'Made-In-America' Entrepreneurs See Opportunities In Global Tariffs

 by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

It’s more than just a label. “Made in America” represents pride and the national spirit, says John Roy, CEO of Dawson Knives in Prescott, Arizona.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

The company he heads is a prime example of that spirit. Founded more than 50 years ago by a Vietnam vet with machinery made from parts found in a local landfill, the knife company boasts that it’s “three generations strong.”

Roy believes domestic companies will thrive under the import tariffs enacted by the Trump administration.

With consumption accounting for nearly 70 percent of the U.S. economy, Roy believes there is a strong market for products made in America.

In 2023, nearly half of the goods purchased by Americans were “made in America,” according to the Department of Commerce. That figure comes with the caveat that “made in America” sometimes means “assembled in America,” with products containing imported components.

The total gross domestic purchases in the country reached $3.7 trillion, with $1.9 trillion of that amount attributable to U.S. industries.

“When you keep it domestic and your dollars here [in America], it pays off,” Roy says proudly, wearing a T-shirt and cap emblazoned with his company logo.

“We rode out a pandemic, and we’re going to ride through these tariffs,” he told The Epoch Times.

That’s not just a bold statement, Roy said.

After President Donald Trump announced a sweeping array of tariffs on April 2, Roy reported that Dawson’s knife sales increased from $11,000 to $15,000 per day.

He said the company expects orders to double from 4,000 to 8,000 for 2025. It produces 40 different models of knives, including hunting, survival, culinary, and heirloom varieties.

Roy is convinced that many American companies can withstand a global trade war by sourcing materials domestically and maximizing production efficiency.

“In order to have that efficiency, we have to really invest in computers … everything to help us down the line to make better models, better manufacturing, and reduce steps,” he said.

The company currently employs 15 people and operates within 12,000 square feet of industrial space.

Roy said many consumers prefer goods that are “completely American-made.”

John Roy, CEO of Dawson Knives, displays a part of the complex knife-making process, in Prescott, Ariz., on April 14, 2025. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

He does not foresee any problems sourcing materials as long as his domestic supply remains steady within a global tariff environment.

Government policies that impact his suppliers have also been a challenge.

Roy said that a longtime steel producer and supplier in New York recently went out of business due to restrictions on coal—a key ingredient in steel production.

Dawson Knives had maintained a working relationship with the steel producer since the company started in 1973.

However, another U.S.-based company has stepped in to smelt the needed steel, Roy said.

Despite potentially higher costs for some raw materials in the United States, Roy expects that using domestic suppliers will mean fewer “headaches” related to shipping and no import duties.

He views this as a distinct advantage.

With the materials he currently has in stock, and absent any unforeseen circumstances, he expects to weather a global trade upheaval for at least a year and a half. 

Roy based his timeline on his supplier’s steel inventory for the next year and a half.

“After that, we would have to pay tariffs on steel because one component of the steel we use can only be found in Switzerland,” he said. 

“The tariffs will not affect us unless they go on for a long time.” 

Sweet Success

Jay Levine owns San Francisco Chocolate Factory, a Phoenix-based company with more than 28 years of experience.

His company currently employs four full-time staff members, who produce gourmet chocolates, fudge, and treats for special events and walk-in customers.

The chocolatier sources his ingredients domestically, making his business largely immune to tariffs.

“Everything I buy is local [or it] comes from the United States,” Levine, a Montreal native, told The Epoch Times.

Jay Levine, owner of San Francisco Choclate Factory, stands behind the counter of his new facility in Phoenix on April 10, 2025. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

He buys his apples from Washington, strawberries and nuts from other domestic suppliers. The American-grown items are not subject to import restrictions and are readily available.

The one exception is high quality Callebaut chocolate from Belgium, an ingredient that is now subject to a 10 percent import duty.

As he completes a new facility on Van Buren Street in Phoenix, Levine said his business has continued to do well despite the imposition of new tariffs.

