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…do you think it's good or bad pork?

Free Rubio Phones for Illegals

Posted by Adam On April - 17 - 2013 ADD COMMENTS

Pages 43 and 44 of the bill detail what one conservative blogger, Javier Manjarres of Shark Tank, has already described as the “ObamaPhone” from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). That section reads:

SEC. 1107. ACCESS TO EMERGENCY PERSONNEL.
(a) SOUTHWEST BORDER REGION EMERGENCY COM- MUNICATIONS GRANTS.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary, in consultation with the governors of the States in the South- west Border region, shall establish a 2-year grant program, to be administered by the Secretary, to im- prove emergency communications in the Southwest Border region.
(2) ELIGIBILITY FOR GRANTS.—An individual is eligible to receive a grant under this subsection if the individual demonstrates that he or she—
(A) regularly resides or works in the Southwest Border region;

(B) is at greater risk of border violence due to the lack of cellular service at his or her residence or business and his or her proximity to the Southern border. (3) USE OF GRANTS.—Grants awarded under
this subsection may be used to purchase satellite telephone communications systems and service that—
(A) can provide access to 9–1–1 service;
and
(B) are equipped with global positioning systems.
(4) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.— There is authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to carry out the grant program established under this subsection.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/17/Immigration-bill-contains-free-cell-phone-handouts-dubbed-MarcoPhones

The  Heritage Foundation has issued a new report that charges the Obama  administration sent presidential earmarks, taxpayer dollars, to Democratic  lawmakers to help convince them to vote for controversial proposals such as cap  and trade and the health care bill.

“When you examine the recipients of those grants,  there were at least 32 vulnerable house Democrats who received significant  federal grant money during the run-up or directly after the votes on those  pieces of legislation,” says Lachlan Markay, one of the authors of the  report.

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The  amount of earmarks spiked around the time of difficult votes such as cap and  trade, then dropped, only to spike again around controversial financial  regulations known as Dodd/Frank, and spiked the most just before the vote on the  health care bill.

Cap and trade was tough for many Democrats,  especially in the Midwest, because even the president acknowledged it would, as  he put it, cause energy prices to “skyrocket.”

The health care law remains controversial even  today, with many polls showing majority of Americans oppose to it.

On their websites, lawmakers didn’t advertise their  votes, but did tout at length the money they’d gotten for various local  projects.

“As a way to counteract the negative voter sentiment  that would come from voting for unpopular legislation,” says Markay. “These were  attempts to make sure that constituents knew they were bringing money home to  their district.”

Nevertheless, the White  House argued today nothing was amiss.

“The president’s opposition to earmarks is well  known. The fact of the matter is I’m confident the issuance of grants from  agencies are done … in a merit based way,” White House spokesman Jay  Carney said.

President  Obama didn’t invent the practice. FDR used it to great effect and President  Nixon is reported to have used earmarks to help win support for re-election  by sending funds to key states or voting blocs.

But President Obama has vastly expanded the  practice.

Numbers from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service show that the  value of administration earmarks under President Obama increased by a 126  percent in his first two years in office and the actual number of administrative  earmarks increased by 54 percent.

Those are dramatic increases that are 11 times more  than Congress itself increased earmarks, which the White House did not explain  today.

It also does not square with statements the  president is against earmarks, which he and his administration appear to have  used to great effect and with increasing frequency.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/21/report-finds-spike-in-earmarks-to-democratic-lawmakers-during-controversial/?test=latestnews#ixzz1n7V58Ask

Does ‘secure the border’ mean ‘keep America white’?

LZ Granderson wonders why GOP candidates seem concerned only with the Mexico border.

Editor’s note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism. Follow him on Twitter: . Watch him on Tuesdays on CNN Newsroom, 9 am ET hour.

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) — In case you plan to see Wednesday’s GOP debate, allow me to offer up some crib notes so you don’t get lost.

First, when you hear the candidates talk about “job creators,” that’s just another way of saying “rich people” or “the guy bankrolling my super Pac.”

When someone says “family values,” that’s to remind the audience that they don’t like gay people; “religious freedom” means “Christianity”; and it’s not really a GOP debate until a candidate attacks the “liberal media” for asking questions they’re too afraid to answer.

Now there will be plenty of other buzz words and euphemisms that will be tossed around during the debate, but since it is being held in Arizona, chances are the most popular phrase will be “secure the border.”

We must secure the border.

The candidates will argue that it’s a matter of national security. That it isn’t just the friendly illegal immigrants looking for work we must worry about, but terrorists, drug lords and other criminals who seek to make their way through our porous border. They will say if they were president they would build walls, add troops, even commission a Death Star to keep this country safe.

Newt Gingrich has promised to build a double fence along the entire southern border, adding, “”The United States must control its border. It is a national security imperative,”

Ron Paul said “If elected president, I would move to quickly end foreign nation building efforts and use many of the resources we waste playing world’s policemen to control our southern border.”

