Finish the Wall

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

President Trump stopped the flow of illegal aliens across our southern border by enforcing the law and deporting many of them. This is a remarkable achievement by Trump that many liberals have done everything they could to obstruct.

But illegal aliens are marching toward our border again in anticipation of gains by Democrats in the midterm elections. Already, 400 Honduran migrants were spotted entering Mexico on October 15, as they strode north on track to reach our border after Election Day.

Republicans had begun to build the long-sought border wall along the porous Texas-Mexico border, but Leftist lawfare has halted its construction. The wall is needed to prevent another influx of illegal migrants into our country once Democrats acquire some political power again.

Republicans secured funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill enacted last year for a mixture of sturdy 30-foot-high steel bollard walls, surveillance cameras, and vehicle barriers to stretch across our 2,000-mile southern border. This would bring us closer to the permanent security we need, and also save lives in the dangerous and expensive work of ferreting out elusive migrants who find a way to break into our country any way possible.

These migrants have families back home and that is where they should work toward their future. They can become active politically to import our constitutional government and Rule of Law into their own countries, for the benefit of themselves and their fellow citizens in a country where (unlike here) they speak the native language.

The Big Bend Sector includes 517 miles of the 1,254-mile Texas-Mexico border, and construction was ongoing there until federal district judge Kathleen Cardone ordered a halt on October 2. Bulldozers were merely clearing some land, but even that was too much for liberals who oppose this worthy project.

Judge Cardone has ruled in favor of illegal aliens before, as when she issued an injunction against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to stop illegal aliens suspected of having Covid. This time she has enjoined construction of the border wall in the Big Bend region of West Texas, including Big Bend National Park, which is a corridor for illegal aliens to sneak into our country.

Most district court injunctions can take years to litigate through ordinary appeals, during which migrants could exploit this gap. Trump’s Solicitor General, John Sauer, has wisely taken this issue quickly to the U.S. Supreme Court by filing an application last week for the High Court to allow Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to continue building.

Even experienced attorneys would be surprised to learn that the applicable federal statute prohibits appealing this type of injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which is the typical procedure to run a case up the ladder. Instead, a provision added by the REAL ID Act of 2005 states that this district court injunction “may be reviewed only upon petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

So Trump’s top attorney has done that. Sauer points out in his application that the district court lacked jurisdiction to interfere with the construction of this border wall, and thus the Supreme Court should issue a stay against the district court’s injunction and reverse it.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, as amended in 2005, contains a special jurisdiction-stripping provision as urged by Phyllis Schlafly for this and other issues on which liberals sue for activist rulings to interfere with implementation of the law. The statute takes jurisdiction away from federal courts for legal challenges on this issue, except for claims alleging violations of the Constitution.

There is no plausible constitutional objection to building a border wall. Sauer explained that Congress has granted the Secretary of Homeland Security “broad authority … to construct border barriers and roads ‘to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry,’ and expressly authorized the Secretary ‘to waive all legal requirements’ that he ‘determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.’”

Microsoft, meanwhile, is run by an immigrant and continues to hire many tech workers from India and elsewhere under the H-1B program. This displaces American workers and Microsoft has just announced its attempt to persuade one-quarter of its workforce — a whopping 60,000 employees — to quit in return for a buyout plan.

But workers want a job, not a cheap buyout plan. Fewer than 3,000 of these employees are expected to leave voluntarily, and an axe may fall next.

The Supreme Court set October 29 as the deadline for the plaintiffs who oppose the border wall to respond to Trump’s Solicitor General, who will then have a right to file his reply. This could become the first major decision by the Supreme Court after the upcoming elections.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Riots in Europe Could Happen Here

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Last Saturday more than half a million people took to the streets throughout France, unleashing wanton destruction not seen in decades there. As many as 3,000 businesses and retail stores were vandalized and looted, and some were burned to the ground.

Masked agitators broke into the Limoges Town Hall, a beloved 143-year-old architectural gem in central France, and set it on fire while employees and visitors were inside. Firefighters were unable to save the clock spire and bell tower, which collapsed in a ball of fire viewable on the internet.

These riots have injured an estimated 1,000 French police officers. More than 2,400 arrests have been made, and Paris neighborhoods have imposed a curfew between 11pm and 6am.

