Congressional Democrats Lose Their Minds over Trump’s ‘Wall of Hate’

/0 Comments/in , /by

After President Donald Trump issued an executive order to build a wall on the Mexican border, the House Hispanic Caucus released a lengthy press release condemning Trump’s actions. And congressional Democrats joined suit on Twitter, raging against Trump’s “wall of hate.”

Hispanic Caucus members called Trump’s border wall “ignorant,” “lazy,” “antiquated,” a “waste of everyone’s time and money,” and proof that “Donald Trump is taking this country back to the dark ages.” Every caucus member who attached their name to the press release is a Democrat.

Hispanic Caucus members were joined in their condemnation of the border wall by other House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Ca. (F, 10%), who claimed that “we will not bow to Donald Trump’s radical xenophobia.”

They tweeted their disdain using the hashtag #WallofHate.

As Trump noted Wednesday, “a nation without borders is not a nation,” and the purpose of a border wall is for “the United States of America…[to] get back its borders.”

Pres. Trump also said the wall is about safety and saving lives. “As I have said repeatedly to the country, we are going to get the bad ones out. The criminals, and the drug dealers, and gangs and gang members and cartel leaders — the day is over when they can stay in our country and wreak havoc.”

For Democrats to claim that a border wall is a “waste of money” is laughable, considering they don’t bat an eye at the towering national debt and our bankrupt entitlement system. It is also ridiculous for Democrats like Nancy Pelosi to complain about Trump’s border project and policy change for sanctuary cities, by saying “we will fight for the right of any community to choose humane and effective law enforcement strategies that work to protect and serve, not deport and intimidate.”

Just two years ago, in Rep. Pelosi’s congressional district in San Francisco, Kate Steinle was shot to death by an illegal alien who had been deported five times but was still was able to roam free in the sanctuary city. What about protecting American citizens like Steinle?

Democrats are near apoplectic about the president’s border wall and immigration policies. But their rhetoric about fiscal responsibility and safety falls laughably flat. (For more from the author of “Congressional Democrats Lose Their Minds over Trump’s ‘Wall of Hate'” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

FINALLY! Sen. Rand Paul Offers Worthy Obamacare Alternative GOP Can Get Behind

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%) has been nothing if not vocal about his belief that a new set of health care reforms should be voted on at the same time as a repeal of Obamacare. This week, Sen. Paul has revealed his proposal to replace Obamacare, by introducing S. 222, the Obamacare Replacement Act.

His bill is obviously designed to work in tandem with the partial repeal that was passed by Congress last year, in that it sweeps away the parts of Obamacare that the other bill leaves behind, particularly the regulations. While the bill being passed via the budget reconciliation process repeals only the taxation and spending portions of Obamacare, if Paul’s plan were advanced at the same time, the two bills would add to up to a fairly complete repeal of Obama’s health care takeover.

More so than other GOP proposals for life after Obamacare, Paul’s plan focuses much of its effort on removing barriers to competition in the health insurance market that existed well before 2010. First and foremost, it puts individuals on an equal footing with employers with respect to tax treatment for health insurance costs. He does this by allowing the full tax deductibility of health insurance premiums. He allows the deductions to apply not only to income taxes, but also to payroll taxes, meaning that even lower-income individuals benefit.

In addition, a tax credit of up to $5,000 per individual is allowed for contributions to a health savings account. This allows employers to make the choice whether to continue directly purchasing insurance to offer to employees or simply to contribute an equivalent sum to an employee’s health savings account.

HSAs are then greatly expanded to allow individuals to use their funds for many products and services that are currently not allowed, including health insurance itself as well as over-the-counter medications, physical fitness programs, and nutritional supplements.

Another major drawback of the individual insurance market has been that larger companies are able purchase health insurance in bulk and thus reduce the cost per plan. Paul’s plan creates the framework for individuals and small businesses to be able to easily band together into a larger purchasing pool. While Obamacare attempted to do this for small businesses with its SHOP program, the law increased premiums and regulated the market so much across the board that it hasn’t worked well. This new framework leaves wide open space for innovation in health insurance pools.