“Quality really has no rights on it,” he said, “so you want to do top quality chocolates. All of our food products come from the United States.”

If tariffs continue, Levine said he “would switch to good [domestic] chocolate, which is locally grown here.” However, even that local supplier gets its cocoa beans from Ivory Coast.

According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an international trade data platform, the Ivory Coast’s main imports to the United States in January included cocoa beans valued at $161 million and cocoa paste valued at $41.7 million, followed by rubber valued at $19.1 million.

The U.S. government imposed a 21 percent tariff on goods from the tiny West African country, although it was paused for 90 days to facilitate negotiations. However, all U.S. trading partners are still subject to a baseline tariff of 10 percent.

Tariffs aren’t driving the current high prices though.

“I know that chocolate has doubled [in price] in the past year—and the reason for that was just price inflation,” Levine said. “I’ve never seen chocolate so high—ever.”

Levine expressed confidence that his company can endure the current tariffs, due to a steady demand for chocolate in America.

“This is an indulgence,” he said. “People will pay extra for it.”

That being said, “they won’t be buying as much chocolate“ under the tariffs, he predicted. ”Price is a factor.”

An employee wraps confectionaries at San Francisco Chocolate Factory in Phoenix on April 10, 2025. The company currently employs four full-time staff members producing gourmet chocolates, fudge, and treats for special events and walk-in customers. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

Treading Confidently

Don’t Tread On Me was founded in 2004 and American-made shirts and hoodies are the foundation of its clothing product line.

The exception are the company’s hats, which feature American motifs with the company’s signature coiled rattlesnake emblem.

“Right now, all of the hats and beanies are [produced] overseas, but I’ve been looking into domestic options,” company president Tyler Windes told The Epoch Times.

“There aren’t very many USA hat manufacturers, so it does make it difficult sourcing those.”

Windes said that even before the recent tariff changes, the company was considering moving its hat production to the United States.

“These new policies have simply reinforced our commitment and accelerated that timeline,” Windes said.

Sourcing his hats from a domestic manufacturer has been challenging, nonetheless Windes remains hopeful that the tariffs will lead to increased investment in American textile and apparel production.

This development would make it easier for companies like his to manufacture their products fully within the United States, he said.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/made-america-entrepreneurs-see-opportunities-global-tariffs

Weaponizing Immigration: Lawfare by Class Action Threatens Our Republic

 

By Charlton Allen

You can’t claim a collective benefit by fiat—and then have attorneys you’ve never met invoke individualized review to shield it from repeal.

Yet that’s precisely the strategy now being deployed against the Trump administration—in a Massachusetts courtroom.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction in a class action lawsuit, blocking the administration from terminating legal status and work permits for more than 530,000 foreign nationals—most of whom were flown directly into the U.S. interior under a Biden-era mass parole scheme known as CHNV.

The injunction, like the lawsuit behind it, is riddled with contradictions. The Biden administration granted status through a blanket policy with no individualized review—immigration by algorithm. The Trump administration is being told it cannot revoke that status without individualized review—in a class action demanding collectivized judicial relief for all.

The CHNV case exists in a kind of procedural superposition: simultaneously individualized, collective, and then individualized again—Schrödinger’s jurisdiction, engineered to collapse in whichever direction best obstructs enforcement.

It only makes sense within the twisted logic of the Resistance’s legal playbook.

A Benefit Granted Collectively, Revoked Individually—Then Blocked Collectively Again

The CHNV program—named for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela—was born of bureaucratic fiat, not a legislative mandate.

Under the Biden administration’s “safe and orderly pathways” scheme, migrants could apply for parole through the CBP One app, be pre-approved remotely, and be flown directly into the U.S. interior.

Vetting was minimal, and national security risks were shrugged off. Even the Biden administration was forced to pause the program in 2024 after admitting widespread fraud.

Yet now, one federal judge has issued an injunction blocking the Trump administration’s repeal of the program because parole status cannot be revoked “without case-by-case review.”

