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Fidel Castro May be America’s Most Famous Illegal Immigrant

Photo Credit: Daily CallerAmong the least important questions raised by the current immigration debate is this: Who is America’s most famous illegal immigrant to have sneaked across the Mexican border? The answer may just be Fidel Castro.

He wasn’t an illegal immigrant for long, but according to both Castro himself and a former CIA officer who has followed Castro since the 1960s, the long-time Cuban dictator, who ceded power to his brother Raul in 2006, entered the U.S. illegally in 1956.

In his 2007 book “After Fidel: Raul Castro and the Future of the Cuban Revolution,” former CIA officer Brian Latell recounts Castro’s 1956 journey across the Rio Grande to raise money to fund his fight against the Cuban regime of Fulgencio Batista.

“Houston was new to Fidel, but in fact he had visited Texas once before,” Latell writes.

“It is the only one of his now-numerous visits to the United States — a clandestine one — that he has never publicly acknowledged. In 1956, when the brothers were in exile in Mexico, training and preparing for the insurgency they launched at the end of that year, Fidel needed to enter the United States a second time to solicit contributions. But his visa had been canceled following protests by the Batista regime.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Pending Amnesty Bill to Cost Taxpayers an Enormous $6.3 Trillion, will Bankrupt Nation

Photo Credit: fredcaminoBy The Heritage Foundation. Granting amnesty to an estimated 11 million unlawful immigrants will cost taxpayers at least $6.3 trillion, according to a new report by Heritage Foundation scholar Robert Rector. The highly anticipated report, released today, becomes available as a Senate committee is set to mark up a “comprehensive immigration reform” bill May 9.

“No matter how you slice it, amnesty will add a tremendous amount of pressure on America’s already strained public purse,” said Rector, Heritage’s senior research fellow in domestic policy studies.

The vast majority of the fiscal costs examined are long-term – including costs associated with Obamacare, Social Security and other entitlements, plus more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. Among the major findings of Rector and co-author Jason Richwine:

·Over the course of their lives, former unlawful immigrants together would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services and pay $3.1 trillion in taxes, for a lifetime “fiscal deficit” – at minimum — of $6.3 trillion (total benefits minus total taxes).

·The typical unlawful immigrant is 34 years old, has a 10th-grade education, and already receives $14,387 per household in government benefits in excess of taxes paid. After the bill’s “interim” period of about 13 years, when former unlawful immigrants become eligible for welfare and Obamacare subsidies, that “fiscal deficit” would double to $29,500 per household.

·After amnesty, the typical unlawful immigrant will receive government benefits for 50 years, meaning his household would receive $592,000 more in government benefits during his lifetime than he would pay in taxes. At retirement, he would draw more than $3 in Social Security and Medicare for every dollar he paid in FICA taxes. Read more from this story HERE.

Rep. King: Immigration Reform Is ‘Breathtaking, Outrageous Form of Amnesty’

By Paul Scicchitano and Kathleen Walter. Rep. Steve King of Iowa tells Newsmax TV that the immigration reform bill that has emerged in the Senate is nothing more than a euphemism for the “most breathtaking, outrageous form of amnesty” for some 11 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S.

“The people that are for open borders — the people that are for granting amnesty — seem to be stuck on the idea that they can’t pass their amnesty if it’s called amnesty,” King said in an exclusive interview on Monday. “And so they try to redefine the word ‘amnesty,’ and they call it ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”

The battle over immigration reform that is all but certain to take place in the House factored into King’s announcement last week that he will not run for the Senate.

“I didn’t want to arrive in the United States Senate in January of 2015 looking at a mess that had been created in the previous 20 or so months, and then not be in a position to undo — not be in a position to fix this immigration legislation that’s coming at us,” said King. “If that is written into law — and the president could sign something that looks anything like the 844 pages in the Senate — that’s a genie that you can’t put back in the bottle.”

A member of the House Agriculture and Judiciary committees, King said that the urgency of the fight “outrode” his opportunity to gain a stronger voice in the Senate. Read more from this story HERE.