The business and financial capital of Italy, Milan, which features an immense Gothic cathedral containing 135 spires, was rocked by similar riots. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, vowed to crack down with emergency measures.

Portugal, Spain, and Albania have also been besieged by large-scale, sometimes violent protests. Tent cities have emerged within Madrid and Lisbon by people unable to afford housing, thereby creating the likelihood of additional crime.

Perhaps anxious about the potential political impact of this Leftist violence on how Americans vote in the midterm elections, the liberal media have blamed the unrest on deteriorating schools and a supposed lack of good teachers. But the French prime minister declared on Monday his conclusion that the “ultra-left movement” is “orchestrating profound disorder.”

Protesters appear to be targeting government buildings for arson, as additional structures were set on fire in Lille, Lyon, and Marseille. President Emmanuel Macron has vowed that those who are targeting public structures “will pay for their crimes.”

Similar riots could come to America if Democrats return to power in the midterm elections. Migrants who view the history of Western civilization with contempt are fueling this crisis, as President Trump and Vice President Vance have pointed out by attributing the violence to mass immigration.

“The migrants have taken over France,” Trump posted on his Truth Social on Monday morning. “They must CLOSE THE BORDERS, FAST!”

“I pray that France, a beautiful country of amazing people, will stop this madness before more of its landmarks burn,” Vance posted. “And I hope Americans are paying attention. This is the future congressional Democrats seek for your country.”

An estimated one out of three residents of France today is an immigrant or has a parent or grandparent who was an immigrant. French identity has nearly been lost, as it has been forfeited in London.

The rioters do not cherish the treasures of French culture. On Monday the government was forced to shut down the Louvre, which houses some of the greatest works of Western civilization, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

There are more than a million foreign students enrolled in American universities, many of whom are subsidized in graduate programs here. But under Trump’s leadership and his efforts to prioritize Americans, this influx of foreigners into our higher education declined for the 2025-26 year.

Republican U.S. Senator Jon Husted (OH) is a former All-American college athlete who is in a tight reelection race that may decide which party controls the U.S. Senate beginning in January. Husted’s race is so close that a Republican-aligned PAC is spending money to support a socialist third-party candidate who could split enough of the Democrat vote for Husted to win.

Husted has introduced bicameral legislation, joined by a House sponsor, to limit the number of foreign athletes to 20% of the varsity rosters of universities participating in federal student-aid programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act. The University of Tennessee at Martin, for example, has a roster of 15 on its men’s basketball team, 14 of whom matriculated from a foreign country.

Roughly 60% of the University at Albany men’s basketball team this year are from foreign countries. These include players from Senegal, Croatia, Qatar, Canada, England, France, and Portugal; the player from Qatar has played professionally before joining the University at Albany college team.

There is no justification for giving taxpayer-funded slots, including scholarships, to foreigners to play on college teams that should be filled by Americans. Husted’s cap on foreign players at schools that accept federal funding should be enacted.

While none of these foreign basketball players are causing unrest here, in Europe the agitation is reportedly being fomented by students with too much time on their hands. Not long ago there was significant strife on our college campuses instigated by foreigners with ties to the Middle East, one of whom has just filed a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court.

If Democrats win the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections, it would be a step backward to the pro-immigration mistakes of the Biden administration.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Trump’s Right in Lowering Diesel Prices

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

President Trump struck a deal last week for Russia to supply diesel immediately to the U.S. to lower the sky-high prices that Americans are paying for this essential fuel. Truckers, farmers, and ranchers are being hit the hardest by the sharp increase in diesel prices, and this cost is passed on to all who rely on trucks for the shipment of goods, which is nearly everyone.

The price today of filling a commercial fuel tank is $1,000 or more in many parts of our country. Russia is the #2 supplier of diesel to the world, after the United States, and the sanctions against Russian sales of diesel during its war with Ukraine have driven up the costs of groceries and much else.

“I made the right choice for the American People — ALWAYS, AMERICA FIRST!” Trump responded on Truth Social to his critics. Globalist Republicans, including Senators John Curtis (R-UT) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), have spoken out against Trump about this but they have squawked against MAGA policies before, as did Curtis’s predecessor Mitt Romney.