The program was created in bulk—immigration by algorithm—but now must be dismantled by hand. That’s the paradox of procedural lawfare: a collective benefit shielded from repeal by invoking the very due process it never afforded.

Worse still, the injunction arises from a class action—where plaintiffs seek collective relief—yet the court demands individualized adjudication before the executive may reverse that same collective policy.

It gets more Orwellian. The court’s ruling never mentions 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1)—which expressly bars class-wide injunctions in immigration enforcement actions, except by the Supreme Court. That statute was reaffirmed in Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez (2022), which forbids lower courts from blocking federal officials from taking actions to enforce, implement, or otherwise carry out immigration law.

This ruling ignores that plain command—and manufactures procedural obstacles to justify its own.

And on what basis? The judge leans heavily on Administrative Procedure Act claims, asserting that the Trump administration’s termination of the program lacked sufficient explanation or process.

Yet the CHNV scheme never underwent formal rulemaking, APA scrutiny, or statutory authorization. Its creation was discretionary. Its revocation should be, too.

Here’s the magic trick the lawfare cartel is pulling: mass entitlement on the way in, procedural martyrdom on the way out.

Rule 23: The Resistance’s Favorite Weapon

The plaintiffs in this case didn’t arrive in court as individual claimants—they were assembled into a class, certified under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

As my previous column detailed, this isn’t isolated.

But there’s something deeper at play. Class actions in immigration law don’t just empower plaintiffs—they empower political lawyers. Class counsel chooses the plaintiffs, defines the claims, and dictates the timing. They turn the courtroom into a war room. And when appellate courts push back, the leftist apparatchiks smear judges to delegitimize the outcome.

Now, they’ve added a twist. Once relief is granted collectively, they pivot—insisting the program can’t be unwound without individualized due process. It’s legal tommyrot: unity when seeking injunctions, atomization when resisting reform.

They want it both ways—and one judge just gave it to them.

One Judge, 530,000 Foreign Nationals

Buried beneath the headlines is a statutory landmine the court wholly ignored.

Talwani’s ruling doesn’t merely pause a Trump policy—it commandeers the executive branch.

By blocking the end of CHNV parole, the court has effectively ordered DHS to continue administering a program that Congress never authorized—one that even the Biden administration suspended after admitting rampant fraud. The policy had no grounding in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Now, the judiciary insists it must remain in place until every single alien receives an individualized hearing.

Over. Half. A. Million.

CHNV was not a discretionary benefit issued after interviews, vetting, or any meaningful humanitarian assessment. It was a mass-entry mechanism—facilitated by the CBP One app—that granted parole based almost entirely on digital paperwork. Applicants were flown directly into the U.S. interior without ever appearing before a border agent or immigration officer.

This wasn’t discretion. It was automation masquerading as executive action—more autopen than Article II.

And it gets worse. The program was riddled with fraud and abuse. In 2024, DHS was forced to pause CHNV after admitting widespread manipulation. The Government Accountability Office flagged the lack of verifiable identity data. Internal reviews revealed mass coordination via Telegram groups and smuggling networks.

Even the Biden administration conceded the system was being gamed.

Yet none of that seems to matter now.

The court compounds its error by treating self-deportation as a kind of civil rights injury. “If Plaintiffs leave the country on their own,” the judge wrote, “they will face dangers in their native countries” and may forfeit the chance to obtain relief under the APA.

But removal was always the natural endpoint of a parole program set to expire. To conflate parole expiration with asylum denial collapses distinct legal categories—and rewrites immigration law from the bench.

And all this comes from a single judge now playing nationwide immigration czar—monitoring DHS compliance, issuing national remedies, and doing so without even acknowledging 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1), which bars lower courts from enjoining immigration enforcement on a class-wide basis.

She has issued an order she cannot give, based on a process that never lawfully existed.

The Lawfare Cartel Is Calling the Shots

There’s something profoundly anti-democratic at work here.

