previous months.

Kpler, a company that tracks oil flows, said Iranian shipments so far in March had dropped sharply to 1.03 million bps from 1.44 million bpd in February.

“Iranian crude loadings have struggled through the first half of March,” Kpler said in a report, although it said exports would rise closer to 1.3 million bpd in the rest of March.

(Editing by David Holmes)

Source: OANN

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Brazil's #metoo moment: Spiritual guru accused of sex abuse

For over 40 years, spiritual healer Joao Teixeira de Faria drew people from all over the world to this small city in central Brazil, offering treatment for everything from depression to cancer.

His work was both praised — Oprah Winfrey called de Faria "inspiring" while visiting in 2012 — and heavily scrutinized. Now, de Faria, who goes by the name "Joao de Deus," or "John of God," is in trouble with the law.

Since December, more than 250 women including his daughter have come forward to allege abuse that ranged from being felt up during treatments to rape. The mounting accusations are turning the 77-year-old spiritual guru into Brazil's first major figure to go down in the #metoo era, which has been slow to take off in Latin America's largest nation despite myriad problems with gender equality.

Meanwhile, the people in Abadiania, about a two-hour drive west from the nation's capital of Brasilia, are in disbelief. They also fear for their futures without de Faria.

"All of Abadiania depended on the work of Joao," said Claudio Pruja, the owner of a small inn who also sometimes worked as an assistant to de Faria. "We don't have a beach. This isn't Copacabana."

Indeed, de Faria's pull was so strong that the much more affluent "new" part of the town, built in the years since the healer opened his clinic in 1976, stands in sharp contrast to the older, run down part of town: There are brightly colored houses, swept streets, hotels with ATM machines inside — a rarity in small Brazilian cities — as well as specialty boutiques that cater to tourists and police constantly patrolling.

By some estimates, his "casa spiritual," or "spiritual house," attended to 10,000 patients a week. It was there that de Faria, who over the decades came under sharp scrutiny from critics who deemed him a charlatan, performed "psychic" surgeries that he said could heal a wide range of maladies.

Sometimes treatments were based on prayer, and sometimes they involved minor cutting into the body.

In 2012, Winfrey visited de Faria's center and interviewed him for her talk show, writing about the experience of seeing him cut into the breast of a woman without anesthesia.

"An overwhelming sense of peace" is how she described the experience in a column that has since been deleted on oprah.com.

Winfrey has issued a statement saying she sympathizes with the alleged victims and hopes they get justice.

According to more than 250 women, it was during the healing sessions that de Faria molested them or began grooming them for what would lead to forced sexual contact outside the clinic.

Luciano Miranda, a public prosecutor, told The Associated Press that his office had received testimony from women from six countries: Brazil, Germany, Belgium, Bolivia, the United States and Holland.

De Faria's victims were of all ages, and he would often begin by turning off the lights and asking for a massage, Miranda said.

"The biggest fear of victims was not being believed," Miranda added. He said some of the women said they held off talking publicly about it for years because of worry they "could lose their husbands."

The scandal erupted when several women talked about their experiences on the show "Conversa com Bial" in December, leading to an avalanche of similar accusations in the weeks that followed.

The U.S. Embassy in Brazil published an alert asking Americans to contact Brazilian authorities if they had been abused by de Faria.

De Faria's adult daughter, Dalva Teixeira, told Brazilian magazine Veja that her father frequently raped her between the ages of 10 and 14, all on the pretense of spiritual treatments.

"My father is a monster," she told the magazine.

De Faria's lawyers have noted that many of the allegations are decades old, and in some cases involved women who repeatedly visited the healer — putting into question the veracity of their abuse claims.

They argue their client, who has been arrested, should be released before a trial. They have called on Brazilians to know all the facts before judging.

"Lynchings are always potentially unjust and lead a society to find scapegoats in individuals," lawyers Alberto Zacharias Toron and Luisa Moraes Abreu Ferreira wrote in a December op-ed in daily Folha de S. Paulo.

