Posts

Groundhog Day for Immigration

/2 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: gage skidmore

The Wall Street Journal profile on Rubio’s amnesty plan makes me want to take piano lessons or learn ice sculpture — because it’s Groundhog Day for immigration policy, and it’s like yesterday never happened.

I don’t mean that politicians should necessarily be chastened by past defeats. There are no lost causes and no gained causes in a democracy (or not many, anyway), and if the side that was defeated by the bipartisan surge of public anger in 2007 wants to try a comeback, that’s the way the game is played.

But the specific policies Ned Ryerson Rubio is selling are just the same old, same old: “earned” amnesty for illegal aliens plus de facto unlimited immigration, in exchange for promises to some day implement E-Verify and build more fencing.

Even worse, what makes me want to throw a toaster into the bath tub is the utter lack of awareness that nothing Rubio’s saying is even remotely novel. Either he or the writer, Matthew Kaminski, or both, don’t seem to realize we’re hearing I Got You, Babe all over again. Rubio’s plan is described as one that “charges up the middle,” between “the liberal fringe that seeks broad amnesty for illegal immigrants and the hard right’s obsession with closing the door” — as though any element of Rubio’s proposal would be a deal breaker for the left.

Read more from this article HERE.

Obama’s Immigration Reform Push To Begin This Month

/2 Comments/in , /by

WASHINGTON — Despite a bruising fiscal cliff battle that managed to set the stage for an even more heated showdown that will likely take place in a matter of months, President Barack Obama is planning to move full steam ahead with the rest of his domestic policy agenda.

An Obama administration official said the president plans to push for immigration reform this January. The official, who spoke about legislative plans only on condition of anonymity, said that coming standoffs over deficit reduction are unlikely to drain momentum from other priorities. The White House plans to push forward quickly, not just on immigration reform but gun control laws as well.

The timeframe is likely to be cheered by Democrats and immigration reform advocates alike, who have privately expressed fears that Obama’s second term will be drowned out in seemingly unending showdowns between parties. The just-completed fiscal cliff deal is giving way to a two-month deadline to resolve delayed sequestration cuts, an expiring continuing resolution to fund the government and a debt ceiling that will soon be hit . . .

Good news for immigration advocates may have come Tuesday night, when Boehner broke the so-called “Hastert Rule” and allowed the fiscal cliff bill to come for a vote without support from a majority of his Republican conference. Given opposition to immigration reform by many Tea Party Republicans, the proof that Boehner is willing to bypass them on major legislation is a good sign, the Democratic aide said.

“If something is of such importance that the GOP establishment [is] telling Boehner, ‘You must do this. You need to get this off the table soon,'” the Democratic aide said, the speaker could break the Hastert Rule again.

Read full story HERE.

Obama Administration Redefines ‘Dangerous’ Illegal Aliens

/4 Comments/in , /by

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used the Friday before Christmas to release official word that ICE was once again narrowing its definition of who it considers a dangerous individual.

This latest change involves the process of ICE detainers, a topic addressed routinely at Front Page Magazine. ICE detainers are holds, up to two business days, that ICE places on prisoners in municipal prison. These prisoners would otherwise be let go, but because ICE wants to detain them for immigration violations, they continue being held for ICE to pick them up and process them itself. According to a memo dated December 21, 2012, ICE changed its definition of priority to receive such a detainer to someone with three misdemeanor convictions, from one misdemeanor previously.

The pertinent portion of the memo states that “[t]hree or more prior misdemeanor convictions” not including minor traffic misdemeanors or other relatively minor misdemeanors unless the convictions “reflect a clear and continuing danger to others or disregard for the law.” It should be noted that an individual still only needs to be suspected or convicted of any felony in order to warrant an ICE detainer.

This most recent memo augments policy from the most famous memo, now referred to as the Morton Memo, referring to the long-time Director of ICE, John Morton. In that memo, which was released on June 17, 2011, ICE directed all field agents to prioritize dangerous individuals, which the memo defined using an assortment of prior criminal activity. That memo only asked for one misdemeanor conviction. As such, simply being in the country illegally was no longer an ICE investigative priority.

