Administrative Amnesty: Unjust, Costly, and an Incentive for More Illegal Immigration

Photo Credit: Fibonacci blue

Photo Credit: Fibonacci blue

By Derrick Morgan and David Inserra.

Abstract
Leaders in Congress have called for greater enforcement of U.S. immigration law, while President Barack Obama continues to call for legalization of millions of illegal immigrants. Deportations, particularly interior enforcement, have decreased dramatically under President Obama, who has made clear his support for granting legal status to those who are in the country unlawfully. Recent press reports indicate that the President is inclined to issue a memo like the Department of Homeland Security’s June 15, 2012, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) memo for a large subset of the illegal immigrant population, perhaps up to 5 million. That would be a mistake for three primary reasons: It is unjust, it is costly, and it will not work to stop illegal immigration.

President Barack Obama is considering using prosecutorial discretion to effectively legalize millions of illegal immigrants. Doing so would be unjust and costly and would encourage more illegal immigration.[1] Congress should discourage the Administration from considering this divisive and unproductive step, which would only make it more difficult to implement suitable, feasible, and just immigration reforms and more robust and effective border security.
Background

Current U.S. law, written and passed by Congress and signed by the President, makes it unlawful for foreign nationals to enter or stay in the country without authorization.[2] Despite this clear provision of law, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimated that about 11.4 million people lived in the United States without authorization in January 2012.[3] Deportations, particularly interior enforcement, have decreased dramatically under President Obama,[4] and he has made clear his support for granting legal status to those who are in the country unlawfully.[5]

The Department of Homeland Security issued the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) memorandum on June 15, 2012. DACA purported to set prosecutorial priorities and grant relief to each individual who (1) came to the U.S. under the age of 16; (2) continuously resided in the U.S. for at least five years before the date of the memo; (3) is currently in school, has graduated from high school, has a GED, or is an honorably discharged veteran; (4) has not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or multiple misdemeanors or otherwise poses a threat; and (5) is not above the age of 30.[6]

In early 2013, debate began on a comprehensive immigration bill that would include an amnesty for most of the unlawful immigrant population. The U.S. Senate passed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744) in June 2013.[7] In January 2014, the leadership of the House of Representatives issued “principles” for immigration reform[8] that included a general legalization much like S. 744.[9]

Since the issuance of the DACA memo and during debate over a larger amnesty, the number of people unlawfully crossing the U.S. border has increased significantly.[10] Many are turning themselves in, believing that they could qualify for deferred action even though the memorandum requires continuous residence since at least June 15, 2007.[11] Even if they do not qualify for DACA, lax enforcement in general means that most illegal immigrants will not be deported once they enter the interior of the U.S.[12] President Obama and some in Congress sought to advance a comprehensive bill, but momentum for such a measure has collapsed, in part as a result of the massive influx of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border of the United States.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Daily Signal: How the Border Crisis Reached Suburban Virginia

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

GOP Rep Candice Miller: Massive Illegal Immigration will Destroy US Middle Class

By Tony Lee.

On Wednesday, Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI) warned that if President Barack Obama grants temporary amnesty and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants, he will destroy America’s middle class.

In a Wednesday op-ed for the Detroit News, Miller wrote that “middle- and working-class Americans cannot survive and thrive in a labor marketplace skewed by unskilled, low-wage workers who are here illegally.”
“And our taxpayers cannot bear the burden of providing services – education, health and welfare – to millions of illegals,” she continued.

Lawmakers like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) have emphasized that massive grants of amnesty only make it more difficult for American workers, especially those at the bottom of the economic ladder, to find jobs.

Moreover, governors and local officials have complained that they do not have the resources to take care of the illegal immigrants that the federal government is dumping in their communities. The Congressional Budget Office last year concluded that the Senate’s comprehensive amnesty bill would lower the wages of American workers for a decade.

Read more from this story HERE.

Christians and Yazidis in Iraq Subjected to ‘Savage Rapes,' Sexual Slavery

Photo Credit: U.S. Central Command

Photo Credit: U.S. Central Command

By Patrick Goodenough.