The accusations against de Faria come as cases of alleged abuse have emerged in several Latin American countries. In Argentina, a well-known actor, a senator and a legislative chief of staff have been accused of sexual harassment to assault. In Costa Rica, a criminal complaint alleging sexual assault was filed against former president and Nobel peace laureate Oscar Arias, leading other women to come forward with accusations.

Of the women who made the initial accusations on "Conversa com Bial," only one agreed to be identified. Zahira Lieneke Mous, a Danish choreographer, recounted how she visited de Faria to deal with sexual abuse in her past.

During a first consultation, she said he placed her hands on his penis, and in a second encounter penetrated her from behind. After remaining silent for four years, she detailed her accusations in a Facebook post last year and told her story on the show. Contacted since then, Mous has declined to be interviewed.

Two other alleged victims reached by the AP have also declined to give interviews.

In Abadiania, where many express surprise at the allegations against de Faria, the married guru was seen around town as a lady's man.

Norberto Kist, another inn owner who often assisted de Faria, said the man he considered a "father" was attractive to women.

"He had an energy," said Kist, waving his hands for emphasis. "And that generated fascination in women."

"A lot of things that happened, and others that are being presented in a ridiculous way (in the press), happened because of that strength, that energy, that magnetism, which is fascinating," Kist said.

Inside de Faria's spiritual hospital is a picture of Jesus Christ next to one of de Faria. Signs in English and Portuguese give instructions like, "Crystal bed in session. Silence please." Inside the center, both workers and tourists dress in all white.

By all accounts, the number of visitors is way down, but the flow hasn't stopped entirely.

"The energy is more pure. It's as strong as ever, if not stronger," said Tammy Pennington, an American from California recently in Abadiania for spa treatments.

Of the more than 250 cases, at least 112 have passed the statue of limitations, said Miranda, the public prosecutor. In such cases, it's normally 20 years, but de Faria's advanced age reduces the statute of limitations to 10 years.

No trial date has been set, but regardless of what happens, it's unlikely de Faria will ever be able to practice again.

"I feel sorry for the people suffering," said Angela Maria dos Santos, another healer who worked with de Faria for over 20 years at the center, adding: "It's a time of great pain."

___

Peter Prengaman reported from Rio de Janeiro.

Source: Fox News World

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Mexico to help “El Chapo” family seek US humanitarian visas

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says he has instructed his government to assist convicted drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's family in seeking humanitarian visas to visit Guzman in the United States.

Lopez Obrador said Friday that during a visit last week to Guzman's hometown in Sinaloa state, a lawyer passed him a letter from Guzman's mother. Lopez Obrador says that she asked for legal and humanitarian support for her son.

Lopez Obrador was announcing a highway construction project in the area.

He says Guzman's mother asked for help in obtaining humanitarian visas for two of Guzman's sisters so they can visit him in prison.

Guzman was convicted Feb. 12 in federal court in New York on multiple drug trafficking and conspiracy charges and likely faces a life sentence.

Source: Fox News World

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Explainer: Why China’s inclusion in global bond benchmarks matters

An employee counts Chinese 100 yuan banknotes at a branch of China Merchants Bank in Hefei
An employee counts Chinese 100 yuan banknotes at a branch of China Merchants Bank in Hefei, Anhui province June 21, 2013. REUTERS/Stringer

March 29, 2019

By Noah Sin

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s yuan-denominated onshore bonds will be begin to be included in the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index from Monday, and two other competing indices are likely to soon follow suit.

The milestone inclusion is expected to draw billions of foreign dollars into China’s $13 trillion bond market, the world’s third largest.

Here’s why investors across the world are watching this closely:

WHICH INDEX PROVIDERS ARE ADDING CHINESE BONDS AND WHEN?

After years of anticipation, benchmark global bond indexes are finally incorporating China, drawing many investors – some for the first time – to this vast market.

Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index on April 1 will begin adding Chinese government and policy bank bonds over 20 months. The inclusion will eventually take China’s weight in the index to 6.03 percent, Bloomberg said in January.