One consistent talking point for health care reformers on the Right has been allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines. Specifics of how to accomplish in a way that doesn’t violate federalism have generally been in short supply, but Paul’s plan appears to do a pretty good job of squaring that circle. It allows insurers from one state to offer their products in other states while acknowledging certain constraints imposed by secondary states.

Allowing cross-state sales further boosts insurance pools by increasing the ability to pool together by trade or organizational ties, rather than just by geography. Unions and other professional associations have had some ability to do this through association health plans for years, but Paul’s plan greatly loosens the restrictions on these plans.

Of all the new problems created by Obamacare, the Medicaid expansion is the most difficult to deal with politically. Although Medicaid generally provides poor quality coverage and Medicaid enrollees are rejected by a huge (and increasing) percentage of physicians, millions of Americans have now been brought into the program via Obamacare. Paul’s plan addresses the Medicaid issue in a way that would benefit both states and the covered individuals regardless of whether or not the expansion is fully repealed in the accompanying reconciliation bill.

He does this by granting states the ability to change how they deliver coverage under Medicaid. Previously, states have had to request a waiver from the Department of Health and Human Services to get permission to experiment with better ways to administer their Medicaid programs. Paul’s bill eliminates the need to request the waivers, allowing states to follow in the steps of states like Florida, where reforms carried out under waivers have been very successful in improving the quality of care that Medicaid provides.

Overall, Sen. Paul’s plan focuses reform where it ought to be — breaking down barriers in the marketplace and allowing innovation and competition to increase access to affordable health care. From a free market perspective, it stands head and shoulders above any other plan yet offered to reform health care in the wake of Obamacare’s repeal. (For more from the author of “FINALLY! Sen. Rand Paul Offers Worthy Obamacare Alternative GOP Can Get Behind” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

What You’re Not Hearing about the Mini Police States in Public Schools

/4 Comments/in , , /by

School has changed a lot over the last few decades. Once a place of learning, run by teachers and principals, where children were free to play outside during recess and walk home unescorted, public schools now increasingly resemble little prisons. Metal detectors guard the entrances, supervision never relaxes, and armed policemen are a regular presence. In many cases, these intimidating figures are taking the place of the disciplinary roles traditionally fulfilled by parents and teachers.

Reason Magazine reports the now common practice of using police to enforce standards of behavior in schools. Instead of verbal chiding, being made to sit in a corner, or other forms of discipline, children are now more likely to be subject to expulsion or even arrest for petty offenses that would have once merited no more than a stern talking to.

The article includes stories of police handcuffing a student for grabbing his milk allotment out of turn and charging a 17-year-old involved in a consensual relationship with a classmate with sexual assault and child pornography charges that could land him in prison for 40 years. While these cases are no doubt outliers, they indicate a larger institutional problem of inappropriate police intervention in schools.

There are several reasons for this. Part of the problem is the restrictive state laws that govern what teachers can and cannot do or say to students. Fear of litigious parents means that many teachers will do anything they can to avoid actual disciplinary measures, and the police provide a convenient form of outsourcing.

Another issue is the fact that children are crammed together in an increasingly high-pressure education environment based on zip code, with few options for those who are unable to keep up with the lessons or who simply feel out of place among classmates who are not really their peers. A lack of choice, of feeling trapped, leads to acting out and bad behavior, which teachers feel unable to control. Part of the problem is certainly also the parents who wish to use school as a substitute for actually raising their kids and teaching them how to behave.

But perhaps the biggest reason why police have invaded schools is fear. Today, schools are regarded as mass shootings waiting to happen. Numerous high profile incidents of school violence have instilled terror into the population, so much so that they are willing to take any measures, including criminalizing much harmless behavior, to feel a little bit safer. But what no one seems to have realized is that, if schools are so dangerous to begin with, it’s madness to force children to spend so much of their young lives confined within their walls.