These plaintiffs didn’t show up as individuals. They were constructed—assembled into a Rule 23 class, the progressive legal movement’s favorite procedural crowbar. Class actions in immigration law don’t empower people. They empower class counsel—activist operatives who pick the plaintiffs, frame the narrative, dictate the strategy, and choose the courtroom.

That courtroom becomes a war room. The law becomes leverage. If an appellate court dares to push back? The cartel shifts gears—smearing judges as cruel, corrupt, or worse. It’s not about protecting migrants. It’s about delegitimizing opposition, intimidating institutions, and above all, derailing any enforcement action taken by a duly elected president.

This Ruling Must Not Stand

The administration should appeal immediately, and Congress should consider new legislation clarifying that no entry granted en masse requires individualized review before deportation.

Class-wide injunctions in immigration cases are an unlawful—indeed unconstitutional—seizure of power in real time against the political branches that are answerable to the citizenry of the Republic.

And that’s not democracy. That’s usurpation.

Charlton Allen is an attorney, former chief executive officer, and chief judicial officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is the founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and the host of the Modern Federalist podcast. X: @CharltonAllenNC

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/04/weaponizing_immigration_lawfare_by_class_action_threatens_our_republic.html

The Rioter Cell of the Democrat Party has been Activated

 

By Rajan Laad

Since he entered politics, President Trump has been targeted with numerous Democrat powered “protests.” An entire Wikipedia page is dedicated to these "protests" in which Democrat-funded operatives rampage, resulting in harm to citizens and destruction of property. The Democrats provide legal support to the rioters, beginning with bailing them out if they are arrested. When Democrats riot, the mainstream media propagandists claim that they are exercising their rights as citizens, and even violence is whitewashed.

However, if Trump supporters protest against an unfair election, they are branded as insurrectionists, and the protestors are targeted by government agencies, the way that dissenters are targeted in totalitarian regimes.

There were no major protests or violence from the Democrats since Trump when re-elected last November.

In the Aeneid, set during the Trojan War, the Trojan priest, Laocoön, warns against the Trojan Horse gifted by the Greeks, with the famous words "Timeō Danaōs et dōna ferentēs", i.e., "I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts."

The display of Democrat restraint is aimed at deceiving the public into thinking that they accepted the vox populi and are open-minded about President Trump.  The plan is to claim that with the action, Trump went too far, hence they have no choice but to “protest.”

When DOGE began exposing government excesses, the Democrats thought they found their cause.

In February, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led a 'protest' demanding the revocation of Musk's access to Treasury Department databases. The 'protest' was powered by left-wing extremist bodies such as MoveOn Civic Action, Indivisible, and the Working Families Party. 

The Treasury Department responded that Musk has 'read-only' access to financial information, which is essential for DOGE's analysis and recommendations.

Compulsive attention seekers and 'socialists' Bernie Sanders and AOC launched their 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour the day Trump was elected, and they began 'rallies' in February.

Since March, Tesla dealerships have been targeted. The AP reported that the most violent attacks occurred in left-leaning cities such as Colorado, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle. 

On April 5th, activists across the country protested during the Hands Off! movement that demanded the removal of Trump and Musk. This was powered by a consortium of left-wing groups, with MoveOn at the forefront. 

A few days back, Joe Biden tried to attack President Trump, but as always, had problems mustering words. He was ridiculed for using an anachronistic racist term.

None of these had any impact; Trump's approval ratings soared to new heights.

The latest Democrat ploy is to have their insurgents invade town halls led by GOP lawmakers. ABC News reported the following: 

"Many in Grassley's audience in Iowa expressed concerns over the Trump administration’s refusal to comply with court orders to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a prison in El Salvador, arguing Grassley and Congress haven’t adequately provided checks and balances on the Trump administration, allowing him to defy court orders.

“You going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?” an audience member shouted.

“That’s not a power of Congress,” Grassley responded.

