FIRST ON FOX: The co-chair of the House Border Security caucus is raising the alarm about reports of ‘unattended’ ports of entry at the northern border with Canada – even as migrant encounters have increased significantly in recent years.

‘We are concerned with recent reports from concerned citizens and members of the public that ports of entry (POEs) along the United States’ border with Canada are being left open and unattended for extended periods of time,’ Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Troy Miller.

‘This information accompanies publicly available reporting on increases in illegal border crossings along the Northern border, including by foreign nationals from countries in Asia and the Middle East,’ he said, along with Reps. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., and Tom Tiffany, R-Wis.

There have so far been over 98,000 migrant encounters at the northern border this fiscal year, after 109,535 encounters in FY 2022. While only a fraction of the millions encountered at the southern border, it marks a sharp increase from the 27,000 encountered in FY 2020. The border, which is 5,525 miles, only has 115 ports of entry. 

Biggs said that his sources have indicated that CBP agents and staff ‘may have been instructed to open POEs for periods up to 24 hours per day, and citizens are concerned about the long periods of time when POEs are open without sufficient supervision or surveillance by CBP personnel.’

As part of the House’s oversight duties, Biggs asks for information about hours of operation for ports, as well as information about staffing levels and documents related to the opening hours of ports of entry at the northern border.

In a statement to Fox, Biggs said that Americans ‘deserve to know why their borders are not being secured.’

‘Now that the Biden Administration has dismantled our southern border security, they have moved to dismantle our northern border security,’ he said. ‘It’s unconscionable to hear that the Biden Administration would authorize inadequately supervised or even completely unmanned ports of entries. The American people deserve to understand the extent of this problem. There are numerous recent intelligence reports revealing that the northern border is experiencing an unprecedented surge in illegal border crossings—including by foreign nationals from terror-prone countries.’

The northern border was at the center of a new agreement with Canada in March that means that migrants who attempt to cross illegally between ports will be returned as part of an effort to deter illegal migration at the border. It updates a 2004 Safe Third County Agreement, which did not deal with illegal immigration.

Earlier this year, Fox News reported that Border Patrol was appealing for volunteers to deal with the surge, which was attributed to ‘Mexican migrants with no legal documents.’ One sector reported an 856% increase in encounters at the border.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have launched a Northern Border Security Caucus to come up with solutions to the ongoing challenges faced at the often overlooked border. 

The number of people arrested in FY 2023 by Border Patrol at the southern border who are on the FBI’s terror watchlist has hit a new record at the end of May, according to new data released on Tuesday.

As of the end of May, there have been 125 arrests at the southern border between ports of entry by Border Patrol since the fiscal year began in October. 

That is higher than FY 2022’s 98 encounters, which itself broke a record. In FY 21 there were just 15 arrests and in FY 20 just three. In FY 19, there were zero at the southern border between ports of entry.

Numbers of encounters of those on the watchlist entering through ports of entry and encountered by Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) typically eclipse those encountered between ports of entry.

So far in FY 2023, there have been 337 encountered at the northern and southern ports so far, compared to 380 in FY 2022 and 157 in FY 21.

The watch list, officially called the Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS) is the government’s database that ‘contains sensitive information on terrorist identities.’

‘The TSDS originated as the consolidated terrorist watchlist to house information on known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals,’ CBP says.

While the number is relatively small, compared to the millions of migrants encountered at the borders in recent years, Republicans and former border officials have raised concern about the numbers of those on the terror watch list who are getting past Border Patrol agents.

There were at least 599,000 illegal immigrants who escaped Border Patrol custody in FY 2022, after more than 390,000 in FY 2021.

Overall in May at the southern border, there were 204,561 migrant encounters at both the ports and between them, bringing the total for the fiscal year so far to 1.6 million encounters. That’s compared to nearly 2.4 in FY 2022 and over 1.7 in FY 2021.