From there, future directives required that a suspect be convicted of a crime before they were a priority for being held in detention. There are only 32,400 beds in all ICE facilities, even though there are roughly 300,000 individuals in the immigration system at any given time. This means that ICE can only hold about one in nine people that it puts in the system.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Administration’s ‘Deferred Action’ Program Halts 102,000 Deportations

/5 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: z2amiller

The administration has issued stays of deportation for 102,965 illegal immigrants under President Obama’s new non-deportation policy, officials announced Friday.

Another 157,151 applications are still under review under the policy, officially known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which grants a tentative legal status to illegal immigrants who qualify — though it does not grant them a path to citizenship.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Homeland Security branch that administers the program, said 12,014 applications were rejected off the bat, while as many as 177,000 more applications are having their biometric data taken before entering the final review.

Mr. Obama announced the policy in June, saying he would no longer deport illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children as long as they haven’t committed any major crimes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Many Freed Illegal Alien Criminals Avoid Deportation, Strike Again

/6 Comments/in , /by

Qian Wu thought the man who brutally attacked her was gone forever. She was sure that Huang Chen, a Chinese citizen who slipped into America on a ship and stayed in the country illegally, would be deported as soon as he got out of jail for choking, punching, and pointing a knife at her in 2006.

But China refused to take Chen back. So, after jailing Chen on and off for three years in Texas, immigration officials believed they were out of options and did what they have done with thousands of criminals like him.

They quietly let him go.

Nobody warned Wu, or prosecutors, or the public. The petite, 46-year-old woman learned Chen was still here when he stormed into her unlocked apartment one day in January 2010 and announced, “I bet you didn’t expect to see me.” Terrified, she called the police, and he fled. But for two weeks, Chen was free to stalk her and finally, to catch her as she hurried home with milk and bread one afternoon.

Chen then finished what he had started earlier, bashing Wu on the head with a hammer and slashing her with a knife. As she lay crumpled in a grimy stairwell, he ripped out her heart and a lung and fled with his macabre trophies…

Wu is just one casualty of an immigration system cloaked in a blanket of secrecy that the Founding Fathers could not have imagined, a blanket that isn’t lifted even when life is at risk. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its sister agencies have emerged as the largest law enforcement network in the United States since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and they are increasingly dealing with criminals, but they play by very different rules than the local police, prosecutors, or even the FBI.

Read more from this story HERE.

Maryland’s Endemic Corruption: An Object Lesson for the Nation (+video)

/2 Comments/in /by

AIM Special Report. Maryland is one of the most corrupt states in our nation. Nowhere is this fact more evident than with the state’s treatment of illegal aliens. Maryland politicians have literally become lawless in their efforts to cultivate illegals, and this lawlessness flows downhill from the very top. I will focus on a few of the more egregious examples.

In 2011, we published a report on CASA de Maryland, a Silver Spring-based illegal immigrant advocacy group that parrots ACORN in both its methods and associates—which include the Communist Party USA, FMLN, (a former Salvadoran communist guerilla group, now a political party), ACORN and others. Yet it is one of the most influential organizations in the state.

CASA receives significant state government funding, while Director Gustavo Torres and his wife, Sonia Mora both hold influential positions within that same government. Torres is a member of the Governor’s Council for New Americans and served on Governor Martin O’Malley’s transition team. Mora sits on the Governor’s Hispanic Affairs Commission and manages Montgomery County’s Latino Health Initiative. This is unseemly if not illegal. Torres’ primary source of income is CASA de Maryland, and CASA owes its inordinate influence to its many supporters in state government.

There is no disputing CASA’s influence. At a party to celebrate CASA’s 25 years of operation, Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot said, “I’d like to say I’m here for Mary Kay and Eliseo [the guests of honor], but when Gustavo Torres calls, I generally get in my car and go over and ask him what he wants.”