Chinese government bonds are also on a “watchlist” of bonds to join FTSE Russell’s World Government Bond Index (WGBI), with a review set to take place in September, the index provider has said.

China was put on a watchlist for the J.P. Morgan Emerging Markets Government Bond Index Global Diversified, the other major bond benchmark, in 2016. JP Morgan will survey investor feedback on inclusion at its annual meeting this summer, a bank spokeswoman said.

WHY NOW?

Analysts have long argued China’s bond market, the world’s third largest, is too big to ignore. But restrictions have prevented many investors from tapping Chinese bonds.

China has over the years made access easier for foreign investors, most recently by launching the Bond Connect scheme in 2017, which allows investors to buy and sell onshore bonds via Hong Kong.

In the past year, authorities added two key capabilities: delivery versus payment and block trades, common features in financial markets elsewhere. Beijing also clarified how it will tax foreign investor gains from Chinese bonds.

The introduction of all three features were prescribed by Bloomberg in March 2018 as pre-conditions for index inclusion.

HOW MUCH MONEY WILL IT BRING CHINA?

The Global Aggregate Index is tracked by an estimated $2.5 trillion of portfolio assets under management. A 6 percent weighting would therefore bring $150 billion to Chinese fixed income, according to HSBC and several other banks.

But Goldman Sachs in February cut its inflows forecast to between $120 billion and $150 billion, noting 10 to 20 percent of investors may not be ready to track the index on day one due to operational difficulties and other concerns. Standard Chartered made a similar observation.

Deutsche Bank also put its inflows estimate at $120 billion in a report last month, but it reached that conclusion while assuming the Global Aggregate is followed by a smaller $2 trillion pool of passive assets.

A 5 percent inclusion in WGBI will spur an additional $125 billion of inflows, and a 10 percent inclusion in JP Morgan’s benchmark could bring another $22 billion to China, said HSBC.

WHAT DO INVESTORS WORRY ABOUT?

Recently issued Chinese government bonds tend to be much less actively traded, or “liquid”, once a new batch of issuance comes through. That could make it difficult for index-tracking investors to replicate the inclusion portfolio, said ASIFMA, a financial industry lobby.

The toolkit to manage interest rate risks is also limited. Hedging instruments such as bond futures and repos are open only to some foreign investors, said ASIFMA, which has also called for wider liberalization of the derivatives market.

With Chinese bonds representing a mere 6 percent in the Global Aggregate Index, most investors seem happy to overlook these shortfalls, though that may change as the country’s weight in global indexes goes up.

(Additional reporting by Samuel Shen in SHANGHAI; Editing by Vidya Ranganathan and Sam Holmes)

Source: OANN

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Mexican president asks Spain to apologize for actions during conquest

Mexico's President Obrador speaks to the media during a a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City
Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks to the media during a news conference to announce a plan to strengthen the finances of state oil firm Pemex, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Romero

March 26, 2019

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Monday he had asked the Spanish government and Pope Francis to apologize to indigenous Mexicans for wrongs committed during the Spanish conquest some 500 years ago.

    Lopez Obrador said in a video shared on Facebook and Twitter he had written to Spain’s King Felipe VI about the matter.

    “I already sent a letter to the king of Spain and another letter to the Pope so that they ask forgiveness of indigenous peoples for violations of what are now known as human rights,” he said.

    Spain is one of Mexico’s biggest sources of foreign direct investment. The Mexican government has yet to ratify a new free trade deal reached with the European Union in April 2018.

    Speaking with his wife at an archaeological zone in the southeastern state of Tabasco, Lopez Obrador said the letter cited massacres that took place during the Spanish conquest at the beginning of the 16th century.

    “The churches were built above the temples, our patriotic heroes were excommunicated,” he said. “We are going to reconcile but first we ask for forgiveness.”

    Spain’s foreign ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The ministry published a statement rejecting the contents of Lopez Obrador’s letter, according to domestic media. Reuters was not immediately able to obtain a copy of the statement.