The data comes as DHS announced that Deputy Secretary John Tien is retiring in July – marking another high-profile loss for the agency, which has already announced the departures of its Border Patrol chief and acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director.

A South Carolina school district will remove unlawful critical race theory from its curriculum after a South Carolina Freedom Caucus lawsuit.

A Tuesday settlement agreement between the state Freedom Caucus and Lexington County School District One requires the district to terminate its contract with EL Education after an employee was caught describing how to circumvent South Carolina’s anti-CRT law, the Freedom Caucus said in a press release.

South Carolina has a budget stipulation which prohibits critical race theory-derived ideas through the school funding process.

The settlement in the Lexington Court of Common Pleas requires the Lexington district, which contains 31 schools and more than 28,000 students, to fully comply with all South Carolina laws prohibiting CRT instruction and training for students, teachers, and other staff. 

‘The terms of this settlement agreement show Lexington School District One was caught red-handed peddling the Left’s pernicious, racist nonsense,’ South Carolina Freedom Caucus vice chairman RJ May said. ‘This is a win for the Freedom Caucus, for parents, but most importantly, this is a win for students who will no longer be subjected to radical, liberal indoctrination by the District.’

In October, the South Carolina Freedom Caucus obtained a five-minute recording of Tarika Sullivan, a professional development specialist for EL Education, saying the education non-profit has ‘allies’ and ‘co-conspirators’ who are willing to teach outlawed CRT concepts ‘even if [they] get in trouble.’

Sullivan touted the tenets of CRT, including ‘culturally relevant pedagogy’ and considering what ‘parts of your identity are privileged.’ EL Education works with a number of South Carolina schools in developing curriculum that ‘goes against mainstream teaching,’ she said. 

 ‘Antiracism’ is ‘at the core’ of EL Education’s curriculum, its website says. 

Freedom Caucus chairman Adam Morgan said the caucus will continue fighting for parents, teachers, and students. The Freedom Caucus is part of an ongoing lawsuit with the Charleston County School District for also teaching suspected CRT-derived ideas.

‘Career politicians, afraid to take on the teacher unions and education establishment, gaslit parents across South Carolina when we filed this lawsuit by claiming CRT wasn’t in our classrooms,’ Morgan said. 

The Lexington County district’s curriculum includes several books which promote critical race theory, according to the Freedom Caucus’ 31-page complaint. 

Students read ‘This Book is Anti-Racist’ by Tiffany Jewell, which teaches children that ‘if you are white,’ one automatically has ‘internalized racial superiority,’ and ‘The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person,’ which states, ‘We have a White people problem.’ 

Teachers in the district have also conducted ‘privilege tests,’ in which White students were separated across a room from ‘oppressed’ minority students, the Freedom Caucus complaint says. 

‘Despite the naysayers, the Freedom Caucus persevered, and won,’ Morgan said. ‘It’s time for our moderate Republican colleagues to support the conservative values the SCFC is championing.’

EL Education and Lexington County School District One did not respond to Fox Digital’s request for comment by time of publication. 

A proposed tax credit to recruit new teachers, nurses and police officers passed through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives with bipartisan support on Tuesday, but leaders of the Republican-controlled Senate have suggested it lacks support in the caucus.

The bill passed 137-66, with every Democrat and about one-third of Republicans supporting it.

The tax credit is a key element of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal that he hopes will attract more people into Pennsylvania’s ranks of police officers, nurses and teachers amid nationwide shortages in the fields.

The bill would provide a tax credit of up to $2,500 annually for three years for a Pennsylvania resident after they become certified, or after they move to Pennsylvania with a state-recognized credential.

To earn the full tax credit, however, a worker would have to make almost $82,000 — far above the starting salaries of the vast majority of nurses, teachers and officers.

Still, Democrats said that the legislation would help address the ‘acute shortages’ in the addressed industries.