“El Salvador is an independent country… The president of that country is not subject to our U.S. Supreme Court,” he added later.

You could hear a loud groan from a woman before a man yelled, “I’m pissed!”

Another audience member asked, “We would like to know what you, as the people, the Congress, who are supposed to rein in this dictator, what are you going to do about these people who have been sentenced to life imprisonment in a foreign country with no due process?”

Another attendee pressed Grassley on whether he would take action to ensure the United States better follows international law and upholds “the ideals of our country to be a place of hope for others.”

Bill O'Reilly revealed that the 'protestors' were organized by Lee County Democrat activists in Iowa.

Next was the town hall with Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in a county won by Kamala Harris, where matters were much worse. When Green took the stage, a man attempting to charge at her was restrained and dragged out by police officers. Within moments, another individual shouted at Greene. Greene ordered him to leave, and he exited, trailed by an officer. Moments later, another man was tackled and dragged out by police. When he attempted to reenter, officers tased him. Many others engaged in similar behavior.

The Acworth Police Department stated that the disruptors "created an imminent public safety threat for all in attendance."   

Bill O'Reilly revealed that the insurgents were Democrat activists who were bailed out by the Cobb County Democrat committee.

So, how did the media report the Grassley and Green townhalls?

CNN covered it as "GOP Sen. Grassley faces frustrated Iowans at town hall." The NYT claimed that Grassley drew jeers from Iowans. Other Democrat propagandists such as the HuffPo, Newsweek, and NBC News also pushed the narrative of outraged Iowans confronting Grassley.

Taxpayer-funded NPR whitewashed the violence of Democrat insurgents and claimed that the protester who was stun-gunned. A few weeks back, during a hearing, Taylor Green had challenged public funding for NPR. The WSJ and the NYT also pushed the same narrative.

These Democrat-funded insurgents prevented genuine questions from voters at the town hall, which is ironic, since they claimed to be standing for Democracy.

So what does one make of this?

Georgians and Iowans must laud that their representatives are dedicating their Easter break to interact with voters. 

If the Democrats were astute, they would flood the town hall with questions about issues that affect regular people, such as the short-term impact of Trump's tariffs on the economy and the potential impact on citizens due to mistakes made by DOGE. 

Instead, they focused on international law, refugee rights, and an El Salvadoran national, once accused of domestic violence and deported for being a member of the deadly MS-13 gang. The disruptors also pushed the Democrat narratives of a constitutional crisis. Hence, they inadvertently revealed they were Democrat apparatchiks deployed to hijack the town halls. 

The aim behind the display is to drive the perception that the public is rising against Trump and that Trump voters are suffering from buyer's remorse. 

This is merely the beginning. The 50501 organization, funded by the Left, has scheduled nationwide 'protests' on April 19.

Perhaps the pro-Trump media journalist can embark on a perilous mission to interview and expose these 'protestors', who are likely to be clueless about the issues, but turn up for free marijuana.

In the coming weeks, matters could get uglier, and Trump supporters and administration officials could be targeted.

Law enforcement must be empowered to do their job and protect innocent civilians, while the DoJ must ensure that suitable punishment is meted out to the rioters.

There is a silver lining to this ghastly display. The Democrat-led "protests" are proof that the Trump administration is on the right course. Since being inaugurated, Donald Trump has renegotiated fair trade deals with other nations, secured the U.S. border, deported illegal aliens, protected children from gender-altering procedures, brought back hostages from abroad and astronauts stranded in space, targeted gratuitous DEI initiatives, controlled inflation, boosted American energy independence, secured commitments to bring back manufacturing jobs to the U.S., drained the swamp, pursued peace, embarrassed Democrat governors, and much more.

Trump is defending American interests, and this is what enrages Democrats.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/04/the_rioter_cell_of_the_democrat_party_has_been_activated.html

Import the third world ...

 

By Monica Showalter

There's a common saying that comes up any time mayhem is committed by illegal immigrants:

Import the third world, get the third world.

