WND

PALM BEACH, Florida – The father of high-profile Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre is speaking out upon learning his daughter claims she has “four days to live” after being hit by a school bus, leaving her with kidney renal failure.

“I’m sick to my stomach. I feel like crying because I love my daughter more than life,” Sky Roberts told the Daily Mail from his Florida home.

“If there’s anything I could do, I’d do it.”

Roberts was reacting to a disturbing Sunday night Instagram post from Giuffre, who wrote:

“This year has been the worst start to a new year, but I won’t bore anyone with the details but I think it important to note that when a school bus driver comes at you driving 110km as we were slowing for a turn that no matter what your car is made of it might as well be a tin can.

“I’ve gone into kidney renal failure, they’ve given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology. I’m ready to go, just not until I see my babies one last time, but you know what they say about wishes.

“S**T in one hand and wish in the other & I guarantee it’s still going to be s**t at the end of the day. Thank you all for being the wonderful people of the world and for being a great part of my life. Godbless you all.”

Her post was somewhat mysterious, as it included no date or location of the incident.

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Roberts also told the Daily Mail: “She’s in really bad shape. She’s very depressed … there’s everything else she’s been going through with the divorce and not being able to see her kids.”

He said his son is “trying to get her spirits up so she doesn’t just give up.”

“I’m hoping she can hang on,” he said.

“She’s only 41. She’s got a lot of life to live. She’s got a lot of things left to do – she’s helping people and helping other girls.”

Roberts indicated he feels helpless being stuck at his home in Florida, without the funds needed to go to Australia to be with Virginia at this crucial time.

“There’s nothing I can do from here,” he said.

“I’m on Social Security so I can’t fly out. I’d love to be by her side and support her.”

Giuffre gained worldwide notoriety for accusing pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell of sexually abusing and trafficking her to high-profile individuals, including Britain’s Prince Andrew.

She says she was working at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach in 2000 when she was recruited by Maxwell, later becoming a victim of Epstein.

She sued both Maxwell and Prince Andrew, with the former case settled in her favor in 2017, and the latter ending in an an out-of-court settlement in 2022.

In 2021, Giuffre founded Victims Refuse Silence, now known as Speak Out, Act, Reclaim, or SOAR, to help survivors of sex abuse and trafficking.

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American asylum laws must be completely overhauled in order to avoid the southern border crisis that overwhelmed federal immigration officials under the Biden administration, according to immigration experts at the Heritage Foundation.

Under the Biden administration, the country was hit with the worst immigration crisis in history, with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials experiencing the highest and second highest border encounters in fiscal years 2023 and 2024 respectively, according to the agency’s data. The ensuing migration crisis not only overwhelmed federal immigration authorities, but also pushed state and local governments across the country to the brink.

A new report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank based in Washington, D.C., breaks down how such a crisis can be permanently avoided in the future — no matter who may be occupying the White House.

“The U.S. refugee and asylum process was devised during a different era and no longer serves the national interest,” the report, first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, states. “Rather than adding to the already confusing law and procedures, the entire approach must be redesigned to preserve a credible refugee system while removing the possibility of gaming it to immigrate for purely economic purposes.”

The report calls on federal lawmakers to limit asylum and refugee approvals to applicants who claim persecution by their government only on the basis of their race, religion, nationality or political opinion. Current U.S. law, based on the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, allows foreign nationals to also claim persecution by their native country due to “membership of a particular social group,” which Heritage argues is an ambiguous phrase that has allowed foreign nationals to abuse en masse.

Legislators must prohibit illegal border crossers from pursuing asylum, limiting such applications only to those arriving lawfully at ports of entry, Heritage argues. Migrants should also not be eligible for asylum if they: can safely relocate to their home country, already settled in a third country or travelled across a safe country and did not first seek asylum there.

“The United States must revise its asylum law and processing systems entirely,” the report states. “The U.S. should pull out of the international Geneva Convention and re-write U.S. immigration law to prioritize American, not globalist, interests and to eliminate loopholes that encourage frivolous and fraudulent asylum claims.”