‘In no area are those shortages more painful and potentially more dangerous than the area of policing, nursing and the teachers that provide for our children,’ said House Majority Leader Matthew Bradford, D-Montgomery.

Republican leadership criticized the legislation as not helping the workers already in the field.

It next goes to the Senate, where Republican leadership has referred to the measure as a ‘Band-Aid approach,’ and said it lacks the caucus’s support.

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Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed into law a bipartisan proposal to provide financial aid to Milwaukee, as well as allow the city and county to raise the local sales tax.The move is intended to allow Milwaukee to avert looming threats of bankruptcy. ‘For far too long, our local communities have been forced to do more with less,’ Evers said, adding that ‘we’ve seen the consequence of that play out in communities across Wisconsin.’

Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called it a ‘historic day’ before he signed a bipartisan bill on Tuesday that sends more money to Milwaukee and gives both the city and county the ability to raise the local sales tax in an effort to avoid bankruptcy.

The measure also sends 36% more money overall to every other smaller city, town, village and county in Wisconsin, part of a deal Evers struck with Republican legislative leaders to also increase funding for K-12 public schools and send more money to private schools that accept voucher students.

Evers signed the bill surrounded by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers, Milwaukee leaders and local officials in Wausau. Local governments have been clamoring for more state aid following years of cuts or stagnant funding that have forced cuts to essential services like police and fire protection.

‘For far too long, our local communities have been forced to do more with less,’ Evers said. ‘And we’ve seen the consequence of that play out in communities across Wisconsin.’

He said communities have been ‘forced to make impossible decisions about what essential services to fund.’

Milwaukee’s leaders had warned of catastrophic cuts if the bill was not enacted. Milwaukee is struggling with an underfunded pension system and not enough money to maintain essential police, fire and emergency services.

State Sen. LaTonya Johnson, of Milwaukee, said at the bill signing ceremony that the city was ‘on the verge of insolvency’ that would have required laying off hundreds of police and firefighters, among others. The additional funding provides a lifeline, she said.

‘It is our city’s opportunity to start over,’ Johnson said.

The roughly $1 billion in aid to local governments — known as shared revenue — would be paid for by tapping 20% of the state’s 5-cent sales tax. Aid would then grow along with sales tax revenue. The measure increases current aid by about $250 million statewide.

The new law also allows the Milwaukee Common Council and Milwaukee County Board to vote on raising local sales taxes, a power they did not have.

Some Republicans in the Legislature had wanted to require a vote of the people before those local sales taxes could be raised. But Milwaukee leaders, Democrats and some Republicans argued the need for more funding was too critical to leave to a referendum vote that could fail.

With Evers’ signing the bill, the focus now shifts to those Milwaukee governing boards to see if they will vote to approve the increase.

The shared revenue program to fund local governments, created in 1911, has remained nearly unchanged for almost 30 years, despite overall growth in tax revenues. Shared revenue for counties and municipalities was cut in 2004, 2010 and 2012 and since then has been relatively flat.

The Legislature passed the bill on a bipartisan vote last week.

While the focus of the new law is sending more money to Wisconsin’s local governments, it also includes a wide array of other provisions.

Those include cutting aid to communities that reduce the number of police officers and firefighters and banning public health officials from ordering businesses closed for more than 30 days without approval from a local governing board, which could extend closures for only an additional 30 days.

The law also forbids local communities from putting advisory referenda questions on the ballot, except those related to certain projects that would be funded with property tax money. The bill would not allow questions on hot-button issues like whether voters support abortion rights, accept Medicaid expansion or legalize marijuana, which many communities across the state have put forward in recent years.

The law also targets diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

It prevents Milwaukee from using tax money for ‘funding any position for which the principal duties consist of promoting individuals or groups on the basis of their race, color, ancestry, national origin or sexual orientation.’

The law also says that no local government ‘may discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment on the basis of, race, color, ancestry, national origin, or sexual orientation in making employment decisions.’

