Posts

Obama to Hispanics: We Won’t Deport Relatives If You Enroll in ObamaCare

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Geoff LivingstonPresident Obama on Tuesday sought to assure legal immigrants that they can sign up for ObamaCare without worrying that “the immigration people” will come for family members who are in the country illegally.

In an interview with Univision Deportes, a Spanish-language sports radio show, Obama said immigration officials won’t have access to the personal information that consumers provide when signing up for healthcare on the new exchanges.

“Well, the main thing for people to know is that any information you get, you know, asked with respect to buying insurance, does not have anything to do with … the rules governing immigration,” Obama said. “And you know, you can qualify if you’re a legal resident, if you are … legally present in the United States.

“You know, if you have a family where some people are citizens or legally here, and others are not documented, the immigration people will never get that information.”

Adolf Falcon, the senior vice president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, told The Hill that Hispanic families are wary of Obama’s assurances because of his record on deportations.

Read more from this story HERE.

Paul Ryan Co-Writing Bill Legalizing America’s Illegal Immigrants

/9 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AFPHouse Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is writing a bill that would grant legal status to America’s at least 11 million illegal immigrants, The New York Times reports.

“Republican Representatives Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida have been working on legislation that includes a process by which immigrants here illegally could ‘get right with the law’ and eventually become citizens,” the Times’ Eric Lipton and Ashley Parker wrote on Friday in a piece about immigration reform.

While the Times reported here, and Politico reported on Friday morning, that the Speaker and other House GOP leadership figures are privately saying they do not expect a vote on immigration measures this year, publicly they say they want to hold a vote on something on the floor of the House.

Technically, there are only 19 legislative days left in 2013’s calendar for the House, so doing so would be difficult. But it appears, according to liberal blogger Greg Sargent, that the public appearance of immigration reform being “dead” may be a coordinated leak system from the House GOP leadership in order to distract conservatives.

Read more from this story HERE.

They’re Not Going To Take It Anymore: New Generation Of Immigrant Advocates Take Radical Approach

/11 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERSThe frustration, say immigration advocates, is reaching a fever pitch.

That is why, many say, recent weeks have seen activists use chains and pipes to tie themselves to the tires of buses that carry immigrants slated for deportation to court, block traffic on Capitol Hill and get arrested, surround Tucson police when they targeted two immigrants during a traffic stop, and chain themselves and block the entrance of a federal detention center.

More such actions, they vow, are coming.

“It’s absolutely out of frustration and impatience,” said Marisa Franco, campaign organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which helped coordinate some of the more provocative actions. “Immigrant communities who are losing 1,100 loved ones every day to deportation cannot wait for Congress to end its political games or for the President to rediscover his moral compass,” she added.

“The people will take power back into their own hands and set a true example of leadership that the Beltway will have to follow,” Franco vowed.

Read more from this story HERE.

N.J. Gov. Christie Flips, Says He Now Wants In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants

/11 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Mel EvansImmigrant-rights activists say New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reversed himself Saturday and endorsed giving illegal immigrants in-state college tuition rates, and said he will try to get the issue through his legislature in a lame-duck session.

Mr. Christie, who is up for re-election in November, is also seen as eyeing a bid for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination — but his support for in-state tuition could complicate that.

“We need tuition equality for everyone in New Jersey,” the activists said the governor said in a speech to the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey.

Afterward, the activists said, Mr. Christie told one of them that, “We will get it done in the lame duck.”

A message left with Mr. Christie’s office Sunday morning wasn’t returned.

Read more from this story HERE.

Cruz Slams Immigration Hecklers: ‘They Don’t Want the Truth to be Heard’ (+video)

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: ReutersIllegal immigrant advocates interrupted Sen. Ted Cruz’s speech to the Values Voters Summit on Friday more than a half-dozen times, calling on the Texas Republican and potential presidential candidate to support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

But the Texas Republican repeatedly deflected the criticism, turning it into an attack against President Obama.

“How scared is the president?” Mr. Cruz said. “Oh, they don’t want the truth to be heard. They definitely don’t want the truth to be heard.”

The crowd also tried to drown out the protestors with chants of “USA! USA!”

The protesters were dragged out by security guards.

Read more from this story HERE.

Immigration Agents Rip House Lawmakers Push for Amnesty

/2 Comments/in , /by

U.S. Immigration Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agents have expressed strong concerns over House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and other Representatives pushing for immigration legislation that would legalize the status of America’s at least 11 million illegal immigrants.

In a public statement that will be released Thursday morning but has been provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release, USCIS Council president Kenneth Palinkas warned that Goodlatte (pictured), House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-VA), House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) seem to be following the same pathway that Senate “Gang of Eight” members did, regarding how they are working on immigration legislation.

“At every step, this administration places obstacles and roadblocks in front of our adjudication officers in their attempts to protect our nation’s security and the American taxpayer,” Palinkas said. “I documented these abuses on more than one occasion with the authors of Schumer-Rubio-Corker-Hoeven [S. 744] only to have them ignored.