The recommended fixes come after the U.S. is coming off what has been deemed the worst illegal immigration in history. Since reaching record highs of unlawful border crossings during the previous administration, activity at the U.S.-Mexico border has largely leveled off in past months.

Upon entering office in early 2021, the Biden administration made a number of administrative changes that largely undid the border enforcement apparatus built during President Donald Trump’s first term. Among the changes were a pause on border wall construction, a moratorium on deportations, the complete shutdown of the Remain in Mexico program and an end to the COVID-era Title 42 health order that quickly expelled migrants, among other directives.

Altogether, the Biden administration took 296 executive actions on immigration, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute. Of these executive moves, 89 specifically reversed or began the process of undoing Trump’s immigration policies.

What followed was an unprecedented wave of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, inundating Border Patrol and other CBP officials for several years.

“No part of the U.S. border and immigration structure, from the Border Patrol to immigration courts to [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services], was able to cope with the ensuing flow of illegal aliens seeking asylum,” the report states. “As of late 2024, nearly 1.7 million asylum cases were pending in the Department of Justice’s immigration courts, of a total caseload exceeding 3.7 million.”

“In July 2024, the backlog of asylum cases pending with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exceeded 1 million (of around 9 million total pending cases), more than a 10-fold increase in a decade,” the report continues.

Trump — a little more than two months into his second non-consecutive term — has dramatically reduced border encounters through his own executive orders and other unilateral reforms. Such directives have included declaring a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, successfully coercing the Mexican and Canadian governments to put more resources into border security and marshaling the resources of nearly every other federal law enforcement agency into helping immigration authorities, among other measures.

The unilateral directives have dramatically turned the situation at the border around, but Heritage offers recommendations that may provide more permanent solutions to future immigration challenges.

Heritage, however, offers recommendations that may provide a more permanent solution to the issues that incentivize illegal immigration and cause border chaos.

The think tank recommends implementing Safe Third Country Agreements with Latin American governments from Mexico all the way down to Colombia, allowing a large swath of choices for incoming migrants to seek refuge elsewhere. The U.S., it argues, should also establish caps on asylum and refugee applications, taking into account what is manageable for case workers.

Additionally, Heritage highlighted immigration enforcement systems in Australia as a model to emulate, and cautioned against immigration policies used by the European government.

Australia largely dismantled the market for maritime migrant smugglers by turning back boats carrying illegal migrants beginning in the early 2000s. The European Union, on the other hand, has failed to implement agreements that adequately addresses the number of illegal migrants arriving en masse to the continent, Heritage argues.

“Economic migration, as with family migration, remains a congressional duty to regulate,” the report states. “Once a new refugee and asylum regime that places American interests over globalism is enacted, the executive branch must enforce those laws without circumventing them to achieve political aims.”

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Andrew Isker is the sixth generation in his family to live in the same Minnesota town. But when the state declared war on Christians, he fled to Tennessee, where he’s helping to build a new and real community based on faith and freedom.

(0:00) Why Isker Is Building a New… pic.twitter.com/38HnOOXBdI

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 31, 2025

The abrupt withdrawal last year of President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee, followed rapidly by his replacement with Vice President Kamala Harris, irked many voters left out by the process. Yet social media seemed to ooze with enthusiasm and Gen Z-friendly hipster appeal.

Harris, a career politician favored by the Democratic Party’s establishment, never quite fit the bill as an icon of activist movements. But the sudden influencer buzz seemed to transform the stodgy former prosecutor into an icon of the cultural zeitgeist.

As it turns out, the tidal wave of enthusiasm was not entirely genuine. Much of the content, including Montooth’s videos, was quietly funded by an elusive group of Democratic billionaires and major donors in an arrangement designed to conceal the payments from voters.

RealClearInvestigations obtained internal documents and WhatsApp messages from Democratic strategists behind the influencer campaign. Way to Win, one of the major donor groups behind the effort, spent more than $9.1 million on social media influencers during the 2024 presidential election – payments revealed here for the first time. The amount was touted in a document circulated after the election detailing the organization’s accomplishments.

