Was the government planning for an influx of illegal immigrants on the border?

Sara Carter, senior Washington correspondent for TheBlaze, joined The Glenn Beck Program Monday night to talk to guest host Dana Loesch about the escalating crisis along the border. Recent reports have claimed that the Obama administration spent months preparing for a surge of illegals on the border. What did they know and how did they know it? Sara Carter went into detail on what her investigation has uncovered.

Below is a transcription of the segment:

Dana: Last week, we learned that the federal government was looking for vendors to help escort illegal immigrant children this past January. Here is the exact text posted to fedbizops.gov. It says, “ICE is seeking the services of a responsible vendor that shares the philosophy of treating all UAC with dignity and respect, while adhering to standard operating procedures and policies that allow for an effective, efficient, and incident free transport.”

It says also that “The Contractor shall provide unarmed escort staff, including management, supervision, manpower, training, certifications, licenses, drug testing, equipment, and supplies necessary to provide on-demand escort services for noncriminal/non-delinquent unaccompanied alien children ages infant to 17 years of age, seven (7) days a week, 365 days a year.”

The ad goes on to say that “Transport will be required for either category of UAC or individual juveniles, to include both male and female juveniles. There will be approximately 65,000 UAC in total: 25% local ground transport, 25% via ICE charter and 50%t via commercial air.” So who is paying for this? Oh right, we are. We’re paying for escorts to ease the illegal immigrants’ illegal entry into our country while a Marine sergeant named Andrew Tahmooressi sits in the Tijuana prison.

Now, how exactly did the U.S. government know that 65,000 illegal immigrant children would be arriving across our border? Now, Texas Governor Rick Perry, he couldn’t take Washington’s inaction and the seeming coordination of this border violating effort, so he ordered up a border surge, authorizing the Texas Department of Public Safety to commence surge operations along the border. It comes at a cost of $1.3 million per week, and it’s going to continue through the end of the year.

Attorney General Greg Abbott has requested an additional $30 million in federal funding from the Department of Homeland Security’s Jeh Johnson because at the very least, the federal government could maybe kind of help pay to work a problem that they created, right? The number of illegal immigrants crossing the border is staggering. Get this, border patrol caught 160,000 illegal immigrants crossing the border in the Rio Grande Valley in the first eight months of the fiscal year alone, right?

Health professionals have raised awareness and a lot of concerns asking a lot of questions about the transmission of disease because those crossing likely haven’t received the same immunizations that U.S. children have received. So why are these numbers increasing? One report is that it’s due to amnesty rumors. Maybe it’s due to our lax reaction to the crime of illegal crossing. I mean, we’re loading illegal immigrants onto planes and buses and shipping them to other parts of the Southwest to sort of kind of like spread the flood.

There are stories of border patrol agents acting as surrogate parent instead of policing the border. Of everyone I spoke to who has been to the border who has worked with law enforcement in detaining immigrants as they illegally cross, there is one great absence. All of the people who claim that denying illegal entry into our country is a great evil, none of them are actually at the border helping with this humanitarian crisis.

I know of stories of church pastors in border towns who are sheltering kids to protect them from drug cartels and the elements. I see those; I don’t see the advocates of open borders and amnesty though. I see them using the government to do their charity, and that’s pretty much the extent of it. I mean, does this look like charity to you? Does this look like charity?

Are any of these people even down south to volunteer to process paperwork, care for the detained children? Are they there to help walk immigrants through the legal way to immigrate? No, instead they claim that a desire to observe law is cruel and unusual.

We love immigration in America, and we have every right to be discriminatory that we want the best of the best, the best laborers, the best business owners, the brightest students, but we don’t even require that. We just say can you come here legally? We’re not Ireland with their beyond restrictive immigration policy. We’re not even close to Mexico, whose immigration laws are more draconian than our own.

We simply ask that people respect our sovereignty, respect our citizens, and follow the legal path of immigration the same as every other immigrant. The open border policy and amnesty chaos, and make no mistake, that’s exactly what it is, it’s designed chaos to make policy happen fait accompli. Their anything-goes policy on immigration is actually hurting the people they claim to want to help, the immigrants crossing illegally.

Now, Sara Carter from our D.C. bureau joins us to delve into this issue. So Sara, first off, thanks so much for joining me.

Sara: Thanks Dana.

Dana: I was reading, as you just heard, talking about the fedbizops or whatever .gov, where ICE actually put on, it’s like a Craigslist ad basically asking for escorts. This was back in January. How on earth did they have such keen insight into what our needs would be at the border now, Sara?

Sara: Yeah, you know, Dana, I think a lot of people actually didn’t think this was true. I think they thought that when this showed up on Weasel Zippers, you know, on a website, that they thought this was a false ad. It was not. I contacted my sources at ICE official headquarters. Barbara Gonzalez confirmed that it was in fact an official RFI from ICE and that they were looking for these escorts.

I dug a little deeper and found out that actually there were reports done as early as January 2013 predicting this surge. The administration was well aware of the fact that there was something coming across the border. When you look all the way back to 2010, unaccompanied minors was a little over 5,000. Then we see a big jump in 2011, and now we’re expecting 90,000 unaccompanied minors this year. I think what was surprising to a lot of people, now mind you, this is a DHS, these were DHS studies, U.S. intelligence studies last year that I was able to find out.

They had conducted at least two in January and February, and then in October there was actually an official meeting with high-level DHS officials about this. And the only thing that they were really concerned about according to sources that I spoke with was bed space. They were not concerned at all with notifying the local communities about this increased surge that they were expecting. They were not concerned about notifying the appropriate authorities or putting any stopgap measures into stopping these folks from coming over.