It further requires Milwaukee Public Schools to return at least 25 police officers, known as school resource officers, to its schools by Jan. 1.

Evers also signed the measure increasing funding for schools, which some Democrats objected to because it also increases funding to private schools that accept voucher students. Evers, a former state education secretary, heralded the additional $1 billion in money for K-12 schools, including more for special education, literacy programming and mental health services.

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Lawyer for hip-hop artist Kodak Black, who was charged with the same federal weapons crime as Hunter Biden and sentenced to over three years in prison, slammed the prison-free plea deal reached by the Justice Department and the president’s son.

‘There’s no such thing as not getting jail time on a gun charge on any kind of gun charge,’ Bradford Cohen, criminal defense attorney for Black, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

The Justice Department announced Tuesday that Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax. The younger Biden also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement with regard to a separate charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

Cohen commented in a Tuesday Instagram post reacting to the news: ‘2 tiers of justice? Kodak was charged for the same crime. Got over 3 years. Mr. Biden will not serve a day. Feels right? Do FBI agents and federal authorities take cases personally?’

In 2019, then 22-year-old Black, who had prior convictions, was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to weapons charges. He admitted that he falsified information on federal forms to buy four firearms from a Miami-area gun shop on two separate occasions.

Black was pardoned and had his 46-month sentence commuted in 2021 by then-President Donald Trump.

In speaking with Fox Digital on Tuesday, Cohen said the DOJ’s plea deal with the younger Biden is out of step with a prosecutor’s typical treatment of federal crimes, especially when they involve public figures.

‘I’ve never seen anyone where this offense was charged,’ Cohen said, ‘and they didn’t get some sort of prison sentence. And in fact, most of the time in federal court, you very rarely see people get anything but a prison sentence.’

Cohen noted the case involving actress Felicity Huffman, who was charged and sentenced to two weeks in prison as part of a college-admissions scandal in which she paid to boost her daughter’s admission into college.

‘So, in this Felicity, Huffman case, to give the woman two weeks in prison, you know that you actually have to surrender yourself going for two weeks, change her clothes out to all this stuff, for literally 14 days. And this guy gets absolutely nothing? I’ve just never seen it happen.’

‘A federal crime is supposed to be a federal crime,’ Cohen went on. ‘And federal crimes are supposed to be very serious federal crimes, and that’s why you look at prison sentences.’

Cohen also bashed the inclusion of the ‘diversion program,’ which is a form of pretrial sentencing aimed a remedying the behavior that led to the offense – something that he said was extremely rare in federal cases.

‘I think that this is like, you know, they figured the easiest way for them to save face [was] to charge him, not give him prison, and then hope that [Joe] Biden doesn’t give him a pardon until he’s on his way out two years,’ the lawyer said.

‘So, they get a couple of couple years of probation out of them.’

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed a $15.2 billion two-year state budget into law Tuesday, capping off a surprisingly smooth legislative session.

It was the first time since 1999 that lawmakers sent the governor a budget without having House and Senate negotiators craft a compromise between the two chambers. The cooperation displayed by the 400-member House was particularly notable, given that Republicans hold such a slim majority that attendance often has determined which party prevailed on any given day.

Sununu called it a ‘bipartisan miracle budget’ that serves families, students, workers and businesses well.

‘Everyone gave a little to get a lot. This budget proves that with a near evenly split legislature, here in New Hampshire, we’re able to come together and deliver for the people of the Granite State to unlock unprecedented opportunity,’ he said in a statement. ‘Today is proof that with the right approach, good government is still possible.’

Highlights include the largest increase in state worker salaries in nearly 50 years, elimination of the interest and dividends tax by 2025, $141 million for public schools as well as investments in affordable housing.

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President Biden attended a fundraiser Monday hosted by a tech billionaire recently discovered to have traveled to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2014.

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman hosted Monday’s fundraiser on behalf of Biden’s re-election campaign and in support of the Biden Victory Fund at the private residence of Shannon Hunt-Scott and Kevin Scott in Los Gatos, California.