Trump points out that the European Union, which continues to provoke Russia by pushing to bring Ukraine into the EU, has paid Russia $250 billion for energy, and yet the “fake news media doesn’t want to get near that story.”

On Tuesday, the EU is opening new negotiations with Ukraine for it to join as a member, which is why Russia continues to fight. The U.S. has reportedly been providing intelligence to Ukraine about Russian movements and targets, but Trump has threatened to suspend that assistance while also calling for a new presidential election in Ukraine to replace Zelensky.

The last presidential election in Ukraine was held more than 7 years ago, on April 21, 2019, when oligarchs pushed this professional comedian into office. Zelensky failed to give many interviews for that office as presidential candidates normally do, and instead shirked the press and traditional forums that would have at least helped him learn what is necessary for the job.

While Zelensky did not attend campaign events in Ukraine and has refused to allow another presidential election, Zelensky did find time to campaign for Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania in 2024, attending one of her events as she attempted to defeat Trump. Many voters of Ukrainian descent live in Pennsylvania and also Ohio, but Trump won both states, including Ohio by a landslide.

Monday marked the 1,693rd day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began under the presidency of Joe Biden. Trump campaigned on ending this war as soon as possible, and he has made every attempt to do so but has not received sufficient cooperation from Zelensky and Europe.

In key battleground states like Iowa, affordable diesel fuel is essential for farmers and others to be able to ship their goods for sale throughout the rest of our big country. Diesel peaked at $6.528 per gallon in the United States a few weeks ago, and has come down a bit since then thanks in part to Trump.

Republicans are struggling to hold onto statewide seats in the heartland of America. A Democrat is ahead in Iowa’s governor’s race, despite how that office has been held by Republicans for 15 years, and its U.S. Senate race is considered a toss-up.

High diesel prices came up in the debate between the telegenic Republican candidate for Senate, Ashley Hinson, and her tenacious Democrat opponent, Josh Turek. Hinson is a former newscaster and congresswoman, while Turek is a state representative and former professional wheelchair basketball player.

Turek is running a social media ad featuring a farmer hit hard by fuel prices. Meanwhile, Hinson said in the debate that the war in the Middle East must end soon, which the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Mike Rogers has also called for in Michigan.

Trump is right that Americans should not be burdened with higher energy costs due to the perpetual war between Russia and Ukraine. Diesel prices are roughly 65% to 71% higher than a year ago, which is more than twice the increase in the price of gasoline during the same time period.

Ukrainian officials ask what they are getting in return for Trump relaxing the diesel sanctions on Russia, but the U.S. has already sent hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and military supplies to Ukraine, along with crucial military intelligence. Americans have received nothing in exchange for all this.

Americans should not be forced to fund, through inflation, the globalist scheme to make Ukraine part of the EU, which Russia is fighting to stop. If European leaders at the EU insist on continuing to antagonize Russia, they should bear the costs of that rather than burdening Americans.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Phyllis Family Book on the List

Someone compiled an Alex Jones reading list:

• Dune. (1999, 2024, 2025)

• Craig Roberts’s Kill Zone: A Sniper Looks at Dealey Plaza. (2001)

• Heinz Höhne’s The Order of the Death’s Head. (2002)

• H. G. Wells’s The New World Order. (2002)

• Celerino Castillo’s Powder Burns. (2004)

• Goethe’s Faust, “the original.” (2005)

• The Orwell Reader. (2005)

• Jerome Corsi’s Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders. (2006)

• Marc Stevens’s Adventures in Legal Land. (2006)

• Machiavelli’s The Prince. (2007)

• William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. (2007)

• Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (2007)

• Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope. (2007)

• Edward Bernays’s Propaganda, along with an unnamed second “major” Bernays book. (2008)

• Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. (2012, 2021)

• Gary Allen’s None Dare Call It Conspiracy. (2012)

• Walter Langer’s The Mind of Adolf Hitler.(2012)

• Nuclear Roulette. (2012)

• Freud’s General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. (2013)

• Phyllis Schlafly’s Who Killed the American Family? (2014)

• Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception and Brave New World Revisited. (2014, 2024)

• Brad Thor’s Code of Conduct. (2015)

• Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal. (2018)