The examples that trigger this saying tend to be crimes that happen everywhere -- murder, robbery, rape, assault -- though the frequencies differ from country to country.

What is common to the third world though, is something more subtle, known as 'informality': the phenomeon of living without rule of law (or property rights).

In any country where you see big shack cities ringing a country's capital on its outskirts, you've got sizable evidence of what Peruvian economists Hernando de Soto identified as 'informality,' meaning, people lack title deed to their homes, cannot sell them, cannot take loans on them, cannot improve them, and don't have access to any true rule of law, though it's common that gangs set up informal rules, and enforce them through force. The strange thing is, the residents of these places are effectively treated like illegal aliens in their own countries, which if that's the case, makes it pretty easy to pull up stakes and live as an illegal alien in another country. After all, what's the difference?

De Soto described this in two brilliant books he wrote a couple decades ago: The Other Path and the Mystery of Capital. David Freddoso wrote an excellent piece about his thinking for Investor's Business Daily in 2015 here.

In the San Fernando Valley area ringing Los Angeles, which is loaded with illegal immigrants, there was an infuriating case of a sports coach who murdered a child in his care.

Illegal alien Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, a Salvadoran, was arrested for murdering Oscar Omar Hernandez, a 13-year-old from Honduras, very likely also an illegal immigrant here with his family. The Times reported that the coach invited the kid to help make soccer jerseys at his home in Palmdale and then commited a lewd act against him, which cops believe the child objected to. They found the boy's body in another county, and eventually the cops caught up to the coach.

The Los Angeles Times tried to write sympathetically about the impact of the crime on the community, describing it as thus:

For years, the bright green turf of Whitsett Fields Park has served as a joyous hub for Los Angeles youth soccer — particularly for thousands of immigrant families in the San Fernando Valley.

On most weekends, the sprawling North Hollywood complex echoes with the shouts of hundreds of boys and girls, as vendors hawk aguas frescas, balloons and candy along the sidelines.

But recently, immense grief and worry have settled over this close, Latin American community.

Just last week, a well-known coach and Salvadoran national was charged with murder in the killing of 13-year-old soccer player Oscar Omar Hernandez during a lewd or attempted lewd act and then dumping the boy’s body in a roadside ditch in Ventura County. The coach, Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, who has not yet entered a plea, has also been charged with sexually assaulting another teen and investigators say there are probably more victims who have yet to come forward.

The teen’s slaying has left many in the youth soccer community profoundly shaken. Some say their faith in a long-trusted institution has been broken, and they question why the coach wasn’t scrutinized more carefully before he was allowed to work so closely with children.

“We have never seen anything of this magnitude,” said José Torres, president of the Proyecto 2000 Soccer League in the San Fernando Valley.

I have great sympathy for them, whatever their immigration status, and if the accused is found guilty, I want him to get the absolute maximum sentence, plus imprisonment in the worst hole the authorities can find for him if they can't get him the death penalty. For an adult to murder a trusting child for pervert reasons is beyond the pale. That CECOT prison in El Salvador was built for people who commit such acts. If a jury finds him guilty, it sounds like the ideal place.

But I can't help but wonder how it could be that this could happen, too.

Sure, it's likely the left will blame America, but just the state of being illegally here made it a lot easier to have happened than it otherwise would have been.

To start, the immigrants emphasized to the Times that they are nice country people unusued to anything so horrible happening.

He and his mother arrived in Los Angeles from the small town of Marcala in Honduras three years ago while his father and the rest of his siblings had already established themselves in the Sun Valley neighborhood.

The boy’s older sister, Alejandra Hernandez, said she sometimes chided her brother for being so trusting, and told her brother that he didn’t always have to talk to people if they greeted him.

“He came from Honduras and we grew up there in the countryside, so we don’t have people like that there, people who are so bad, so crazy,” she said.