According to a May report from The Wall Street Journal, Hoffman visited the Caribbean island called Little St. James, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, on at least one occasion. 

The island is where Epstein and fellow convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly abused underage girls.

Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott was also listed as a host for the event. 

A fellow attendee on the occasion Hoffman traveled to Epstein’s island was then-MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito, who confirmed Hoffman’s trip to The Journal, and said Reid attended at his request in order to raise funds for MIT.

The Journal’s report included an apology from Ito for having ever traveled to the island, but Hoffman has not publicly done the same. Hoffman did, however, tell The Journal that it ‘gnaws’ him that his association with Epstein ‘helped his reputation, and thus delayed justice for his survivors.’

The report said the two were planning to return to the island in November 2014, and then travel with Epstein to Boston. It’s unclear what the intent was for those planned trips, however the report also revealed Hoffman was planning to stay at Epstein’s luxury Manhattan townhouse in Dec. 2014 after a late arrival in New York City.

Hoffman told The Journal that his last interaction with Epstein was in 2015 when he invited Epstein to a Silicon Valley dinner with tech industry leaders.

In Sept. that same year, Hoffman attended a state dinner hosted by then-Vice President Biden at the White House in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Ito resigned from his position at MIT following Epstein’s arrest in 2019.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Biden’s attendance at the Silicon Valley fundraiser comes amid a barnstorming through California with four events in the San Francisco area.

At the first of two fundraisers on Monday, Biden said democracy itself was at stake in the 2024 election.

He also claimed his administration has helped voters have ‘a sense of confidence in the Constitution.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Former President Trump claimed Monday that a conversation he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin delayed the country’s invasion of Ukraine for several years.

Trump made the claim during an exclusive interview on Fox News’ ‘Special Report,’ describing the conversation to anchor Bret Baier, when he told Putin an invasion would be a ‘catastrophe,’ and that there would be ‘hell to pay.’

‘With Putin, I have a very good relationship. I mean, I haven’t spoken to him in a long while, but I had a very strong relationship,’ Trump said when asked how he would end the war within 24 hours, as he’s stated on numerous occasions. 

When asked about the invasion, the former president said of Putin: ‘He wouldn’t have done it if it were me. He did it after I left.’

‘I thought he might do it,’ Trump continued. ‘Look, I talked to him. I said, if you do it, there’s going to be hell to pay. It’s going to be a catastrophe. Don’t do it.’

Putin initially did not believe Trump would take any action, according to Trump, but he pushed back: ‘I told him I was going to do something. He said, ‘No, no, no, you will not do that.’ I said, I will, Vladimir, I will do it. I’m going to do it.’

Trump, also a 2024 presidential candidate, said that Putin believed ‘maybe 10%’ of what he was saying, but that 10% was ‘all you needed’ to stop the invasion from happening. ‘It was only after I left [office] that you started hearing about this,’ he added.

When asked whether he thought Ukraine was a separate country from Russia, Trump stated it was, but that it used to be one country, and ‘Putin liked it that way.’

As for the current conflict, the presidential candidate said he would not weigh in on what might be involved in a negotiation between the two countries — such as Russia keeping control of Crimea — as it would ‘impede a negotiation.’

However, he said he could negotiate a resolution ‘within 24 hours.’

‘But I’m telling you, within 24 hours – that’s what I did. I became very rich by doing deals. Very rich. And you know what? Much more so than people even understand. And that’s what I do,’ Trump said. 

‘I would have a deal done in 24 hours from the time we started. And I would tell Zelenskyy something and I would tell Putin something, and I’d get him into a room, and I’d tell him again, and again,’ Trump said. 

He added: ‘I would have a deal done very quickly. And you know what? The death would stop, and the destruction would stop because, look, Ukraine has been wiped out.’

Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine has lasted more than 480 days.