Compulsory education laws, combined with a lack of school choice, make children prisoners in a place where, we are told, they are about as likely to take a bullet in the head as learn algebra. Why would we inflict that on people? Surely it violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

If schools are violent, let’s get kids out of them, instead of surrounding them with law enforcement authorities trained to arrest and imprison, rather than aid and educate. This is not to mention the fact that police resources could be much better spent elsewhere, rather than having highly trained officers waste time persecuting children over cafeteria line etiquette or arresting teenagers in love.

Why should parents be forced to subject their children to such treatment? Why should kids whose only purpose at that stage of life is to learn and have fun be intimidated and threatened with criminal charges? Anyone should be able to opt out of such a system, or at the very least, transfer to school with less draconian methods of enforcement.

Anyone who has spent time around children can observe their wonder at life, the joy they feel at learning about the world around them, the hope and promise of life stretching out before them. It’s heartbreaking to me to see all that enthusiasm snuffed out as they are told, “Watch your step, or you’ll end up in a cold, grey cell.” There will be time to be beaten down by the power of the state later in life. Can’t we permit them just a few years of exploration and enjoyment before placing a boot on their small necks?

If schools are going to be nothing more than little prisons, complete with armed guards, I say, set the children free. (For more from the author of “What You’re Not Hearing about the Mini Police States in Public Schools” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Bye Bye Sanctuary Cities? Trump Gets Tough on Havens for Illegal Aliens

/0 Comments/in , /by

In a major departure from the previous administration, President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Homeland Security to get serious on tackling crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

The executive order instructs the Homeland Security Secretary General John F. Kelly, to “utilize the Declined Detainer Outcome Report or its equivalent and, on a weekly basis, make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.”

The purpose of this order is “to better inform the public regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions.”

In other words, President Trump has taken his first steps towards ending sanctuary city policies.

He is, of course, going to meet resistance from the Left. California Governor Jerry Brown, in what Politico described as an “anti-Trump manifesto,” proudly declared that despite the supremacy of federal immigration laws, California would take measures to protect its sanctuary policies from the president.

“We may be called to defend those laws, and defend them we will,” Brown said.

So, here’s where Trump’s executive order is brilliant. By publishing the statistics of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in areas of the country with sanctuary city policies, Trump is essentially telling the public “your Democratic politicians are protecting crime in your cities with their sanctuary city policies.” The president is handing ammunition the political opponents of big-city Democratic politicians everywhere in the country.

Sanctuary city policies are already vastly unpopular with the American people. Even as Gov. Brown delivered his amnesty ultimatum, 74 percent of California residents want to see an end to sanctuary city policies.

That opposition crosses party lines. It is unifying. And President Trump’s national policies can be used to rally that opposition at the ballot box and kick out the bums at the state level.

This is the kind of strategic thinking that has been woefully lacking from Washington Republicans for far too long. It is the style of anti-establishment governance the president’s most ardent backers promised Trump would bring to the nation’s capital.

Let’s hope the president applies a similar strategy to the other items on his agenda. (For more from the author of “Bye Bye Sanctuary Cities? Trump Gets Tough on Havens for Illegal Aliens” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Mexican President Says He Will Not Attend Meeting with Trump

/0 Comments/in , /by

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Thursday he will not attend a planned Jan. 31 meeting with President Donald J. Trump, hours after Trump tweeted that the meeting should be canceled if Mexico won’t pay for a border wall.

Pena Nieto’s message on Twitter ended days of uncertainty about how he would respond to Trump’s aggressive stance toward the country, and illustrated the challenges world leaders are likely to face in dealing with Trump’s voluble, Twitter-based diplomacy.

“This morning we have informed the White House I will not attend the working meeting planned for next Tuesday,” Pena Nieto tweeted.