As the U.N. scrambles to help tens of thousands of religious minority Iraqis displaced by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL), experts are warning that jihadists may have forced 1,500 Christians and Yazidis into sexual slavery.

“Atrocious accounts on the abduction and detention of Yazidi, Christian, as well as Turkomen and Shabak women, girls and boys, and reports of savage rapes, are reaching us in an alarming manner,” two U.N. experts said in a statement released in Baghdad.

“We condemn, in the strongest terms, the explicit targeting of women and children and the barbaric acts [ISIS] has perpetrated on minorities in areas under its control,” said U.N. special representative for Iraq Nickolay Mladenov and special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Bangura.

“We remind all armed groups that acts of sexual violence are grave human rights violations that can be considered as war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Mladenov urged regional governments and the international community to help secure the release of the women and girls captured by the jihadists.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Coptic Bishop: Without Action, It’s Only a Matter of Time Before Islamic Fundamentalism “Infects the Entire World”

By Leah Barkoukis.

ISIS’ barbarism in Syria and Iraq has gotten so bad that even the Vatican has signaled that military action may be necessary. And Down Under, Bishop Anba Suriel, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the diocese of Melbourne, denounced the terrorist group in no uncertain terms and urged Australia, and the world, to act before “such fundamentalisms infects the entire world.”

“The world watches in silence as the last Christians are expelled from Mosul, Iraq in one of the most merciless and barbaric acts of genocide we have seen in the 21st Century,” Suriel, who was born in Egypt, said in a statement last week.

“Mosul, the cradle of Christianity in Iraq since the first centuries, is now purged of its entire Christian population,” he continued. “The ruthless and purposeful savagery of the attacks by the fundamentalist Muslim terrorist organization The Islamic State (IS) formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is truly inconceivable.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

ISIS militants ‘kill 300 MORE Yazidi men and kidnap their families on second day of massacre in northern Iraq after they refuse to convert to Islam’

By DAMIEN GAYLE and SOPHIE JANE EVANS FOR MAILONLINE and MAIL ON SUNDAY REPORTER.

Islamic State militants today ‘massacred’ more than 300 Yazidi men – just one day after allegedly killing 82 others who refused to convert to Islam.

The insurgents stormed into the small village of Kocho in northern Iraq, where they spent five days trying to persuade villagers to take up their religion, local officials said.

When they refused, 82 male members of the ancient sect were reportedly rounded up and shot dead yesterday, while more than 100 women and girls were kidnapped.

And today, a further 312 Yazidis were allegedly murdered and their families abducted.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Rogers: Competing Terror Groups Multiply Danger to U.S.

By Patrick Goodenough.

The terrorist threat facing the United States is greater now than it was before 9/11 and the failure to address the jihadist problem as “an ecosystem” is helping it to spread and become more dangerous, House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers warned Sunday.

“The difference here is that, before 9/11, there were single-level threat streams coming into the United States – some pretty serious,” the Michigan Republican said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “Obviously, they got in and conducted the attacks on 9/11.”

“Now you have multiple organizations, all al-Qaeda-minded, trying to accomplish the same thing,” he said, citing the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda affiliated such as the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Read more from this story HERE.

Liberty in Decline, but Not Dead

Photo Credit: Katy Miller

Photo Credit: Katy Miller

The United States today is not the free nation it was, even 10 years ago. Although the slow decline of the broad liberties Americans have long held has been going on for decades, it has accelerated enough in the last few years that ordinary people are feeling it close to home.

Security checkpoints now stop and make warrant-less searches of Americans on highways far from the borders. Privacy is virtually a thing of the past, with numerous whistle-blowers telling of the frightening ways in which the federal government monitors nearly everything we do. Overreaching federal regulations are trickling down into every workplace and job, stifling small businesses that cannot jump the hoops as easily as giant corporations.

It seems in my own workplace, most new policies trace back in some way to federal regulation. Recent federal laws have blatantly undermined religious liberty, attempted to undercut the Second Amendment and caused millions to lose the health care they chose, forcing many hardworking, productive Americans into a massive welfare system they never wanted.