The effort supported over 550 content creators who published 6,644 posts across platforms, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and X. Way to Win coached creators on phrases, issue areas, and key themes to “disseminate pro-Kamala content throughout the cycle,” a post-election memo from the group noted.

The look behind the curtain reveals that at least some of the image-making around the Harris candidacy was carefully orchestrated by the same types of covert social media marketing often used by corporate brands and special interest groups. Such campaigns provide the illusion of organic support through the authentic appeal of trusted social media voices.

Way to Win, in internal messages, touted its work with a stable of Democratic Party-affiliated influencers and activists, including Harry Sisson, Emily Amick, Kate Abu, and Dash Dobrofsky. The group also overtly cultivated “non-political creators” – influencers typically known for travel vlogs, comedic skits, or cooking recipes – and seeded them with “positive, specific pro-Kamala content” that was “integral in setting the tone on the Internet and driving additional organic digital support.” The effort often took the form of talking points that were rapidly distributed to the in-network creators.

“Bro who is Tim Walz,” said @AbeeTheArtist, one of the TikTok creators backed by Way to Win. “He’s a football coach, that’s hard,” the influencer continued. “It’s time for Republicans to drop out, it’s not looking good for ya’ll!”

In a series of internal presentations about the influencer campaign, Way to Win emphasized its data-driven approach. “We know what messaging works,” noted Liz Jaff, a branding strategist working with Way to Win, during a call with donors last year. She touted the use of an AI-based focus group tool developed by Future Forward, the Harris campaign’s primary SuperPAC.

Jaff also explained the process for developing talking points that could be inserted into organic-appearing messages and posts on social media. “We then convey that to the influencers who take that into their own words,” continued Jaff. “We then test those videos and see what needs to be boosted,” she added, referencing paid media efforts to amplify specific TikTok videos or favored streamers.

The lofty promises of message mastery, however, often fell short. Way to Win directly financed a series of clunky YouTube shows and liberal identity politics-oriented social media skits designed to bring voters out to support the Harris campaign and Democrats more broadly. There’s little evidence that such measures moved any significant numbers of voters during an election in which Democrats lost historic levels of support from key constituency groups – the youth vote, Latinos, and black men swung significantly to Donald Trump last year, upending decades of voting patterns.

Ilana Glazer, a comedian who starred in the Comedy Central show Broad City, received Way to Win funding for a series of election videos called “Microdosing Democracy,” in which she half-heartedly endorsed Harris as she lighted a spliff of marijuana. Another TikTok and Instagram series backed by the donors, called “Gaydar,” featured interviews quizzing people on the streets of New York City about gay culture trivia with little election-related content.

Way to Win also funded a caravan with an inflatable IUD to Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, St. Louis, and other locations. The tour, which featured content creators producing posts along the way, was designed to bring attention to claims that Trump would ban contraceptive devices.

In an apparent attempt to boost Harris’ support among black men, Way to Win directly funded a series of YouTube interview-style talk shows called Watering Hole Media.

“I heard a brother say to me, ‘Man, I didn’t know I was going to be excited when Kamala was selected,’” said Jeff Johnson, a managing director with the lobbying firm Actum LLC who worked as a host for the Watering Hole Mediaseries “Tap In.” “One brother said, ‘I’m not even fully sure why,’” continued Johnson. “No, seriously, he said, ‘When I look at her, though, she reminds me of my aunt,’ and I said yes, so there is this communal piece.”

The discussion, taped at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last August, buzzed about the “through line” from the Black Panthers to the Nation of Islam to Harris’ nomination, suggesting her candidacy represented another moment in radical black politics.

The Way to Win-sponsored media group sponsored many similar discussions attempting to buoy the Harris candidacy with appeals to racial identity politics.

Despite the well-funded efforts, few tuned in. The seven video programs produced at the DNC collectively garnered fewer than 1,000 views. One video had fewer than 40 viewers.

Questions have mounted over the campaign spending decisions from Harris and her supporting organizations. The Harris campaign and her SuperPAC spent over $1.5 billion in the last months of the campaign, with much of the money flowing to consultants and media advertising. Alex Cooper, who hosted Harris for an interview on her “Call Her Daddy” podcast, was baffled about why the campaign spent about $100,000 on a “cardboard” temporary studio set that “wasn’t that nice.” Others have raised similar concerns about payments to Oprah Winfrey’s production firm.