(Read more from “Mexican President Says He Will Not Attend Meeting with Trump” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump DOJ Likely to Find Many Offenses in Voter Fraud Probe, Experts Say

/0 Comments/in , /by

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department will likely find numerous offenses to warrant launching a broad investigation into voter fraud, legal experts and watchdog groups say.

Trump has said that more than 3 million to 5 million illegal votes were cast during the 2016 election, causing him to receive a lower popular vote total than his vanquished opponent, Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the Electoral College.

On Wednesday, Trump said:

One legal organization took action on preventing voter fraud this week. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a voter integrity group, reached a consent decree with Noxubee County, Mississippi, which has had voter registration that exceeds the number of county residents since 2011, according to the group. A consent decree is a legal agreement between two parties without an acknowledgment of guilt.

The decree includes requiring the county to identify dead voters on the rolls, clear voter rolls of former county residents, and mail all registered voters who have been inactive since January 2011.

“They know the jig is up,” @TomFitton says.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation this week is also seeking to pry the release of information about noncitizens registered to vote in Manassas, Virginia.

Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said it is good that the Justice Department won’t just leave it to the nonprofit groups to weed out fraud.

“We need to know how many noncitizens are voting and know the unknowns,” Churchwell told The Daily Signal. “Trump could just enforce the law. The giant research project he tweeted about, or had a series of tweets about, is worthwhile and only something the federal government could do.”

It’s likely that 800,000 noncitizens illegally voted in the last presidential election, according to Jesse Richman, an associate professor of political science at Old Dominion University, who extrapolated on a 2014 study that examined illegal voting in the 2008 and 2010 elections.

Before the 2016 election, there were several documented cases of voter fraud. These included an FBI probe that found 19 dead people were registered to vote in Harrisonburg, Virginia; a woman arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, for voting twice for Trump; and a CBS News investigation that found multiple cases of dead voters and double voting in Colorado.

Churchwell asserted Trump’s 3 million or more projection couldn’t be proven or disproven, but regardless of whether this is an overstatement, President Barack Obama’s Justice Department ignored Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the “motor voter” law. This provision requires local governments to maintain and keep voter rolls current.

The Obama administration has not enforced this provision of the motor voter law, and in Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio, even took action to prevent maintaining the voter registration rolls.

Still others, such as Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal legal group at the New York University School of Law, insisted voter fraud is a myth and opposed an investigation.

“An expensive investigation of imaginary voter fraud is not needed. It could easily devolve into a witch hunt,” Waldman said in a public statement. “Worse, it could be used to justify sweeping voting restrictions. There is no need for another investigation that is not independent, rigorous, and fact-based.”

Waldman continued:

There is a great deal of evidence that our voting system locks out far too many eligible citizens from voting. The voter registration system needs an upgrade, and that is something that should unite all Americans. Errors on the voter rolls are emphatically not signs of fraud — they are signs that we need to improve the system.

An investigation into voter fraud would not be complicated, said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group.

“You can see the numbers we are talking about by looking at public voter registration lists and cross-checking that against a list of noncitizens,” Fitton told The Daily Signal. “The federal government could coordinate with state and local governments and determine who registered to vote illegally. It’s a simple process. That’s why the left is so upset. They know the jig is up.”

Enforcing the law is long overdue, said Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation.

“We don’t need [to create] a commission. The Justice Department can enforce the law and work with the Department of Homeland Security, and its records for citizenship and change of status to get an idea of who is illegally registered to vote,” von Spakovsky told The Daily Signal.

Regardless of the investigation’s outcome, von Spakovsky expects critics will dismiss anything that falls short of Trump’s 3 to 5 million illegal voter estimate.

“They may try to dismiss this, but the American people don’t believe what the media say about voter fraud not being real,” von Spakovsky said. “Polling solidifies that.” (For more from the author of “Trump DOJ Likely to Find Many Offenses in Voter Fraud Probe, Experts Say” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Pro-Life Feminist Group Had ‘Completely Positive’ Experience at Women’s March

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Women’s March on Washington removed New Wave Feminists from their list of partners less than a week before the historic march took place last Saturday.