    “The arrival 500 years ago of the Spanish on present-day Mexican territory cannot be judged in light of contemporary considerations,” the government said, according to Spanish media.

“The government of Spain reiterates its willingness to work together with the government of Mexico.”

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Writing by Julia Love; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: OANN

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Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of
Avengers fans gather at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to attend the opening screening of “Avengers: Endgame” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Marvel Studios superhero spectacle “Avengers: Endgame” hauled in a record $60 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices during its Thursday night debut, distributor Walt Disney Co said.

Global ticket sales for the film about Iron Man, Hulk and other popular characters reached $305 million for the first two days, Disney said.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Funeral of journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn attends the funeral service for murdered journalist Lyra McKee at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Northern Ireland April 24, 2019. Brian Lawless/Pool via REUTERS

April 26, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain in June.

“Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honor a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric,” Corbyn said in a statement.

He said maintaining the relationship with the United States did not require “the pomp and ceremony of a state visit” and he said he would welcome a meeting with Trump “to discuss all matters of interest.”

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; Writing by William Schomberg)

Source: OANN

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Libyan Minister of Economy Ali Abdulaziz Issawi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tripoli
Libyan Minister of Economy Ali Abdulaziz Issawi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tripoli, Libya April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Hani Amara

April 26, 2019

By Ulf Laessing

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libya’s U.N.-recognized government has budgeted up to 2 billion dinars ($1.43 billion) to cover costs of a three-week-old war for control of the capital, such as treatment for the wounded, to be funded without new borrowing, the economy minister said.

Ali Abdulaziz Issawi suggested the government hoped for business to continue more or less as usual despite the assault on Tripoli, in the country’s northwest, by forces tied to a parallel administration based in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Once Africa’s third largest producer of oil, Libya has been riven by factional conflict since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with the country now broadly split between eastern-based forces under Khalifa Haftar and the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, in the west, under Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.

Still, with Haftar’s Libyan National Army forces unable so far to pierce defenses in Tripoli’s southern suburbs, normal life and business activities continue in much of the capital and western coastal towns.

Issawi, in an interview with Reuters in his Tripoli office, also said Libya’s commercial ports and wheat imports were still functioning normally, although some roads have been blocked.

He said the Serraj government estimates it will spend up to 2 billion dinars extra on medical treatment for wounded, aid for displaced people and other “emergency” war costs.

He said this was not military spending but analysts believe that the sum will also cover expenditures such as pay for allied armed groups or food for fighters.

“We could actually spend less,” he added, in comments that gave the first insight into the economic impact of the fighting.

Issawi said the Tripoli government, which controls little territory beyond the greater capital region, would not incur new debt to fund the war costs, sticking to a plan to post a 2019 budget without a deficit.

Tripoli derives revenue largely from oil and natural gas production, interest-free loans from local banks to the central bank, and a 183 percent surcharge on foreign exchange transactions conducted at official rates.

But with centralized tax collection greatly diminished, public debt has piled up – to 68 billion dinars in the west, including unpaid state obligations such as social insurance.

Some analysts expect Serraj’s government will be forced to raise new debt if the war for control of Tripoli drags on.

With much of Libya dominated by armed factions that also act as security forces, the public wage bill for both the western and eastern administrations has soared as fighters have been made public employees in efforts to buy their loyalty.

The east has sold bonds worth 35 billion dinars outside the official financial system as the Tripoli central bank does not fund the parallel government apart from some wages.

Despite its limited reach, the Tripoli government still runs an annual budget of around 46.8 billion dinars, mainly for public salaries and fuel subsidies.

“This year we cannot finance via debt…we will not borrow (by agreement with the central bank),” Issawi said.

According to International Monetary Fund data, Libya’s central government debt-to-GDP ratio is 143 percent, making it one of the most heavily indebted in the world on that measure.

Issawi declined to say what parts of the budget would be trimmed to support the extra outlay for war costs.

However, with some 70 percent of the budget allocated to public wages, fuel subsidies and other welfare benefits, a portion devoted to infrastructure is most likely to be axed.