That's a little odd, given Honduras's famous crime rate. There are a lot of bad people in that country and in neighboring countries. All the same, she may be telling the truth. The pictures show Marcala as pretty sylvan. Criminals tend to live where the encircling shantytowns -- and the informal sectors -- are. They seem to have come from a remote village of 15,000 not far from the Salvadoran border.

And so they came here three years ago? That sounds like Biden's border surge, though the reporter didn't ask.

Score one for likely informality right there, informal immigration status. After that, everything surrounding them was unofficial, in the shadows, and they were forced to trust people who weren't trustworthy.

The report also says they lived in Sun Valley.

I've been to Sun Valley; I got lost there when I headed to North Hollywood for an event a few years ago.

It was memorable.

It was a bleak place where every sign and billboard was in Spanish, and everything advertised was all about being an illegal alien. It probably has more illegal immigrants than American citizens. Every billboard sign and shopfront was geared toward servicing illegals -- from lawyers to urgings to claim government benefits to sending money home, in addition to storefronts catering to Central American and Mexican immigrants with goods from their homelands.

It was to say the least, informal-looking, with little evidence of anyone owning their own homes. Texas is said to house actual communities that are informal in this way. Obviously, so does Los Angeles. And they are run almost exactly like the shack cities of Tijuana or Caracas -- informally.

Then there was the soccer league itself. The story describes how the boy met the coach as part of his participation in an uncertified soccer league. While we have seen awful things from sports leagues, including the Olympics, the informality, again, enabled the accused soccer coach to move about without scrutiny that other coaches might draw. There had been complaints, but because he was in an unofficial soccer league, he managed to evade scrutiny.

“There are a lot of people in fear,” acknowledged Carballo, who said that Garcia Aquino’s team was not affiliated with Naciones Unidas.

“About eight years ago, he wanted to join my club, but he never wanted to submit to his fingerprints,” recalled Álvaro Chávez, director and president of the U.S. Soccer affiliated Spartans FC. After Garcia Aquino failed to submit to the requirements, Chávez barred him from his club.

Chávez believes that Garcia Aquino remained in independent leagues because he was unwilling to submit to the paperwork required by youth associations affiliated with U.S. Soccer.

Why wasn't there a U.S. Soccer league there that would have screened this predator out? (Goodness knows, they could have found some talent there.)

Informality seems to have pervaded the lives these people lived, though the accused killer, who seems to have been in this country for years, had also figured out how to utilize the formal system to his advantage in addition to the informal sector. Call him bicultural.

Why wasn't he repatriated years ago as an illegal alien? How'd he come to own a home? And did he vote? He certainly had his ties to the formal sector, despite being here illegally, which the poor victims, newly arrived, clearly did not have.

The victim's family did seem to be economic migrants. An ABC7 report said that the boy was excited to have just gotten his first visa, which would enable him to travel home to Honduras and see the rest of his family.

Why wouldn't he have had a visa earlier? If he were a legal immigrant, he would have.

It sounds as though he may have been a DACA kid, the twilight status of which allows homeland visits. That means he came from a family of economic migrants, rather than true asylum cases. A true asylum recipient would not want to travel back to the homeland he sought asylum from, and indeed would lose asylum status if he did.

Informal housing, informal legal status, informal soccer league -- and it doesn't take long for a predator to figure out how to take advantage of the weaknesses of informality, which has expanded much in the U.S. since Joe Biden's border surge, and then commit heinous crimes.

The entire world these people lived in opened the door to this terrible outcome. While I'm not going to blame the victims here, it shows how informality builds on informality until finally, a criminal gets into the picture and uses it to his own evil ends.  That was the world they lived in, and it's terrible that a child was the victim in the end. It's always the children, as we have seen, again and again, who pay the price -- sex-trafficked, forced into child labor, 'disappeared' or victims of criminals -- of this outrageous border surge.