The Dallas-based non-profit was the first of three groups to have their partnership status revoked, simply because they were pro-life.

Many pro-life women responded on social media, saying they no longer felt welcome at the march, even though they had previously planned to attend.

But not Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa. Despite the public snub from the Women’s March, the founder and president of New Wave Feminists was determined to participate.

“If they think that pro-life feminists don’t exist, then we have to show up to say, ‘we’re everywhere,’” she told The Stream.

“Completely Positive”

Still, she was nervous. With the controversy over pro-life participation still hot, she worried there might be violence — and she would be an easy target with her “pro-life feminist” sign. “Please be careful,” her husband said.

So Herndon-De La Rosa didn’t initially hold up her sign when she arrived for the march, hoping to connect with other members of her group rather than advertise her controversial position alone. But when she couldn’t find her fellow pro-lifers, she held the sign up anyway.

Within three minutes, she was approached by a marcher.

“So glad you girls are here,” the woman said. “Thank you for coming out here and being bold and being feminists.”

Similar comments came throughout the day. Some women admitted that even though they were pro-choice, they appreciated pro-life participation.

Other women approached Herndon-De La Rosa’s group, which eventually congregated on the steps of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, to confide that they too were pro-life.

“It was completely positive,” Herndon-De La Rosa said of her experience at the march, “which absolutely shocked me.”

“Awakened a Sleeping Giant”

Herndon-De La Rosa believes the controversy over pro-life participation in the women’s march “awakened a sleeping giant.” Many women previously felt afraid to admit they were pro-life, she suggested, because they’d been told that you couldn’t be pro-life and be a feminist.

For Herndon-De La Rosa, the pro-life movement and feminism “totally correlate.”

“What the feminist movement needs is a life affirming component,” she said. “And what the pro-life movement needs is a pro-women component, a feminist component.”

A New Wave of Pro-Life Activism

While many assume that New Wave Feminists indicates a new wave of feminism, that name actually represents a new wave in the pro-life movement, Herndon-De La Rosa said.

She believes the mainstream pro-life movement often portrays women in crisis pregnancies as victims. She would rather send a message of empowerment.

“I was 16 and pregnant. I thought I couldn’t do it. You can,” she said, adding that community support is crucial — which is why New Wave Feminists helps women find such communities in their areas.

For Herndon-De La Rosa, “the real face” of pro-life activism isn’t the person protesting in front of abortion clinics, though those are the people the media focuses on.

“The pro-life movement is [made up of] the ones who are giving up their nights and weekends, or the extra bedroom in their home for women,” she said. “Nobody understands that those are the people that are really serving women well.”

Herndon-De La Rosa plans to promote such service with a new project — an app called Help Assist Her. The app will pinpoint a woman’s location and reveal all the women’s health organizations in the area. The app includes both government funded and charity organizations that provide women’s health services, but not abortions.

Help Assist Her will be rolled out by state, starting in New York. People can follow its progress by visiting HelpAssistHer.com and signing up for the newsletter.

Herndon-De La Rosa says that Planned Parenthood has positioned itself as a primary provider of women’s health services, despite being the number one provider of abortions. She believes the most effective way to defeat Planned Parenthood is to promote other organizations that provide health services for women, but are pro-life.

“It’s very hard for people who don’t know where to get the life affirming resources to find them,” she said. “We want to offer alternatives so women don’t have to go to Planned Parenthood.”

The Marching Continues

Soon after returning from the Women’s March, Herndon-De La Rosa got up before dawn to fly back to Washington, D.C. for the March for Life, taking place Friday. This year, her eight-year-old daughter will participate too.

As New Wave Feminists posted on Facebook, “Once we start marching we don’t stop!” (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Feminist Group Had ‘Completely Positive’ Experience at Women’s March” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Congress Set to Overturn Obama Gun Control Rule

/0 Comments/in , /by

Congress is poised to unravel one of the Obama administration’s midnight regulations that could prevent certain Social Security disability beneficiaries from buying guns.