“I worry the House may be following a similar path. Media reports reveal that Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Chairman Paul Ryan, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are working to advance proposals to open citizenship benefits to the majority of those here illegally, in combination with proposals to expand visa programs.”

Palinkas warned, too, that any group of “step-by-step” House immigration bills may be used as a tool by congressional leaders to get to a conference committee, at which point they would be combined with the Senate bill and sent to the president for his signature, and illegal immigrants would start getting amnesty. That is exactly what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Gang of Eight members Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and some Republicans have said they want to do.

Read more from this story HERE.

In First Year of New Program, Deportation Is Deferred for 400,000 Young Illegal Aliens

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

About 400,000 “Dreamers” have been allowed to stay in the United States in the year since the Obama administration began accepting applications for young illegal immigrants to defer deportation proceedings and receive work permits, according to data compiled by the Brookings Institution and released on the anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The numbers show that out of more than a half-million applicants for deferred action, more than three-quarters were accepted and just 1 percent denied. The applications were concentrated in states that already have large immigrant communities, such as California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Florida. On the East Coast, the applications were from a more diverse set of countries while in the West, Midwest, and South the vast majority of applicants were from Mexico.

download (4)

“DACA has been an incredible success for our country,” said Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas. “To date we have given 400,000 young immigrants the ability to continue to contribute to this country, the only country that most of these outstanding individuals have ever known.”

The fate of these younger immigrants brought to the country illegally as children—the so-called Dreamers—is less precarious than many of the other 11 million people living in the U.S. without papers. Lawmakers have been quicker to agree that the Dreamers deserve special treatment, including an expedited path to citizenship.

Read more from this story HERE.

DHS Loses Track of One Million Foreigners, Puts Amnesty Bill at Risk

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APThe Homeland Security Department has lost track of more than 1 million people who it knows arrived in the U.S. but who it cannot prove left the country, according to an audit Tuesday that also found the department probably won’t meet its own goals for deploying an entry-exit system.

The findings were revealed as Congress debates an immigration bill, and the Government Accountability Office’s report could throw up another hurdle because lawmakers in the House and Senate have said that any final deal must include a workable system to track entries and exits and cut down on so-called visa overstays.

The government does track arrivals, but is years overdue in setting up a system to track departures — a goal set in a 1996 immigration law and reaffirmed in 2004, but which has eluded Republican and Democratic administrations.

“DHS has not yet fulfilled the 2004 statutory requirement to implement a biometric exit capability, but has planning efforts under way to report to Congress in time for the fiscal year 2016 budget cycle on the costs and benefits of such a capability at airports and seaports,” GAO investigators wrote.

Outside business groups and Republican donors are trying to breathe life into the push for getting an immigration bill through Congress this year.

Read more from this story HERE.

Populism is the Answer, Not Amnesty

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APSean Trende, RealClearPolitics.com’s senior elections analyst, rattled Washington this month when he challenged the conventional wisdom that the Republican Party must give citizenship to current illegal immigrants if it ever hopes to win a national election again.

Trende argued that instead of pandering to every demographic group, Republicans should instead adjust their agenda to better appeal to Reagan Democrat/Perot Independent voters who stayed home last November.

“Ultimately, the basic prescription for the GOP is a healthy dose of economic populism,” Trende writes. “This includes a lot of changes Democrats would presumably enjoy, such as jettisoning the pro-big business, Wall Street-style conservatism that characterized the Romney campaign.”

Here is what such an agenda might look like:

– Rollback the surveillance state: The government is collecting too much information on law-abiding citizens. The National Security Agency must be reined in…

– Break up the banks: Big banks are not a product of the free market. They are a product of over-regulation and regulatory capture. Dodd-Frank has only made the banks bigger. It’s time to cut them down to size.

Read more from this story HERE.

Amnesty-Backers Bring Bush Out of Retirement to Push for Bill

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters Bush says immigration reform ‘complex,’ optimistic Congress can fix ‘broken system’

By Fox News. Former President George W. Bush expressed optimism Sunday that Congress will pass immigration reform legislation, expressing disappointment that his attempt failed but suggesting the timing is now right to “fix a broken system.”

Bush, out of office since 2009, expressed understanding about why the White House and both parties in Congress have wrangled over the issue point-by-point while the rest of America waits for them to resolve the issue of roughly 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

“Sometimes, it takes time for some of these complex issues to evolve, the 67-year-old Republican said in an interview for ABC’s “This Week.” “And it looks like immigration has a chance to pass.”

Bush said immigration reform is very difficult to pass because it has “a lot of moving parts” and the legislative process “can be ugly.” Read more from this story HERE.

______________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: APChair of House Homeland Security Committee: Senate bill throws ‘candy’ at border

By Kevin Cirilli. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said on Sunday the Senate immigration plan just threw “a bunch of candy” at the border in order to gain votes.

“What the Senate just passed was, again, a bunch of candy thrown down there — a bunch of assets thrown down there to gain votes but without a methodical, smart border approach. We want a smart border and smart immigration plan, something that makes sense,” Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” Read more from this story HERE.