Latest news with #LoraRies
Fox News
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Chinese illegal immigrant crossings that surged during Biden admin a 'national security concern,' expert warns
One border security expert said the massive number of Chinese illegal immigrants who crossed the United States border during the Biden administration poses a "national security concern." U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 122 illegal immigrants to China June 3, many of whom were convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and human smuggling. Officials said the individuals were taken to China on a "special high risk charter flight." The Department of Justice on Tuesday charged seven Chinese nationals after they allegedly operated a multimillion- dollar marijuana trafficking ring. According to the Justice Department, the suspects smuggled illegal immigrants through the U.S.-Mexico border to work in marijuana grow houses. "This case pulls back the curtain on a sprawling criminal enterprise that exploited our immigration system and our communities for personal gain," said U.S. Attorney Leah Foley. "These defendants allegedly turned quiet homes across the Northeast into hubs for a criminal enterprise, building a multimillion-dollar black market operation off the backs of an illegal workforce and using our neighborhoods as cover. That ends today." In fiscal year 2024 alone, according to the House Committee on Homeland Security, over 24,376 Chinese nationals were encountered and 24,214 were apprehended. In March 2024 alone, border encounters of Chinese nationals increased over 8,000% when compared to March 2021. The report was released in April 2024. Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center and former Department of Homeland Security acting deputy chief of staff, told Fox News Digital in an interview that the sharp increase in Chinese nationals crossing the southern border is "absolutely" a national security concern. "The numbers rose rapidly during the Biden administration. I mean, pre-Biden, Customs and Border Protection would see about 1,000 Chinese nationals a month nationwide, whether that was at the ports of entry or between ports of entry. And, during Biden's four years, that rose rapidly to 2,000, up to 7,000 a month. It even hit over 8,000 one month in December of 2023. And most of these were between the ports of entry," Ries said. Ries fears the Chinese Communist Party was using the southern border as a "tactic" against the U.S. during former President Biden's administration. "Given the many tactics that the Chinese Communist Party uses against the U.S. — whether that is sending fentanyl precursor ingredients to Mexico to be smuggled into the U.S., killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, COVID-19 from Wuhan, spy balloons, buying farmland near military bases — we have to assume that the CCP took advantage of the open border during Biden's years and sent many Chinese nationals with mal-intent," Ries said.
Fox News
03-07-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Trump's remittance tax aims to slow illegal immigration by targeting the money flow
The Senate's version of the "one big, beautiful bill" includes a tiny, 1% tax on international cash transfers — called a remittance tax — which, according to experts, will have a major impact on immigrants working in the U.S. A remittance is a money transfer to another country outside the U.S., which is a common practice among immigrant workers who send part of their wages back to family in their native countries. Tens of billions of dollars in remittances are sent to other countries from the U.S. every year. Earlier versions of the bill included higher tax rates and specifically targeted illegal immigrants sending money outside the U.S. The current version of the "big, beautiful bill," however, imposes a 1% fee only on cash transfers, not electronic transfers, sent to other countries. U.S. citizens who want to send cash to other countries will also be subject to the 1% tax. The tax is expected to generate $10 billion in extra revenue for the federal government, according to an estimate done by Politico. Besides generating extra revenue, Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that the remittance tax has the potential to discourage illegal immigration into the U.S. by making it harder to send money back home. "Illegal aliens generally want five things when coming to the U.S.: to enter, to remain here, work, send money home (remittances), and bring family and/or have children here," she explained. "Prevent those five things, and you prevent illegal immigration and encourage self-deportation." The administration has been pushing hard for illegal immigrants to self-deport, incentivizing them by offering to front the cost of commercial flights and providing a $1,000 stipend to those who opt to self-deport. Ries said the remittance tax could be another effective strategy besides ICE raids that could help to crack down on illegal immigration into the country and reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. Ries said, however, that the 1% needs to be much higher to be effective. "A 1% tax only on cash transfers does very little. The tax should be much higher and cover all types of money transfers," she said. "Until now, the U.S. government has not touched the annual billions of dollars going out of the country, not benefiting the U.S. economy," she went on. "Remittances should be taxed to discourage unauthorized employment and its earnings." Meanwhile, Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told Fox News Digital that though he believes the remittance tax will have a significant impact, it may not be in the way the Trump administration hopes. He argued that discouraging remittances to countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras — where such payments account for more than 20% of the GDP — could actually drive more migration from those nations. "If you're Honduras, if you're El Salvador and Guatemala, even a 1% tax, if it decreases the remittances, could actually be a significant toll in the development of those countries," he said. "If the remains were actually to decrease significantly, that could potentially backfire on President Trump's agenda to reduce irregular migration because he could actually make circumstances, economic circumstances in these countries more difficult and spur new irregular immigration in the future." The House of Representatives is currently considering the Senate's version of the "big, beautiful bill."