Torres’ influence extends to the White House. Former CASA Board member Cecilia Muñoz is President Obama’s Domestic Policy Director. Muñoz, who also worked for the National Council of La Raza, has been a persistent advocate for illegals throughout her tenure. Former CASA Board member Thomas Perez is now Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Holder Justice Department. Many of the odious lawsuits launched by the DOJ have been under Perez’s pen, including suits against states’ voter ID laws, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Arizona’s anti-illegal alien law.

As quoted by The Washington Post, Baltimore County Delegate Pat McDonough put it bluntly: “Gustavo has created a sanctuary state. The governor does his bidding. The politicians who control power in the State of Maryland do his bidding. … And his success has caused financial and personal heartbreak for the State of Maryland.”

When Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins cracked down on illegals flooding the county, CASA sued. They claimed that two of Jenkins’ deputies violated an illegal’s civil rights by questioning her, although she had an outstanding warrant and tried to run and hide when she saw them. CASA lost. Sheriff Jenkins stated:

I find it deplorable and disgusting that the groups involved in this lawsuit have tried to defame… the agency and discredit the two involved deputies and drag them through the mud for what is clearly their agenda in attempting to stop and derail the 287 program here in Frederick County.

Paulette Faulkner, an employee of Montgomery County’s Office of Child Support Enforcement, sent an email to Governor O’Malley in 2009, describing routine cases of illegals attempting to collect welfare benefits. She received a stern warning from then Department of Human Resources Deputy Secretary Stacy Rodgers not to complain.

Rodgers, who shares a seat with Torres on the Council for New Americans, told Faulkner to accept CASA de Maryland ID cards as legitimate identification. Faulkner refused, knowing that to follow that order would break the law. A short time later she was fired. She found no support from any legislator and was refused unemployment compensation. In the meantime, an audit revealed some 52,000 welfare recipients using invalid or non-existent social security numbers. A 2011 audit found similar problems.

Last year, Delegate Tony O’Donnell (R-Dist. 29C) proposed HB-28, “Public Benefits — Requirement of Proof of Lawful Presence” which would have addressed the problems identified both by Faulkner and the two audits. The bill reasonably required welfare recipients to prove their eligibility with a valid ID. Help Save Maryland President Brad Botwin and Howard County resident Tom Young both went to Annapolis to testify on the bill’s behalf, each taking significant time off from work to attend the hearing.

Protocol demands that those in favor of the proposed law testify first. In what was characterized as a deliberate slight, the committee chairman, Del. Norman Conway (D-Dist. 38B), instead called a long list of bill opponents, including CASA de Maryland, the ACLU and others. They testified for over an hour, whereupon Del. Conway abruptly ended the hearing and ran from the room, shutting out any possibility of allowing proponents to speak.

Read more from this story HERE.

Complaint Alleges Unions Putting Illegal Immigrants on Voter Rolls in Nevada

/2 Comments/in , , /by

photo credit: Barack ObamaJust hours before voters go to the polls in the battleground state of Nevada, a national group has announced it plans to file a complaint regarding illegal immigrants purportedly being allowed to vote.

ALIPAC, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, based in Raleigh, N.C., sent the Nevada secretary of state an email outlining its intention.

“We want to stop the felonious thefts of American elections,” says William Gheen, ALIPAC’s president.

Gheen points to a commentary published in Sunday’s Las Vegas Review Journal. In it, editorial writer Glenn Cook accuses the Culinary Union 226 of knowingly registering illegal immigrants and then pressured them to vote.

Cook quotes an unidentified illegal immigrant who is on the Clark County voter rolls. The person claims a union representative told them they were “in so much trouble” for refusing to vote.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Vitter Labels Justice Dept. ‘Campaign Arm’ for Obama, Demands Deportation of Illegals Who Vote

/7 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: nflravensIllegal aliens and noncitizens who vote in U.S. elections would be put on an accelerated path toward deportation under new legislation introduced by Republican Louisiana Sen. David Vitter.

While this is a “seemingly common sense proposition” there is currently no law on the books that would make voter fraud a deportable offense for foreign nationals, Vitter told the Daily Caller in an interview.