Immigration Bill Guts E-Verify For Years

Photo Credit: J. Scott ApplewhiteThe Senate’s complex immigration bill would instantly gut the popular E-Verify system that is widely used to exclude illegal immigrants from jobs, and then create an enforcement gap for several years before the arrival of a replacement system.

“There’s no doubt that the bill eliminates E-Verify immediately upon signing,” said Kris Kobach, secretary of state of Kansas, told The Daily Caller.

“If there’s no statutory authority for E-Verify, there’s no E-Verify,” said Kobach, a lawyer trained at Harvard, Oxford and Yale universities, and a prominent advocate for reduced immigration.

The claim is vehemently disputed by the bills’ advocates, including staffers working for Sen. Marco Rubio.

However, Rubio staffers were unable to show TheDC any text in the legislation that gives the current E-Verify system legal backing until the new system is mandated in several years.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rubio Spokesman Compares Illegal Immigrants to . . . Slaves?

A spokesman for Senator Marco Rubio yesterday compared the status of illegal immigrants in the United States under current law to that of slaves prior to emancipation.

In a Twitter exchange with Washington Examiner columnist Conn Carroll, Rubio press secretary Alex Conant said, “We haven’t had a cohort of people living permanently in US without full rights of citizenship since slavery.”

@conncarroll We haven’t had a cohort of people living permanently in US without full rights of citizenship since slavery.
— Alex Conant (@AlexConant) April 21, 2013

Conant’s remark elicited an immediate response . . .

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Illegals to Pay Only $83 a Year to Stay in U.S. Under Senate Plan

photo credit: corazon girl

The U.S. Senate Gang of Eight unveiled its immigration reform legislation, promising stronger border security, much-need reforms for visas and legal immigration practices and a path to citizenship – but Iowa Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, told WND the only thing guaranteed in this bill is a reward for those who came here illegally.

“The big comprehensive amnesty plan is a disaster and a big mistake,” King said. “What are we trying to fix here, and why? We have an executive branch problem, not a legislative branch problem. The president of the United States has refused to enforce immigration law with which he disagrees. So he’s seeking to write his own by executive edict.”

King said Obama’s approach to border enforcement has been infuriating, but the likelihood of Republicans getting behind this legislation leaves him baffled.

“Now I’m hearing Republicans say, ‘Well, if we’re ever going to have enforcement of the border, we have to make this agreement with the president and the Democrats or we’re never going to have border security,’” he said. “When I read this bill, I wonder: What’s the point in having border security if you’re going to legalize anybody that can come into America that is here and send an invitation to those that have been deported to apply to come back in?”

The congressman is also not impressed by the severe penalties the Gang of Eight is promising to impose on those willing to go through the legalization process.

Read more from this story HERE.

ICE Union Hammers Gang of 8: Their Plan is ‘Amnesty First, then Enforcement’

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

During a Wednesday afternoon conference call, ICE agents union head Chris Crane hammered the so-called Gang of Eight and the Obama administration for supposedly failing to focus on enforcing immigration laws.

“The plan of the Gang of Eight appears to be legalization, or amnesty first, and then enforcement. That is a big problem for us,” Crane told reporters, noting that none of the immigration plans laid out so far has offered a framework for “stronger interior enforcement.”

He charged that those currently considering immigration reform are more focused on legalization than addressing illegal immigration.

The National ICE Council, Crane’s union of more than 7,000 ICE officers and staff, has been calling on the White House and the Gang of Eight to hear their concerns about immigration reform and the need for a focus on enforcement first.

Their requests for a meeting from both players have gone unanswered.

Read more from this story HERE.