“Our 2024 creator program reached key audiences with nearly a billion views, but there’s more to do, and we’re applying lessons from last cycle,” a Way to Win spokesperson said in a statement to RCI.

“Sometimes in presidential campaigns, there are times when there aren’t any cost controls,” observed Mike Mikus, a Democratic strategist in Pennsylvania. “The biggest question is whether they had any empirical evidence that this TikTok messaging would work.”

The payments occupy a hazy area of election law. Way to Win structured the funds through nonprofit corporations that paid various influencer talent agencies – firms such as Palette Management and Vocal Media. The money was not listed in Federal Election Commission disclosure portals that show political funds spent during the campaign.

While television or radio ads require disclaimers showing the groups responsible for paying for the advertisements, there are no equivalent mandates for TikTok stars or Instagram personalities that receive payment to promote election-related content. Despite some attempts to reform election transparency regulations, minimal progress has been made. The FEC has deadlocked over attempts to form new rules to govern the influencer space, leaving the entire medium virtually lawless regarding campaign cash.

Way to Win operates several entities and corporations, most of which do not disclose donors. The group did not respond to a request for comment for more information in this regard. However, the cache of documents about the influencer campaign pointed to some clues. Way to Win hosted a series of donor-only events in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., with representatives of the Open Society Foundation, the charity backed by billionaire investor George Soros. OSF did not respond to a request for comment.

Democrats are hardly alone in payola for influencers. Republican campaigns have spent several hundred thousand dollars on similar social media marketing agencies that tout the ability to seed content with popular accounts on X and TikTok.

But the attempted reach and spending of the pro-Kamala Harris 2024 effort is unprecedented. For Way to Win, the group justified the spending sprees as the only way to compete with pro-Trump voices and popular podcasts, such as Joe Rogan, which the Harris campaign eschewed.

“Our goal this year was to combat conservative content domination on Instagram and TikTok. We did that,” Way to Win claimed in a triumphant memo to donors after the election.

“Had more Americans gotten their media from Instagram and TikTok,” the December memo argued, “Kamala Harris would be the next President of the United States.”

Maine residents are more aligned with President Donald Trump than their own governor over the concept of men, even those who say they are women, participating in womens ‘athletics.

Trump has declared that the U.S. government recognizes two genders, male and female, and has worked to halt the promotion of the vast range of alternative sexual lifestyle choices. He issued an executive order to bar males from girls’ and women’s competitions.

Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, has insisted on defying Trump, and the federal Office of Civil Rights in the Health and Human Services Department, and pushing for those making those lifestyle choices to participate where they choose.

Fox News has pointed out Maine’s refusal to follow the rules has left the state in “noncompliance with Title IX” and the state has been referred to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

Now the results of a polling by the University of New Hampshire reveal that Mills is off base, when it comes to her voters.

The poll confirms that some two-thirds of the state’s residents, 64%, believe transgender athletes “definitely should not” or “probably should not” participate in girls’ and women’s sports.

“Only 29% of Maine residents believed that transgender athletes ‘probably should’ or ‘definitely should’ compete against girls and women in sports,” the report said.

Even among Democrats whose party has promoted the transgender ideology extensively during the tenure in Washington of Joe Biden, only 56% endorsed men who call themselves women in women’s sprots.

Half of the poll’s respondents said the enforcement of those standards should be at the federal level, another 41% said it should be up to the states.

The polling surveyed 1,057 Maine residents from March 24-30, with a margin of error of 3%.

The report described how officials in the state continue “to thumb their nose at Trump’s ‘No Men in Women’s Sports’ executive order from February.

The HHS said the state’s refusal to follow the law has been referred to the Department of Justice.

Maine officials have said they are following state law, suggesting that supersedes federal law on this question.

“The situation involving the trans athlete at Greely High School attracted national attention after Maine Republican state Rep. Laurel Libby identified the athlete by name with a photograph in a social media post. Libby was later censured by the Maine legislature, and she has since filed a lawsuit to have it overturned,” the report said.