“While this may sound bizarre to a lot of folks in Washington D.C., illegal aliens and noncitizens have no constitutional right to vote in American elections,” he added in an emailed statement. “And they certainly shouldn’t influence the outcomes.”

“My bill injects some of that common sense and puts teeth into voter laws so we can uphold the integrity of American elections. Of course we want immigrants to become voters once they become citizens, but our election system and our right to vote are being taken advantage of because of weak enforcement.”

Alleging that President Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) refuses to enforce a key provision of federal law that directs state officials to purge dead and ineligible voters from their rolls, Vitter says he sees a strong potential for voter fraud to occur in states that could help decide both the presidential election, and control of the U.S Senate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Michigan Asks Voters if They’re Legal; ACLU Freaks Out (+video)

/2 Comments/in , , /by

By John Hayward. The American Civil Liberties Union teamed up with the SEIU and a few other interested groups to sue the Michigan Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson, over her addition of a check box to ballot applications, asking voters to confirm they are U.S. citizens who legally have the right to vote. ACLU’s Michigan executive director, Kary Moss, described this as a “cynical voter suppression tactic.”

No, this is not a joke or satire. The ACLU actually thinks a check box asking voters to confirm that they’re legally entitled to vote constitutes “suppression.” The mad scramble to protect vote fraud operations had degenerated into this level of absolute lunacy. Devoid of anything approaching a logical argument, vote fraud defenders are down to describing a simple “Yes or No” question on ballot applications as a “roadblock” that will “confuse” and “intimidate” minority voters.

There is an entirely separate issue here about whether or not the Secretary of State had the authority to make this change on her own. A bill requiring voters to check off a citizenship box was vetoed this summery by Governor Rick Snyder (who, like Johnson, is a Republican.) Moss of the ACLU describes this in hyperbolic terms by saying Johnson has “thumbed her nose at the electorate and flouted the very laws she was elected to uphold.”

Johnson and her staff seem confident that she does have “the power to prescribe ballot forms.” At the very least, it sounds like a debatable point of order, but of course it’s buried under layers of hysterical shrieking about “voter suppression,” which is pitched more for the ears of Michigan voters than Michigan judges.

What got this ball rolling was a dramatic performance by a voter named Rich Robinson, who encountered the awful “Are you a U.S. Citizen?” checkbox at the polls during the August primaries. He refused to answer the question, even though he very obviously understood it, and was clearly a U.S. citizen. His ballot was denied because he wouldn’t answer the question, so he commenced howling about “disenfranchisement.” In a completely unrelated coincidence, Robinson just happens to be the Executive Director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, which bills itself as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of organizations and individuals concerned about the influence of money in politics and the need for campaign finance reform in Michigan.” Read more from this story HERE.

Read this story on the illegal alien voter fraud in Alaska and then watch this documentary on the massive illegal alien voter fraud discovered in Florida:

Unions, Protesters Attack Self-Made Grocery Tycoon For Verifying Legal Status of Workers

/3 Comments/in , /by

An illegal alien who became a citizen and multi-millionaire grocery tycoon is in trouble with “activists” because he is using the federal E-Verify program to check whether prospective employees are illegal aliens.

Juvenal Chavez, who own the Mi Pueblo grocery chain in California headquartered in San Jose, faces protests because, “activists” say, he has betrayed his “undocumented roots,” the San Jose Mercury News recently reported.

They, apparently, want the Mexican Hortaio Alger to ignore the law and permit illegal aliens to work.

According to the News, “Mi Pueblo stunned some of its more than 3,000 employees last month when it told them it had joined E-Verify, a Department of Homeland Security program that screens the immigration status of new hires. …”

[Also a]ccording to the newspaper, “armed security” booted a county supervisor from the store in what the company called a “media stunt,” after he showed up to investigate “complaints about working conditions.” It appears that union goons, the newspaper reported, are pushing the protests against the entrepreneur. They are “accusing Chavez of betraying his own undocumented immigrant roots and threatening a consumer boycott if he doesn’t pull out of E-Verify by October.” So Chavez “is fighting back in a war of words against the union and political opposition.”

Read more from this story HERE.