Stephen Dinan
Articles by Stephen Dinan
Texas marks 10th bus of migrants shipped to D.C.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday celebrated the 10th busload of illegal immigrants that his state has shipped to the nation's capital. Published April 22, 2022
Leaders of private border-wall effort plead guilty to scamming donors
Two men who led We Build the Wall, a private group that said it was helping construct President Trump's border wall, pleaded guilty Thursday to defrauding hundreds of thousands of people who gave money for the effort. Published April 21, 2022
Democratic senator calls for border wall construction, exposes rift over Biden policies
Usually it's Republicans making pilgrimages to the border wall to register displeasure with President Biden's immigration policy, but Sen. Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire Democrat, made the trip herself earlier this month, recording a video in front of the fence and igniting a firestorm within her party. Published April 21, 2022
DHS asks Americans to sponsor Ukrainian refugees for welcome in U.S.
Homeland Security announced plans Thursday to let Americans pledge to sponsor up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees for speedy admission to the U.S. Published April 21, 2022
Fraudsters plead guilty to bilking Social Security but avoid jail time
Patricia Munson had lived with her mother in Arizona for decades, and when the older woman passed away in 2016, Munson looked at her finances and realized she wasn't going to be able to make ends meet without her mother's Social Security check. Published April 20, 2022
GOP governors form border security ‘strike force’
More than two dozen GOP governors have signed up to push back against the Biden administration's border chaos, forming the American Governors Border Strike Force to share intelligence on threats to their communities that come across the U.S.-Mexico border. Published April 20, 2022
Top Republican calls for troops at border as illegal immigrant surge goes global
Rep. James Comer, the House Republicans' lead investigator, says it's time to send active-duty military troops to the U.S. border with Mexico to shut down drug routes and curtail the reach of smuggling cartels, which control the boundary with startling effectiveness. Published April 19, 2022
For DHS, pandemic rages everywhere but the border
The coronavirus pandemic is still bad enough that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced this week that foreign students will be granted a waiver for the next school year, allowing them to stay in the U.S. even if their classes are all online. Published April 19, 2022
Top House GOP investigator says Biden must send active-duty troops to border
Rep. James Comer, House Republicans' lead investigator, says it's time to send active-duty military troops to the U.S. border with Mexico to shut down drug routes and curtail the reach of smuggling cartels, who control the boundary with startling effectiveness. Published April 19, 2022
Border chaos goes global as DHS nabs illegal immigrants from across the world
Homeland Security apprehended nearly 90,000 illegal immigrants in March who came from beyond the traditional sending countries of Mexico and northern Central America, shattering previous records and signaling America's border crisis has gone global. Published April 18, 2022
ICE to release 600,000 illegal immigrants by September
ICE is getting ready to release as many as 600,000 illegal immigrants into communities before the end of September, the agency told a federal judge, giving an early estimate of the chaos the administration is predicting after it ends the Title 42 pandemic border shutdown. Published April 18, 2022
FEMA’s floral snafu: Feds use COVID money to buy flowers, food for pandemic funerals
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is using taxpayer money to buy flowers, pay for catering and place obituaries for COVID victims -- all expenses that the agency's own policies say aren't permitted, according to an urgent audit Monday by the agency's inspector general. Published April 18, 2022
Culture shock: Afghan evacuees run afoul of U.S. laws with domestic violence, sex crimes
The 77,000 Afghans evacuated to the U.S. have all been processed and released from military bases, but not before racking up a striking number of criminal entanglements including violence against women and sexual assaults on children. Published April 18, 2022
Biden sees worst border month of his term
The Border Patrol reported nearly 210,000 apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border in March, making it the most chaotic month on the border so far in President Biden's tenure. Published April 17, 2022
Abbott strikes border security deals with two more Mexican states
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced border security deals Thursday with two Mexican states who have promised to deploy their own police to patrol the southern side of the U.S.-Mexico boundary, in exchange for Texas ending its crippling safety checks on commercial cross-border traffic. Published April 14, 2022
Feds blast Texas for shipping illegal immigrants to D.C.
A senior Homeland Security official chided Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for busing illegal immigrants to Washington, saying Thursday that the Republican governor was hurting the government's efforts to coordinate how the migrants are released. Published April 14, 2022
D.C.-area governments say they’re eager to take Texas’ illegal immigrants
A second busload of illegal immigrants from Texas arrived in Washington on Thursday morning, delighting leaders of neighboring counties who said they will be more than happy to have those surging the border right now settle in the D.C. area. Published April 14, 2022
Texas strikes deal with Mexican state to police border
A Mexican governor promised Wednesday to deploy his own police to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he'll cancel some of the enhanced commercial traffic inspections that had clogged the ports of entry into the state. Published April 13, 2022
Man gets three-year sentence for crashing train over COVID conspiracy theory
A California man was slapped with a three-year prison sentence Wednesday for intentionally running a train off its tracks in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak to protest the government's handling of the pandemic. Published April 13, 2022
Texas sends first bus of illegal immigrants to D.C., delivers border crisis to Biden’s doorstep
Texas shipped its first busload of migrants to Washington on Wednesday as part of Gov. Greg Abbott's plan to make President Biden and the nation's capital feel some of the pain of the border crisis. Published April 13, 2022