The Social Security Administration finalized a rule just before Christmas 2016 in which it would send information of recipients of disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income to the Justice Department’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.

This is triggered if the agency determines someone else is managing a recipient’s finances because the recipient isn’t mentally fit to manage their own affairs.

Rep. Ralph Abraham, R-La., helped advocate possible elimination of the gun control rule under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn regulations imposed in the last six months of an outgoing administration.

“This issue really can be boiled down to one point: No American should be denied their constitutional rights because someone else handles their finances,” Abraham told The Daily Signal in a statement.

“Allowing bureaucrats at the Social Security Administration to determine whether or not beneficiaries are fit to exercise their Second Amendment rights is a clear violation of due process, and I’m pleased the Congressional Review Act will give us the opportunity to right this wrong with passage of this joint resolution,” Abraham added.

Under the rule finalized on Dec. 19, the Social Security Administration would first have to determine if someone else is handling a beneficiary’s affairs. The rule states:

At the commencement of the adjudication process we will also notify individuals, both orally and in writing, of their possible federal prohibition on possessing or receiving firearms, the consequences of such prohibition, the criminal penalties for violating the Gun Control Act, and the availability of relief from the prohibition on the receipt or possession of firearms imposed by federal law.

Former President Barack Obama’s White House announced a package of executive actions in January 2016 that said:

The Social Security Administration has indicated that it will begin the rulemaking process to include information in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm for mental health reasons.

The National Rifle Association credited Abraham, Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., for pushing the rule into the Congressional Review Act.

“Protecting Americans’ fundamental rights is a top priority for Whip Scalise, and that includes undoing this Obama-era power grab against our Second Amendment rights,” Scalise spokesman Chris Bond told The Daily Signal in an email. “After eight years of an Obama administration that showed disrespect for our constitution, this unified Republican government is going to take power away from unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats and work hard to restore Americans’ liberties.”

The regulation has the backing of gun control groups.

Elizabeth Avore, legal director for Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group created by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, argued in July, as part of the public comment period, the rule was needed to keep guns away from the mentally ill. Her comment said:

As is required for a finding to be prohibiting, [Social Security Administration] officials have determined in these cases that the person “lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs,” and, under the proposed language, these incapacity findings will only be prohibiting if they are made due to mental illness. … The rule does not reach any beneficiaries who are assigned a representative payee due to physical incapability or for reasons other than legal or mental incompetence.

A spokeswoman for Everytown for Gun Safety had nothing to add to the matter when reached by The Daily Signal.

Johnson said he has been dedicated to defending the Constitution from his time in the military through Congress.

“Former President Obama’s last-ditch effort on gun control that would harm Social Security beneficiaries with disabilities is wrong,” Johnson told The Daily Signal in a statement. “I opposed it from the get-go, fought to stop it, and am encouraged by the support of the National Rifle Association, the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Rights Task Force, and the National Council on Disability on this issue. I look forward to overturning the rule soon.”

Denial of a constitutional right is not something that should ever be decided administratively, said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

“No administrative process and no administrative law judge should be able to take away a constitutional right,” von Spakovsky said. “This should exclusively be a regular court of law to determine if someone is disabled enough to pose a hazard with a gun, not a federal bureaucrat.”

The National Rifle Association celebrated the congressional review as a victory.

“Congress’s decision to review the Obama administration’s backdoor gun grab is a significant step forward in protecting a fundamental constitutional right for law-abiding gun owners,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, in a public statement. “The NRA has been fighting this unconstitutional government overreach since it was first discussed and we look forward to swift congressional action.” (For more from the author of “Congress Set to Overturn Obama Gun Control Rule” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Why the Electronic Immigration System Is Broken

/0 Comments/in , /by

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general took the extraordinary step of speaking out against the reinstatement of the Electronic Immigration System to process naturalization benefits for immigrants.

