Stephen Dinan

Republicans say Biden’s rules for firms competing with China on chips make U.S. less competitive

Republican senators lashed out Thursday against the Commerce Department for demanding companies that apply for new funding to compete with China in semiconductor manufacturing also meet unrelated benchmarks for providing childcare and labor union set-asides.

March 16, 2023

CBP denies claim cartel planted ‘explosive’ at border; says device was ‘fake’

Customs and Border Protection said late Wednesday that the "explosive" that members of Congress described at the border was actually a bunch of sand wrapped in tape with a rope protruding like a wick.

March 15, 2023

Border Patrol chief pleads for more agents, disagrees with Biden halting border wall construction

Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz delivered a devastating picture of the border on Wednesday, telling lawmakers that a majority of sectors along the U.S.-Mexico boundary are not secure and saying it was a mistake to stop wall construction.

March 15, 2023

Illegal crossings at southern border remained stable in February

Homeland Security nabbed 154,998 illegal immigrants coming across the southwestern border in February, or about the same as January, which officials said was further proof that their new carrot-and-stick approach is working.

March 15, 2023

Rep. Greene says cartels planted bomb on U.S. border, endangering agents

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Wednesday said operatives from a Mexican smuggling cartel planted an explosive device on the U.S. side of the border, endangering Border Patrol agents.

March 15, 2023

Border chief contradicts Biden DHS, says border is not under control

Homeland Security does not have "operational control" of the border, the top Border Patrol agent told Congress Wednesday, contradicting the words of his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

March 15, 2023

Uzis, illegal immigrants and fentanyl: Feds charge men with selling guns to cartel

Federal prosecutors announced charges Tuesday against two men they say were trying to sell serious firepower to Mexican smuggling cartels.

March 14, 2023

D.C.’s noncitizen voting law takes effect, faces first legal challenge

Washington's new law on noncitizen voting took effect Tuesday and drew its first legal challenge from the Immigration Reform Law Institute, which says it harms the voting rights of actual citizens.

March 14, 2023

GOP senators blast DHS for hiking fees on farmers in order to fund asylum cases

Sen. Marsha Blackburn led a group of Republican senators Tuesday in blasting the Biden administration for trying to raise fees that businesses pay to bring in immigrant workers, saying the president wants farmers to pay the price for his border chaos.

March 14, 2023

House panel rips federal agency’s ‘ecogrief’ training, warns of probe if ‘colossal waste’ continues

The House Natural Resources Committee demanded answers Tuesday from the Fish and Wildlife Service over its ecogrief training for employees and warned a full investigation could ensue unless the agency cancels the course and uses the money for more important priorities like saving endangered animals.

March 14, 2023

‘Swinecraft’: Feds funded experiment to teach hogs to play video game

Sen. Joni Ernst released a new list of dubious government spending Tuesday, questioning why federal taxpayers had to foot the bill for studies that trained pigs to play a video game or dolphins to use an underwater touchpad to try to tap out their thoughts.

March 14, 2023

Feds charge border officer with using excessive force

A federal grand jury has charged a Customs and Border Protection officer with using excessive force in two separate incidents at a border crossing in El Paso, Texas.

March 13, 2023

Biden’s border ‘parole’ program in peril as congressional GOP plans vote to overturn

Sen. John Cornyn announced plans Monday to force a vote in Congress to overturn President Biden's new "parole" program, which seeks to admit migrants outside of the usual process established under immigration law.

March 13, 2023

House Republicans’ unity, string of wins prove Washington pundits wrong

Chaos. Dysfunction. An abject disaster. Those were some of the more printable projections of the House GOP as it struggled to elect Speaker Kevin McCarthy in January. Two months on, however, Republicans have maintained a general sense of unity.

March 11, 2023

IRS audit finds 42,000 feds cheating on taxes

More than 42,000 federal employees repeatedly failed to file their taxes with the IRS, according to a new audit that said the government is limited in its ability to punish the cheats.

March 10, 2023

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says he needs more money to handle border

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas unloaded on immigrant rights activists Thursday, rejecting their suggestions that he has embraced Trump-style get-tough policies and saying he is managing as best he can with a chaotic border, adversarial court rulings and a "dismantled" legal immigration system.

March 9, 2023

Biden’s budget calls for 350 more Border Patrol agents

President Biden's new budget calls for the hiring of 350 more Border Patrol agents, on top of the 350 that were in his last budget and that were approved by Congress in December.

March 9, 2023

Federal judge unloads on Biden border policies as ‘divorced from reality’

A federal judge delivered a severe spanking to President Biden over the southern border, ruling Wednesday that there is an illegal immigration "crisis" and accusing the administration of reducing the boundary to "a meaningless line in the sand."

March 8, 2023

Senator wants to send military to Mexico, declare war on cartels after Americans’ deaths

A leading senator on Wednesday called for the U.S. to declare a war on Mexican cartels, saying the killings of two Americans by gangs should earn a response by the full might of the U.S. military.

March 8, 2023

Afghan allies ‘hunted down systematically’ by Taliban, U.S. troops tell Congress

The U.S. must renew its efforts to rescue Afghan allies who fought alongside Americans and were left behind in the chaotic withdrawal, veterans told Congress on Wednesday, calling the abandonment a moral stain.

March 8, 2023