Informality has tremendous costs.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/04/import_the_third_world.html

DOGE shows just how deep illegal immigration rot goes

 

By William Davis

The Trump administration inherited one of the most dire national security crises in American history, and recent reports from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) demonstrate just how costly illegal immigration has been for U.S. citizens.

A series of discoveries from DOGE — headed by Elon Musk — have exposed the degree to which illegal aliens are taking advantage of taxpayer-funded programs and even illegally impacting our elections. A DOGE official recently announced the agency has discovered that millions of foreign nationals are enrolled in Medicaid, and thousands more are registered to vote.

“We mapped this through the benefit programs, we found every benefits program that is being accessed by these people, 1.3 million are on Medicaid right now, today. And by the way, it’s just ramping up, it’s just starting,” DOGE staffer Antonio Gracias said. “We looked at voter rolls and we found that thousands are registered to vote in friendly states. And we looked even further in those friendly states and found that many of those people had actually voted.”

A related report from DOGE found that more than 6,000 foreign nationals who were either on the terrorist watch list or had criminal records were given work permits and Social Security numbers by the Biden administration. DOGE also revealed that the number of noncitizens issued Social Security numbers skyrocketed during each year of Joe Biden’s administration, from 270,425 in 2021 to nearly 2.1 million in 2024. 

Americans understand the damage open borders and illegal immigration has done to their country. It is why they re-elected President Donald Trump, who vowed to fix it. Still, even for those who follow the immigration issue closely, it must be staggering to see the extent of the lawlessness.

Since its inception following Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, DOGE’s mission has been to root out corruption and graft to restore Americans’ faith in their federal government. In no area is this more necessary than immigration, where the federal government’s conduct in recent years can only accurately be described as a betrayal of the citizenry they are supposed to represent.

During Biden’s four years in office, his administration allowed more than 10 million illegal aliens to enter the U.S. These included a record number of suspected terrorists and countless violent criminals, including the illegal aliens responsible for the murders of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and too many others. Beyond the massive human and economic tolls wrought by the previous administration’s lawlessness was the message it sent to the American people and the world at large.

The Biden administration openly and willingly sacrificed America’s sovereignty in service of a lawless anti-borders’ agenda. The very concept of nationhood is built on borders and sovereignty. As the tagline of my organization’s — the Immigration Reform Law Institute — podcast says: “No Border, No Country.”

That the U.S. government voluntarily opened its borders and surrendered its sovereignty for four years is a historic scandal. The lawlessness of the prior administration not only ruined lives but destroyed the trust millions of Americans have in their government to carry out its basic functions such as border security. This is the disaster the Trump administration inherited, and why DOGE’s role is so important.

The president and his deputies deserve immense credit for ending the border crisis and driving illegal crossings down to historic lows in the span of just a few months. They also deserve credit for their efforts to deliver accountability for their predecessors’ disastrous approach to immigration and border security.

It is important for DOGE to establish for the record all the ways past administrations have allowed illegal aliens to take advantage of our country so that the American people through their elected officials can ensure it does not happen again.

While anti-borders activists and politicians rally around suspected illegal alien gang members, more and more Americans are learning about the reality of their government’s sabotage. As DOGE continues to expose the taxpayers largesse that has been lavished on criminal illegal aliens, more Americans will turn against the anti-borders movement.

The reason the anti-borders movement is throwing everything they have at the Trump administration is because they fear the accountability the administration is pursuing. While public opinion tends to fluctuate on most public policy issues, it is unlikely the American people will ever support allowing criminal illegal aliens to access critical public programs such as Medicaid.

Most Americans aren’t aware of just how much of their money has been funneled towards illegal aliens and once they are, they are unlikely to treat those responsible kindly. The people in power responsible for this have a lot to lose from DOGE’s continued exposure of their malfeasance, and they know it.

The American people are strongly opposed to illegal immigration, but most don’t understand how deep the rot goes. DOGE is helping them find out.

William J. Davis is a communications associate for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/04/doge_shows_just_how_seep_illegal_immigration_rot_goes.html