Illegal Border Crossings Double in Anticipation of DC's Amnesty Deal

Photo Credit: CBP intelligence

As the immigration reform Gang of Eight inside the Beltway prepares to announce a deal later this week, claiming border security will come before a path to citizenship for millions of illegals, Border Patrol agents have seen illegal border crossings double and warn the cutting of agent work hours will only result in less border security, not more…

“We’ve seen the number of illegal aliens double, maybe even triple since amnesty talk started happening,” an agent told Townhall, who asked to remain unnamed due to fears of retaliation within Customs and Border Protection [CBP], something he said is common. “A lot of these people, although not the majority, are criminals or aggravated felons. This is a direct danger to our communities.”

Data obtained by Townhall and reported within CBP from February 5 through March 1, 2013 shows 504 illegal aliens were spotted exploiting the Tucson/Nogales area, 189 were caught on CBP intelligence cameras. Of those 504, only 174 were apprehended and 32 of the 189 on camera were carrying large drug load packs for Mexican cartels. Some were armed with AK-47 style weapons.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Gang of 8’ Senators on Tour of Mexican Border See Illegal Climb Fence Right in Front of Them (+video)

Photo Credit: AP

Four of the U.S. senators leading the charge on immigration reform got more than they expected today when they came to Nogales, Ariz., to check on border security.

Just a few steps away from where they stood with Customs and Border Patrol officials, the problem facing the nation unfolded before their eyes: A young woman was sprinting her way out of Mexico, then climbing a security fence, only to be caught by the border patrol within seconds.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., soon tweeted about the event, saying: “Just witnessed a woman successfully climb an 18-ft bollard fence a few yards from us in Nogales. And Border Patrol successfully apprehended her, but incident is another reminder that threats to our border security are real.”

Arizona’s Senate delegation, McCain and Sen. Jeff Flake, both Republicans, hosted Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., for a tour along the border in Nogales, part of the Tucson sector. All four senators are members of the so-called “Gang of Eight” that is working on a solution to the nation’s immigration issues.

ABC News was at the scene of the apprehension exclusively and later asked the senators from out of state what they thought of the experience.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

Rush Limbaugh: Amnesty A “Death Sentence” For GOP

On his March 19th show Rush Limbaugh declared that amnesty for illegal aliens would be “a death sentence for the Republicans.”

That’s because amnesty includes the ability to legally vote, Limbaugh reasoned. Citing poll data, Limbaugh said that 70 percent of Hispanics “say that they believe that government should be the primary source of prosperity.” Therefore, Rush says, “Let’s say you have ten million illegals, seven million of them are automatically gonna vote Democrat. Republican Party’s finished.”

“It’s a mathematics conclusion. It’s not any more complicated than that. And there’s nothing that the Republicans can do,” Rush continued.

Rush went on to point out a blatant contradiction in the arguments of those in the Republican Party who push for full amnesty:

“If you listen to the Republican proponents for immigration reform, amnesty, what have you, whatever you’re gonna call it, they always say that Hispanics are Republicans-in-waiting. That these are big family value, churchgoing, largely Catholic, I mean, they are Republicans-in-waiting, okay? Accept that.

Read more from this story HERE.

New Documents Reveal Obama Administration ‘Cooking The Books’ To Achieve Record Deportation Numbers

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Internal documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee show that the Obama administration has been “cooking the books” in order to reach their “record” number of deported illegal immigrants, chairman Rep. Lamar Smith said Friday.

Based on the internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) documents, the number of removals are actually down, the opposite of what the administration has been claiming.

According to the committee’s review, in 2011 officials at the Department of Homeland Security began including the number of individuals removed through the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP) in its annual removal numbers. ATEP is a program which moves apprehended illegal immigrants to another point along the border.

The committee chair claims that counting those individuals as removals is misleading because there are no repercussions for illegal immigrants who are deported through the program, and they can simply try to re-enter.

“It is dishonest to count illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol along the border as ICE removals,” Smith explained in a statement. “And these ‘removals’ from the Border Patrol program do not subject the illegal immigrant to any penalties or bars for returning to the U.S. This means a single illegal immigrant can show up at the border and be removed numerous times in a single year — and counted each time as a removal.”

Read more from this story HERE.