OCR Acting Director Anthony Archeval explained, “What HHS is asking of the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association (MPA) and Greely High School is simple — protect female athletes’ rights. Girls deserve girls-only sports without male competitors. And if Maine won’t come to the table to voluntarily comply with Title IX, HHS will enforce Title IX to the fullest extent permitted by the law.”

President Donald Trump on Monday increased his warning against Iran-backed Houthi terrorists, indicating, “the real pain is yet to come.”

“The Iran-backed Houthi Terrorists have been decimated by the relentless strikes over the past two weeks,” Trump stated on Truth Social.

“Many of their Fighters and Leaders are no longer with us. We hit them every day and night – Harder and harder. Their capabilities that threaten Shipping and the Region are rapidly being destroyed.

“Our attacks will continue until they are no longer a threat to Freedom of Navigation. The choice for the Houthis is clear: Stop shooting at U.S. ships, and we will stop shooting at you.

“Otherwise, we have only just begun, and the real pain is yet to come, for both the Houthis and their sponsors in Iran.”

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will issue a memo setting equal standards for men and women in combat roles across the armed services, he announced on X Monday.

The memo aims to implement the same set of standards for all service members involved in combat, regardless of sex, Hegseth said on X. Hegseth said the services would review the guidance to ensure the “highest and equal standards for men and women in combat.”

“For far too long, we have allowed standards to slip,” Hegseth said in his post. “We’ve had different standards for men/women serving in combat arms [Military Occupational Specialty] MOS’s and jobs…. That’s not acceptable, and it changes right now!”

For far too long, we have allowed standards to slip. We’ve had different standards for men/women serving in combat arms MOS’s and jobs….

That’s not acceptable, and it changes right now! pic.twitter.com/Zn9OyBew6G

— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) March 31, 2025

Men and women currently have different standards for combat roles, with the U.S. Army deciding to make different standards for men and women in the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) in 2022 after the RAND Corporation found in a study that women failed the test at much higher rates than their male counterparts; 65% of women were failing the ACFT test at one point in 2021, which prompted the change in standards.

Additionally, female candidates in Army Ranger school were reportedly given more chances to pass tests during the so-called “RAP week,” the first five days of ranger school, according to multiple Army Rangers’ testimonies.

Hegseth took flak from Senate Democrats during his confirmation hearing for his past comments on potentially barring women from combat roles. However, he walked back the comments during the hearing, instead saying he supported standards that “maximize efficacy” instead of setting different standards based on sex.

“Women will have access to ground combat roles given the standards remain high,” Hegseth said during the hearing. “We’ll have a review to make sure standards have not been eroded in any of these cases.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Political analyst Chuck Todd cautioned former Vice President Kamala Harris about running for California governor in 2026.

Harris will decide whether to run for the governorship of her state by the end of the summer, she told a pre-Oscars party attendee, according to two individuals with knowledge of the discussion, Politico reported. When “News Conference” host Conan Nolan asked whether Harris will run for the position and whether she should, Todd said he would be surprised if she did, and that it would be challenging for her to win.

WATCH:

“Boy, I would be shocked if she does. If she wants to run for president in ‘28, you can’t run for governor of California in ‘26,” Todd said. “So I do think if she runs for governor, she’s made the decision she’s not running.”

Todd also highlighted the challenge a typical Democrat could face in winning the governorship after years of one-party control.

“Here’d be my warning to any conventional Democrat running for governor of California in ‘26: Go look at the track record of any political party trying to win a governorship for basically for 20 straight years,” he said. “It doesn’t happen very often, right? And so this is 16 straight years of Democratic governance in California. It’s the longest, I think, going back nearly a hundred years.”

Todd also argued Harris’ status as a long-time powerful politician could work against her if she were to run for the governorship.

“Governor is the one place where voters won’t always vote their jersey color, and I think voters are going to be looking for somebody from the outside,” the political analyst said. “And I think that Harris — somebody who’s the former vice president, former U.S. senator, former district attorney in San Francisco — how does she sell change? She’s got to somehow run against Gavin Newsom’s governorship.”