Some time ago, I encountered Sen. Mark Begich touring Alaska discussing the important of the grassroots, all the while surrounded by an entourage of powerful D.C. lobbyists. I wonder how anyone cannot see where the loyalty of this man lies, having voted with Obama’s agenda 97 percent of the time.

On the other side, we have Republican Senate candidates with longstanding records of support for many misguided federal and UN policies.

And then there is Joe Miller, with a consistent message of individual liberty and a return to the free market principles that made the U.S. the economic powerhouse of the planet. I choose to believe that liberty is not a dying ideal in America by voting for Joe Miller for our Republican candidate for Senate on Aug. 19.

Rand Paul Heads to Guatemala to Conduct Charity Eye Surgeries

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is visiting Guatemala to perform pro bono eye surgeries, a trip his political advisers are saying is strictly charity work but offers an important platform for the Kentucky Republican at the epicenter of the border crisis.

“It is an honor for me to be able to use my skills as an ophthalmologist to give back to the community,” Paul told Breitbart News. “I am thrilled to join a team of ophthalmologists in Guatemala to perform life changing and sight-restoring surgeries.”

While many details of the trip are temporarily withheld for security reasons, Paul’s trip is being run by the Moran Eye Center from the University of Utah. It’s funded by charity—no taxpayer dollars will be used for Paul’s mission. Spokesman Sergio Gor told Breitbart News he’ll be meeting with several patients of his from who can now see after Paul performed surgery on them when they were younger.

The team of doctors is expected to perform around 300 surgeries, Gor said, over the course of several days in Guatemala.

While Paul isn’t pushing a political angle, thousands of unaccompanied children are currently traveling illegally from Guatemala to the U.S., and the nation has hosted several key delegations of American lawmakers in recent weeks.

Read more from this story HERE.

Liberia: Ebola Fears Rise as Clinic is Looted

Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

By AP.

Liberian officials fear Ebola could soon spread through the capital’s largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses.

The violence in the West Point slum occurred late Saturday and was led by residents angry that patients were brought to the holding center from other parts of Monrovia, Tolbert Nyenswah, assistant health minister, said Sunday.

Up to 30 patients were staying at the center and many of them fled at the time of the raid, said Nyenswah. Once they are located they will be transferred to the Ebola center at Monrovia’s largest hospital, he said.

West Point residents went on a “looting spree,” stealing items from the clinic that were likely infected, said a senior police official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press. The residents took medical equipment and mattresses and sheets that had bloodstains, he said. Ebola is spread through bodily fluids including blood, vomit, feces and sweat.

Read more from this story HERE.

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plague-villageStruggling Liberia creates “plague villages” in Ebola epicenter – potential refugee nightmare

By The Extinction Protocol.

To try to control the Ebola epidemic spreading through West Africa, Liberia has quarantined remote villages at the epicenter of the virus, evoking the “plague villages” of medieval Europe that were shut off from the outside world. With few food and medical supplies getting in, many abandoned villagers face a stark choice: stay where they are and risk death or skip quarantine, spreading the infection further in a country ill-equipped to cope. In Boya, in northern Liberia’s Lofa County, Joseph Gbembo, who caught Ebola and survived, says he is struggling to raise 10 children under five years old and support five widows after nine members of his family were killed by the virus. Fearful of catching Ebola themselves, the 30-year-old’s neighbors refuse to speak with him and blame him for bringing the virus to the village. “I am lonely,” he said. “Nobody will talk to me and people run away from me.” He says he has received no food or health care for the children and no help from government officials. Aid workers say that if support does not arrive soon, locals in villages like Boya, where the undergrowth is already spreading among the houses, will simply disappear down jungle footpaths. “If sufficient medication, food and water are not in place, the community will force their way out to fetch food and this could lead to further spread of the virus,” said Tarnue Karbbar, a worker for charity Plan International based in Lofa County/