• Arthur C. Clarke Childhood’s End (2019)

• Mein Kampf. (2020)

• John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich’s Ecoscience. (2021)

• Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, plus Time-Life encyclopedias about the occult and the Old West. (2022)

• Anatoliy Golitsyn’s The Perestroika Deception. (2022)

• Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. (2024)

• William Bramley’s The Gods of Eden. (2024)

• J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. (2024)

• William Cooper’s Behold a Pale Horse. (2025)

Trump Wins Again Against Illegal Migration

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The Supreme Court delivered another victory for President Trump on the issue of illegal migration on Monday. The High Court reversed a decision by an Obama-appointed judge that had blocked the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for illegal aliens from Venezuela.

Enacted in 1990, the TPS program grants temporary protection for illegal aliens from being deported to countries harmed by wars, earthquakes, or other life-threatening disruptions. But “temporary” is the key word here; beneficiaries of the TPS program are allowed to remain only for a while before returning home, yet Justice Alito observed that “TPS designations in practice have often lasted for decades.”

President Biden extended TPS to more than 600,000 illegal aliens from Venezuela by misusing this program. All told, migrants from 17 different countries totaling more than 1 million illegal aliens were being harbored by the Biden Administration under the TPS program before Trump took office.

Trump has successfully terminated 13 of the 17 designations, and on June 25 the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s authority to shut these programs down in Mullin v. Doe. This set a clear precedent for Trump to terminate the remaining TPS programs, too.

TPS does not bring the migrants here. The South American migrants mostly crossed our southern border illegally and then the TPS program has been used by Democrats to shelter them from being deported.

Venezuela and Haiti were two of the remaining countries with TPS, of which Venezuela poses the greater risk. The terrible Tren de Aragua gang is in Venezuela, and young men associated with that gang snuck into our country illegally and yet were not deported by the Biden administration.

On Monday, three alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were sentenced to 20 years in prison for kidnapping and torturing a Denver man in 2024, and a fourth defendant will be sentenced later this year. They had demanded a ransom from his wife and, when she did not pay it, they cut off the victim’s pinky finger.

President Biden granted special TPS protection to Venezuelans in 2021 and 2023. But there was no war in Venezuela, or a devastating earthquake, to justify keeping so many Venezuelans in our country.

Instead, there was a socialist regime, as is common in some South American nations, like Brazil today. The response to that is for the citizenry to defeat the socialist in power, as Brazilians took a step toward that on Sunday by voting against its incumbent President Lula.

When a gang of Venezuelan migrants besieged an apartment building in Colorado while brandishing guns, this became a campaign issue in 2024. The management company asserted that the migrants were also members of the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Time to go home, Trump indicated, by terminating the TPS program for Venezuela, as Trump has done for more than a dozen countries. But an Obama-appointed judge has blocked this.

Federal District Judge Edward M. Chen accused Trump of having “animus” toward the Venezuelans, and of terminating TPS based on an improper discriminatory purpose. He held last year that this issue of animus could go before a jury to decide whether Trump and the Secretary of Homeland Security were improperly motivated by “animus,” which is silly because there is nothing unconstitutional about having animus toward aliens who enter our country illegally.

Trump’s Solicitor General John Sauer filed a petition to overturn this ruling with the Supreme Court on July 9, while the Court was on summer break. It reopened on Monday, and one of its first actions was to rule in favor of Trump by overruling the lower court decision against him.

The Court also held in favor of Trump on his partial termination of the TPS program for Haiti. Recall that the presence of tens of thousands of Haitians in Ohio, particularly in the town of Springfield, was a winning campaign issue that Trump forcefully spoke about at his debate with Kamala Harris.

Grassroots opposition to migration into Europe has led to success by conservative parties in elections there. The European Union tightened its rules against migration in response to the public opposition to it.

The current riots in the suburbs of Paris are concentrated where there are large immigrant populations, leading some to suspect that migrants are fomenting the unrest. The stated cause of poor school conditions seems unlikely to be the real source of the enormous violence.

Trump has kept that from occurring here by deporting foreign criminals and ending the sheltering of illegal aliens. This has prevented riots by disgruntled mobs that have blighted European countries, and which could happen in the U.S. if the pro-migration policies of Democrats return.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.