“So I just don’t see the path for her. I could see an outsider Democrat being able to message this. I think it’s a tough place for her to be,” he added. “If I were advising her, I’d tell her: go throw yourself into the rebuild of LA and get involved with the LA Olympic Committee. Be above politics for a couple of years and come back maybe in 2030 or 2032.”

Harris ultimately lost all seven swing-states and the popular vote to President Donald Trump in November. When she ran for president in 2020, she only secured 844 votes in the Democratic primary, gaining zero delegates in the process, according to archived election data.

Political analyst Mark Halperin argued in December that Harris would face an uphill battle, whether she runs for president again or enters the race for California governor.

“I think her chance[s] of being governor of California are greater than being the Democratic nominee, but I don’t think they’re as great as people say, because again, her challenge is her weakness,” Halperin said. “She does not like to make difficult choices under pressure, and that is the job description for running for governor of California, being governor of California, running for president, being president.

“So I think she might try, but I think she’d be surprised at how tough it is. And finally, I’ll say I’m not sure she wants to be governor of California,” he continued. “It’s not a great job right now, and so why she’d run and risk losing, and then if she did win, get the job — I’m not really sure.”

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Billionaire entrepreneur and Trump advisor Elon Musk dropped a bombshell this weekend during a fiery 100-minute town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he campaigned for conservative judge Brad Schimel in the state’s upcoming Supreme Court election on Tuesday.

Joined by Antonio Gracias, a private equity titan and a key member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team tasked with rooting out waste in the federal government, Musk unveiled a shocking chart: a dramatic spike in Social Security Numbers issued to non-citizens, soaring from 270,000 in 2021 to a mind-blowing 2.1 million in 2024.

That’s almost 5 million non-citizens now embedded in the system—collecting benefits, draining taxpayer dollars, and, most alarmingly, infiltrating the voter rolls.

“This is a mind-blowing chart,” Musk declared, pointing to the data. “This wasn’t an accident. This was a massive, large-scale program under the Biden administration to import as many illegals as possible—ultimately to change the voting map of the United States, disenfranchise the American people, and lock in a permanent deep-blue, one-party state from which there’d be no escape.”

Gracias, founder of Valor Equity Partners and a self-described son of legal immigrants, echoed Musk’s outrage.

“We went to Social Security to find fraud, and we stumbled on this by accident,” he said.

“And this isn’t political, by the way. My parents are immigrants… My brother and sister all born in Spain. I’m pro-legal immigration. This is not political. This is about America and the future of America. And there are a lot of good people in the system that pointed this in this direction. I want to honor them right now. They’re working with the government today and took the risks to show us these numbers and tell us what’s going on.”

Gracias continued, “We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid as an example. On every benefit program we went through, we found groups from this particular group of people, 5.5 million people in those benefit programs. And then what was really, really disturbing us was why. We’re asking ourselves why. And so we actually just took a sample and looked at voter registration records, and we found people here registered to vote in this population.”

The evidence, according to Musk and Gracias, is undeniable. By sampling voter registration records, they uncovered non-citizens who not only registered but voted in American elections.

“We’ve referred them to prosecution at Homeland Security Investigations,” Gracias revealed. “That’s happening right now.”

But the scandal goes deeper than voter fraud. Gracias, who traveled from D.C. to Social Security offices and the southern border alongside Musk, painted a grim picture of a system rigged to incentivize illegal entry.

“And then you walk across the border. They do what’s called a “release on your own recognizance” and give you an NTA — a Notice to Appear — which is to appear before a judge. The wait times on judges are, on average, six years. Look it up on Grok — you’ll see it. Immigration judges — there are only 700 of them. This is 5.5 million people,” he explained.

Gracias continued, “So what happens then? Once you’re in the country and you’ve got asylum through one of these pathways — and we mapped the whole thing out — you can apply for a work document. You file a 765 — that’s the work form. You get this form called the 766 — that’s the authorization. And then the Social Security Administration automatically sends you your Social Security number in the mail. No interview. No ID.”