Ebola has killed at least 1,145 people in four African nations, but in the week through to August 13, Lofa County recorded more new cases than anywhere else – 124 new cases of Ebola and 60 deaths. The World Health Organization and Liberian officials have warned that, with little access by healthcare workers to the remote areas hidden deep in rugged jungle zones, the actual toll may be far higher. Troops have been deployed under operation “White Shield” to stop people from abandoning homes and infecting others in a country where the majority of cases remain at large, either because clinics are full or because they are scared of hospitals regarded as ‘death traps.’ “There has to be concern that people in quarantined areas are left to fend for themselves,” said Mike Noyes, head of humanitarian response at ActionAid UK. “Who is going to be the police officer who goes to these places? There’s a risk that these places become plague villages.” Aid workers say the virus reminds them of the forces roaming Liberia during the civil war, making it a byword for brutality. “It was like the war. It was so desolate,” said Adolphus Scott, a worker for U.N. child agency UNICEF describing Zango Town in the jungles of northern Liberia, where most of the 2,000 residents had either died of Ebola or fled.

Read more from this story HERE.

11th Hour Politifact Flak Shows Joe Miller Over Target on Immigration and Guns

87f399e91d4ceb30b7f8b46342d49ba1“Miller’s mailer muddies the waters, because increasing gun ownership regulations is not the same thing as scrapping the Second Amendment entirely,” Politfact claims in a Thursday hit piece on the Alaska Senate campaign, where conservative Joe Miller is trying mightily to upset the establishment in next Tuesday’s primary election. “The ad is wrong when it suggests 20 million voters can repeal part of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. We rate it False.”

The ad does not say the Second Amendment will be repealed, which is what the thrust of the Politifact stretch attempts to indict Miller on. Nowhere does he claim the Constitution will be amended to repeal the Second Amendment. Indeed, as anyone with a basic understanding of unalienable rights and settled law could tell the “Authorized Journalists,” assuming they’d listen and care, “The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed’ … This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.”

What Miller says is “”If 20 million illegals vote, you can kiss the Second Amendment goodbye.” That’s clear to any informed gun owners and pro-immigration sanity activist, and is demonstrated by all credible observations, not to mention the eagerness of the Obama administration to make it so. The “pathway to citizenship” being enabled by a Democrat/Republican establishment alliance will result in an electorate with the votes to fundamentally alter what legislatures will enact and courts will uphold in the name of “compelling state interests,” effectively neutering and gutting the right.

If bearing arms can be restricted as in New Jersey, and if arms that can be kept can be banned using a wrong-headed interpretation of the “in common use at the time” qualifier, what’s left will be so far removed from “shall not be infringed,” and so anemic, that for all intents and purposes, it will be of no significance. After all, what good is a right if government can get away with whatever infringements they want? And what good will past Supreme Court gains be if the balance there swings heavily to the left?

That a Florida-based paper should pick now, with the election days away, and with Miller gaining steam to become an Alaska threat the establishment must eliminate, is hardly surprising. Having been endorsed by Gun Owners of America, Sarah Palin, radio talker Mark Levin and others, a candidate who speaks plainly about impeachment for border subversion is not one opponents wish to see elevated and amplified. And aside from the Democrat party, the Obama administration and an overwhelmingly “progressive” media that would rather smother such a voice, the Karl Rove/Chamber of Commerce wing of the Republican party is doing everything it can to crush true conservatives who understand that amnesty will eviscerate (legally-recognized) gun rights.

Read more from this story HERE.

Gov. Perry Indicted: Everything's Big in Texas, Even this B.S.

RickPerry4274By Sarah Palin.

Remember Barack Obama telling his followers to always “bring a gun to a knife fight”? Like good subjects do, his supporters in Texas obeyed. Friday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was indicted on two counts of abuse of power.

This ridiculous politically motivated “indictment” of Governor Rick Perry stems from the ugly thug tactics of the “politics of personal destruction” that the left is known for. They draw blood and leave scars on conservatives who threaten their political power, hoping the threat retreats and hoping his or her base of support remains silent in fear of becoming collateral damage.

Thankfully, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and those of us with scars to prove it can help others learn from things like this Texas-sized political drama.

This ridiculous politically motivated “indictment” of Governor Rick Perry stems from the ugly thug tactics of the “politics of personal destruction” that the left is known for.

First and foremost, today’s liberals have no shame. Case in point: Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: TONY GUTIERREZ / AP

Photo Credit: TONY GUTIERREZ / AP

Perry blasts felony indictment as ‘outrageous’

By Dave Montgomery.