Widespread lawlessness has meant there have been no major infrastructural projects since 2011, when a NATO-backed uprising overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi, leaving schools, hospitals and roads in acute need of restoration.

FOREX SURCHARGE

Issawi said the government planned to raise as much as 30 billion dinars by the end of 2019 from hard currency deals after imposing in September a 183 percent surcharge on commercial and private transactions done on the official rate of 1.4 to the U.S. dollar. That fee has effectively devalued the official rate to 3.9, much closer to the black market equivalent.

Some 17 billion dinars have been raised since then, with hard currency allocated for import credit letters now issued without delays, Issawi said. The forex fee has helped the government forecast a budget in the black for 2019.

Despite the narrowing spread between the two rates, the black market continues to thrive. Dozens of traders remained at their favorite spot behind the central bank headquarters in Tripoli when Reuters reporters visited it last week.

But traders said it could take time for the Serraj government to register the extra forex receipts as official banking channels were taking up to six months to approve import financing, keeping the black market in play for dealers.

Issawi said authorities planned to lower the forex fee from 183 percent, without saying when. The black market rate has dropped from 6 to around 4.1 since September but it has hardly moved of late as demand for black market cash remains high.

The Tripoli government has stopped subsidizing food and bread, which used to be cheaper than drinking water in Libya. Wheat imports are now being arranged by private traders and there are surplus stocks of flour at the moment, Issawi said.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing in Tripoli with additional reporting by Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., threatened possible jail time for White House officials refusing to comply with subpoenas to testify before the House Oversight Committee.

Connolly, a member of the House panel, made his comments during an interview on CNN on Thursday. He said that “if a subpoena is issued and you’re told you must testify, we will back that up.”

He added: “And we will use any and all power in our command to make sure it’s backed up — whether that’s a contempt citation, whether that’s going to court and getting that citation enforced, whether it’s fines, whether it’s possible incarceration.”

“We will go to the max to enforce the constitutional role of the legislative branch of government.”

His comments came after three officials have refused to comply with congressional requests to testify, CNN noted.

Trump told The Washington Post that his staff should not testify on Capitol Hill, explaining that the White House cooperated fully with special counsel Robert Mueller and “there is no reason to go any further, especially in Congress where it’s very partisan.”

Source: NewsMax Politics

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“Outdated laws” need fixing to deal with the surge in illegal immigrant families crossing the U.S. border with Mexico, a top Border Patrol official said Friday.

Migrant families face no consequences if apprehended trying to cross the border illegally under present law, Border Patrol chief of Operations Brian Hastings claimed during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“We need a change in the current outdated laws that we’re dealing with for this current demographic and this crisis that we have,” he said.

Hastings said as of Thursday there have been 440,000 apprehensions along the southwest border. There were 396,000 apprehensions all of last year.

SOUTHERN BORDER AT ‘BREAKING POINT’ AFTER MORE THAN 76,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TRIED CROSSING IN FEBRUARY, OFFICIALS SAY

And those numbers continue to rise, he said.

Historically 70 to 90 percent of apprehensions at the border were quickly returned to Mexico, Hastings said.

Now, 83 percent of those apprehended have come from the Central American northern triangle which includes Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and of those 63 percent are “family units” and children who cannot be returned, he said.

“There are no consequences that we can apply to this group currently,” Hastings said. “We’re overwhelmed. If you look at agents there doing a tremendous job trying to deal with the flow.”

The law dictates children have to be released after 20 days of detention.

FLORIDA SHERIFF ON BORDER CRISIS AFTER MAJOR DRUG BUST: ‘IT MAKES ME ABSOLUTELY CRAZY’

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says that has forced immigration officials to release entire families because “you don’t want to separate families.”

Recently, he said he is drafting legislation that would allow children to be detained for more than 20 days.

Hastings said agents are frustrated with the situation but are doing the best they can with the resources they have.

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“Up to 40 percent of our agents are processing at any given time,” he said. “That should say that in and of itself is pulling from those border security resources.”

Source: Fox News National

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