Though the system should theoretically streamline immigration and naturalization processes by automating immigration applications and adjudication, it has become a sinkhole of government funds in recent years, costing $1.2 billion so far, despite the original estimated cost being $536 million.

For all the extra funds that have been extended to support the system, problems continue to abound, leading to the suspension of the program for naturalization benefits in 2016.

The problems that led to suspension of the program included nearly 20,000 missing or duplicate green cards that could be abused by criminals or even terrorists. The inspector general also identified numerous other deficiencies within the system, including problems with interfaces, which harmed the department’s productivity.

Additionally, though over $1 billion has been spent on the Electronic Immigration System, only two types of immigration benefits out of a total of about 90 can be applied for online.

The Department of Homeland Security has also struggled with the related problem of failing to digitize old immigration records, which has allowed illegal immigrants with outstanding deportation orders to become citizens.

Homeland Security employees are now being forced to focus their time and energy toward fixing the problems that have been created by this failed system.

Since the system has not met minimal technical and functional requirements, nor has a risk-based analysis been conducted, the inspector general is urgently recommending the system not be reinstated for naturalization applications.

With the swearing in of Gen. John Kelly as secretary of homeland security, there are certain things that must be focused on over the next four years.

Immigration has been a hot topic in the U.S. for the past several years, and restoring integrity to the immigration system should be high on the new administration’s to-do list.

To that end, automating immigration benefits and adjudication is a great idea to reduce paperwork and simplify the legal immigration and naturalization process. But it must be done correctly in order to keep the American people safe.

So far, the Electronic Immigration System has failed to do so on nearly all counts.

There is a lot of work yet to be done before U.S. Customs and Immigration Services should consider reinstating the Electronic Immigration System for naturalization applications.

The fact that the inspector general has urgently commented on the issue should be a red flag to all that this failed system needs serious attention. (For more from the author of “Why the Electronic Immigration System Is Broken” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

New Data Show Obamacare Insures Less Than 20 Million, Most on Medicaid

/0 Comments/in , /by

Many Obamacare supporters claim the law has expanded health coverage to upwards of 20 million Americans, but new data shows that isn’t accurate.

As part of Congress’ continued push to repeal Obamacare, the House Budget Committee held a hearing this week titled “The Failures of Obamacare: Harmful Effects and Broken Promises.”

Heritage Foundation expert Ed Haislmaier was one of four expert witnesses who testified.

Haislmaier presented new data regarding gains in health coverage since the full implementation of Obamacare began in 2014.

Most of the reports on coverage gains, such as the Obama administration’s, are typically based on government or private survey data rather than actually counting the change in private insurance or Medicaid program enrollments.

Haislmaier’s testimony highlighted his previous findings that only about 14 million people had gained coverage during the first two years of Obamacare’s full implementation (2014-2015). In addition, he reported preliminary findings for 2016.

Data is not yet available for the full year, but based on the first three quarters of 2016, Haislmaier finds a net total increase in coverage of about another 2.5 million people.

He explains:

The preliminary data show that during that period, enrollment in the individual market grew by 842,028 individuals, enrollment in fully insured employer plans declined by 1,128,597 individuals, enrollment in self-insured employer plans increased by 776,780 individuals, and Medicaid and CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program] enrollment increased by 2,044,809 individuals.

In sum, Medicaid coverage accounts for 81 percent of the total gain in coverage for the first three quarters of 2016. This is consistent with Haislmaier’s previous findings that the bulk of the coverage gains since Obamacare’s full implementation have been in the Medicaid program, not private insurance.

Adding the 2016 preliminary data to the coverage gains from 2014 and 2015, there has been a total net gain in coverage of 16.5 million individuals from Obamacare’s launch through the first three quarters of 2016.

Medicaid coverage has increased by 13.8 million individuals and private coverage has had a net increase of 2.7 million individuals.

Once again, the data confirm that Obamacare’s principle coverage effect has been to expand Medicaid. (For more from the author of “New Data Show Obamacare Insures Less Than 20 Million, Most on Medicaid” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.