Musk didn’t mince words about who’s to blame. “This is worth just reiterating. People sometimes think that under the Biden administration, that he was simply asleep with the switch. He wasn’t a sleep. No. They weren’t asleep with the switch.”

The human cost, however, is what Gracias called “the darkest thing.”

He estimates human traffickers and cartels raked in $13 to $15 billion exploiting this broken system, preying on desperate migrants from Africa and Central America.

“You think someone in Africa or Central America has $10,000 to $20,000 to pay these traffickers? No. What happens is: you come in, then you owe them the money. You’re an indentured servant,” said Gracias.

“And if you don’t pay? What do they do? They kill your mother. They kill your brother. They kill your family. What happens next? That’s what we discovered. And I have to tell you, it’s tragic to me. The human tragedy this created is the real problem,” he added.

Even worse, ICE data reveals 30,000 children who never showed up for their hearings and 270,000 more who didn’t even get Notices to Appear.

“ICE told us that kids are being trafficked back and forth across the border to complete families to make this easier. This is a human tragedy,” Gracias said.

“And how many of these people died on the way up here that didn’t make it in? What happened to them? We created a system here that created a incentive for people to come and been taking advantage of by these traffickers.”

WATCH:

This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit.com.

There might be less incentive for migrants to enter the country illegally if clearer U.S. visa work programs were in place, says Ben Brubeck, vice president of regulatory, labor, and state affairs for Associated Builders and Contractors.

Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction industry trade association, “is clear that there’s no place in our country for lawbreakers of any kind, and we oppose any efforts to facilitate that,” he said. But there needs to be a clear process that “does allow for foreign workers here legally … to participate in the construction industry,” he said.

“And, you know, if there were an easier system, I don’t know that we’d have as many people here illegally, so I think we’ve got to sort of address that,” Brubeck told The Daily Signal.

Under the U.S. H-2B program, 66,000 aliens are allowed to enter the country each fiscal year “to fill temporary nonagricultural” jobs, and can stay in the country for a maximum of three years, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. But those 66,000 workers only make a small dent in the current construction worker shortage.

Instead of capping the H-2B program at a set number, it should be based on economic need within the industry, Brubeck said.

Currently, the biggest issue within the construction industry is a shortage of skilled labor, according to Brubeck, who has worked for the trade association for 21 years.

Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents the needs of more than 23,000 companies, estimates there is a shortage of 439,000 people in the construction industry, which employs about 8 million in the U.S.

“It’s harder to get new people in the industry, especially the young folks,” Brubeck said, adding that his association is working to “recruit from all different entry points in the industry.”

The strategy to meet the needs in the construction worker shortage includes getting “more legal immigrants into the industry and also [making] sure that the illegal immigrant population is not working and undercutting the wages of legal immigrants as well as [those of] the American workforce,” he said.

In addition to removing the permanent cap on the H-2B program, Brubeck said Associated Builders and Contractors has been pushing for a merit-based, market-driven visa system that would “make sure the people who are coming in for these jobs are fully vetted and have a skill and have the ability and opportunity to work and are serious about it.”

The construction worker shortage can also be addressed through a bill Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., introduced in 2023 called the Essential Workers for Economic Advancement Act. The bill, if passed, would create a new visa program that would allow up to 85,000 annual positions for temporary workers to address worker shortages in the construction industry. Associated Builders and Contractors supports the bill.

Brubeck says association members also want to see “administrative backlogs” addressed “for work authorization documents from immigrants who are legally residing in the United States.”

In recent years, the construction industry has suffered under something of a “perfect storm,” Brubeck explained.

“We’ve had material costs increased 40% since the start of the [COVID-19] pandemic until the start the Trump administration, so, you know, everything’s more expensive. We’ve got higher interest rates, so lending and financing is more expensive,” Brubeck said. “We’ve got permitting delays, and issues getting big projects built because of permitting inefficiencies, and we’ve got the skilled labor shortage.”

The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration could lead to increased wages for workers in the construction industry, and that cost is often passed onto the customer or taxpayer, he said, but it’s “good news for existing workers.”

Brubeck said he’s looking forward to “working with the administration and then our partners and states to address” the challenges facing the construction industry.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]