A defiant Rick Perry went on the offensive Saturday, a day after being indicted on accusations of abusing his power with a controversial veto, denouncing the charges as “outrageous” political theatrics and predicting he will prevail over “those who would erode our state’s constitution and laws purely for political purposes.”

“I wholeheartedly and unequivocally stand behind my veto and will continue to defend this lawful action of my executive authority as governor,” Perry told reporters at a packed six-minute news conference near his office on the second floor of the Capitol.

“We don’t settle political differences with indictments in this country.”

The indictment, returned Friday by a Travis County grand jury, made Perry the first sitting Texas governor in nearly a century to be indicted, abruptly threw uncertainty over his potential presidential candidacy in 2016 and triggered state and national repercussions that Democrats hope will spill into this year’s gubernatorial race to choose his successor.

Democrats at the state and national levels escalated their demands for Perry to resign, but the state’s longest-tenured governor served notice that he plans to stay in office till the end of his term and vowed that he will ultimately beat the legal charges.

Read more from this story HERE.

What Is He Hiding? Inspectors General Say Obama Administration Obstructing Justice

Photo Credit: Chuck Hagel / Flickr

Photo Credit: Chuck Hagel / Flickr

In an unprecedented letter, a majority of the federal government’s inspectors general (IGs) claim that the Obama administration is obstructing their investigations into government mismanagement and corruption. So much for President Obama’s claim that his would be the most transparent administration in history.

And it truly IS unprecedented. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, says “there has never been a letter even with a dozen IGs complaining” about such obstruction by an administration. The fact that the Justice Department’s IG, Michael Horowitz, also signed on is particularly revealing. After all, it is the duty of senior executive officers like Eric Holder to advise subordinate officials that they are obligated to cooperate with the IGs of their agencies.

On Aug. 5, 47 of the federal government’s 73 inspectors general, many of whom were appointed by President Obama, sent their letter to Issa, Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), and the ranking members of the House Oversight and Government Reform and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees — essentially pleading with Congress to help the IGs do their jobs uncovering waste, mismanagement, fraud, and corruption within their respective agencies.

In the letter, the IGs complain about the “serious limitations on access to records that have recently impeded the work” of IGs at the Peace Corps, the EPA, and the Department of Justice. Administration lawyers have construed laws related to privilege in “a manner that would override the express authorization contained in the IG Act” and seriously impede the “ability [of the IGs] to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner.”

According to the letter, the Justice Department withheld “essential records” in three different reviews, despite the fact that such records had been produced for the DOJ IG “in many prior reviews without objection.” Michael Horowitz eventually got access to the files, it seems, but not because Department officials realized they were misinterpreting the IG law in withholding access. No, Horowitz got the records only after DOJ leadership decided that “the three reviews were of assistance to the Department of Justice’s leadership.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Eyewitness: Michael Brown Ran from Cop Car, 'Doubled Back' and Charged at Officers

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Since Brown’s fatal shooting has become a media firestorm, inspiring violent riots and looting in Ferguson, witnesses from both sides of the controversy have given conflicting reports on just what happened. However, this private conversation minutes after the incident seems untainted by any desire to protect or tarnish the reputation of either Brown or the police.

#1 How’d he get from there to there?
#2 Because he ran, the police was still in the truck – cause he was like over the truck
{crosstalk}
#2 But him and the police was both in the truck, then he ran – the police got out and ran after him…

Read more from this story HERE.

Surveillance Video Shows Robbers Attacking 78-Year-Old Man at San Bernardino Gas Station

san-bernardino-robbery-john-faustJohn Faust had stopped at a San Bernardino gas station in the early morning hours of June 24 when he was suddenly approached by two male robbers armed with guns.

One of the robbers said, “Give me your wallet,” according to Faust, and then punched the 78-year-old great-grandfather in the face.

“The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground,” Faust said.

Surveillance video, which captured the incident, shows the masked attackers emptying Faust’s pockets and then running away, leaving him unconscious and bleeding on the ground. He was dazed when he came to.

The pair remained at large Tuesday.

Read more from this story HERE.