And you mentioned a lot of the reasons and a lot of the potential harm that comes from this large immigrant surge coming from Central America into the United States.

Dana: What is making these numbers jump up so much? I mean, you had said, and you’ve covered this and done such a great job for TheBlaze.com. There are stories that there were ads, that some of these immigrants saw, I guess, like in their – tell me the story about that. Like what is, like ads in their newspapers in Mexico?

Sara: Yes, and it wasn’t in Mexico. It’s actually in Central America. I felt very fortunate that I was able to go out with border patrol sources that were able to get me right to the front lines so when a lot of the illegal immigrants crossed or illegal migrants crossed the border I was able to talk to them. I speak Spanish fluently, and they were very open.

None of them were running away from the border patrol. In fact, they were walking right up to border patrol officials and turning themselves in because they actually believed when they cross the border, once they touched American soil that they would be able to stay here. And when I asked them, you know, you made this long journey, some of them took 15 days, some of these young kids rode on top of a train they call the beast by themselves and then got picked up by cartels along the way and human trafficking organizations that eventually brought them all the way up to the border.

The family units which are the mothers with their children, they went through the same kind of, I mean, really horrific journey from home all the way to the United States border until they cross the Rio Grande, and they said they saw it in newspapers, they heard it on their television on Univision, which is one of the major Spanish language television networks, on their TV shows.

There was even talk of flyers actually being distributed in some Central American towns saying go to America now, and I wish I could get my hands on one of these flyers. I asked all of the migrants if they had any on them, and they didn’t. You know, obviously they took the flyers and got rid of them on their long journey, but they actually had some flyers in some of the towns.

And they said that family members were actually contacting them from the United States and saying now is the time to come in, the administration is not going to send you back. And look, by all accounts, if you’re an unaccompanied minor, they’re not going to send you back. And if you’re here with your children, they’re not going to send you back right now.

You know, despite what we hear coming out of the Obama administration, when you talk to ICE officials, when you talk to DHS officials about this, when you talk to border patrol officials, there are no plans to send a lot of these folks back.

When you think about how many people are released in the United States every year, every year, just with an order to appear in court, piece of paper, and they never show up at court, and they never get returned back home, what makes us think that right now we’re going to return children where we have no idea where their families are back to their countries of origin? I would be surprised if the Obama administration moves on this.

Dana: And how many, Sara, I know that they are loading up illegal immigrants on trains and planes and sort of spreading the deluge that’s coming across the border. Do we know how many are being relocated?

Sara: Oh yeah, I mean thousands. We’re looking at estimates right now, inside the Rio Grande Valley sector alone are over 1,000 illegal immigrants crossing a day, over 36,000 a month. This is just in the Rio Grande Valley area. So this is not including, this includes actually unaccompanied minors which are about 200-plus, give or take, a day.

On the morning that I left Texas, Dana, and I love Texas, and I’ve got my own pair of cowboy boots too, but on the morning that I left Texas, Wednesday morning, 300 people showed up in one shot right at Anzalduas State Park across the Rio Grande. I mean, this was just one group. I think this was like the biggest group, what they call groupings, that they had so far. So 300 people just showed up in one shot right across the river. That doesn’t include all the people coming across the river all day and night and the people preparing to cross.

So what we’re seeing here is an enormous crisis, and you’re right, health officials are very concerned because a lot of the people are being, and for the people themselves, they’re being moved and transported without any type of medical check or medical clearance. And I think this is something that we need to be concerned with.

Dana: What is being done at least, I mean, because you see all the, I mean, these photos are just, like it’s hard to see it, you know, these people in detention centers. It’s hard, I mean, regardless of how you feel about the issue, but at the same time, you know, I listen to what a lot of these health professionals have been saying.

And Sara, you’ve talked about this. We don’t know, obviously they probably aren’t on the same immunization schedule as children in the United States. There are a lot of legitimate health concerns that are here. Is there anything being done at the border to remedy? I mean, what can be done? I mean, honestly, it’s an overflow.

Sara: Well, it is an overflow. This is what’s happening, when the border patrol actually gets like a group, and they bring them to like, let’s say, the McAllen station or the Brownsville station where they’re going to hold them for 48 hours, it’s really the border patrol officials who are doing the first medical clearances. These are men and who the border patrol will tell you, we have no medical training whatsoever. If we see bumps, if we see someone that’s sick, we’re going to send them to a doctor.

There’s very few doctors that they have actually checking out these patients. I know that the U.S. Coast Guard has sent some medical professionals to the facilities. I know that the WHO is trying to do some vaccinations, but they’ve already uncovered multidrug resistant tuberculosis, hepatitis, yeah, I mean, cholera, yeah, it goes on and on.

Dana: I know John Boehner said that he wants to bring in the National Guard. Is that something that’s going to, Boehner finally said this, do you think that’s something that’s going to happen?

Sara: I definitely think it’s something that’s possible if the flow doesn’t stop because part of the problem is not the people that are just coming across and turning themselves into border patrol, it’s all of the open spaces, which is why Governor Rick Perry was so concerned and had, you know, the Texas Department of Public Safety out there because a lot of the areas aren’t being guarded by border patrol.

While border patrol is taking care of all of these unaccompanied children and people, the drug cartels are moving contraband into the United States. They’re also seeing heavy flow of other traffic.

Dana: And exploiting these people too.

Sara: That’s right. That’s absolutely right, Dana.

Dana: Excellent coverage on this, Sara. I so appreciate it, and thanks for joining me this afternoon. We’re definitely going to watch all of these developments and turn to you for our information as well, so thank you for that. Have a great afternoon.

Sara: Thank you.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

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Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

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Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

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Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Warning: Stop letting TikTok activists think for you

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Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.