They all will receive applause, and it will all sound great … until you realize that “secure the border” is slang for “keep the Mexicans out.”

Oh boy, here comes the black guy playing the race card again.

Yep, that’s me — pointing out that the Canadian border is largely ignored in this dialogue despite being more than twice the size of the Mexican border and less than 1% secure, according to a 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office. Even if we were to disregard the 1,538 miles between Alaska and Canada, the 3,987 mile border connecting the lower 48 to our neighbors up north is still much larger than the 1,933-mile stretch that connects us to Mexico.

And yet the attention we give the northern border is miniscule at best when compared to the resources we allocate to the south. There are definitely reasons for serious concern about safety along the Mexican border, but according to our own intelligence, Mexico should hardly be our only concern.

You would think presidential hopefuls genuinely concerned about our safety would remember that just four years ago, Michael Chertoff, President Bush’s Homeland Security secretary, said he was more afraid of terrorists coming into the country from Canada than Mexico and that his department arrested more people connected to al Qaeda and Hezbollah trying to come in from up north than down south.

This is not to perpetuate the myth that the September 11 terrorists came through Canada or defame our northern neighbors. But rather to point out the glaring disconnect between some of the crowd-pleasing rhetoric the GOP candidates like to deliver about “securing the border” and the more nuanced reality.

For example, did you know reports show that from 2007 to 2009, the amount of marijuana seized at the Canadian border jumped 22% and that Homeland Security has seen a sharp increase in the trafficking of more dangerous drugs such as heroin, cocaine and ecstasy? Yes, there are drug tunnels along the southern border, but the Drug Enforcement Administration also found a 360-foot drug tunnel from a hut in Canada to a house in the state of Washington as well.

We know an estimated 350,000 people trying to come in through Mexico in 2011 were stopped. We also know that number is down from the 447,731 arrests made in 2010 and that is significantly less than the 1,643,679 people stopped in 2000.

What we don’t know is how many people are illegally trying to get in from Canada, because less than 1% of the world’s largest border is secure. Conversely, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the Mexican border is as secure as it has ever been, adding, “It is clear from every measure we currently have that this approach is working.” Still, judging from the tone of the immigration talk so far in this campaign, no one debating in Arizona on Wednesday really seems to care about either point.

Why?

Last year a group of senators had to petition the Obama administration for military assistance to catch the drug traffickers who were using low-flying planes to move their products from Canada into the United States. Ten years after 9/11 and we still had undetected aircraft crossing the border because it wasn’t the border we’re scared of.

You know, this whole immigration discussion would be a lot more productive if the people leading it would be more honest and stop pretending as if it’s only about national security. It’s a part, but the larger truth is that nonwhite people will be the majority in this country by 2040 and this browning of America scares the hell out of a lot of people, particularly some white people. The thinking goes that if the country can deport the Mexicans who are illegally here and stop new ones from coming in, maybe that trend will slow down or even reverse.

That sentiment is at the core of the racial profiling laws started in Arizona and is at the core of the entire illegal immigration conversation. It’s a clumsy attempt to talk about race without mentioning race so as not to appear racist .

But the dialogue is transparent because if it was really about “securing the border,” the facts suggest Canada would be a big part of the conversation and not just an afterthought.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

OMAHA, Nebraska –  A federal judge has thrown out most of a Nebraska city’s  controversial ordinance that sought to ban hiring illegal immigrants or renting  property to them.

U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp issued  her ruling Monday in a lawsuit the Mexican American Legal Defense &  Educational Fund and American  Civil Liberties Union filed challenging Fremont’s 2010 ordinance.

Attorney Shirley Mora James, who worked with MALDEF,  says the judge effectively gutted the ordinance. The law has been on hold while  the lawsuits were decided.

The Fremont ordinance was approved by voters in the  eastern Nebraska city of 25,000. It would have required employers to check  whether a person is permitted to work in the U.S. Anyone seeking to rent  property would have had to apply for a $5 city permit.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/20/judge-rules-against-us-citys-immigration-plan/#content#ixzz1n2HKmJbf

Please, A Little Honesty about Illegal Immigration

Posted by The Editors On February - 16 - 2012 ADD COMMENTS

President Barack Obama recently assured El Salvador that the United States would not deport the more than 200,000 Salvadorans residing illegally in the United States. As the election nears, and the president looks to court Hispanic voters, he has also created a new position of “public advocate” for illegal immigrants, whose duties would appear to be advocating that millions circumvent, rather than follow, current federal law.

The administration has also said it will focus its enforcement only on those who have committed crimes — with the implicit understanding that it is no longer a crime to illegally enter and reside in the United States. Obama has caricatured those supporting completion of a fence on the border as wanting to place alligators in the Rio Grande.

Keep reading this post . . .

Reforming Legal Immigration

Posted by Mark Krikorian On February - 6 - 2012 ADD COMMENTS

Jennifer Wedel (an “avid Republican”!) got the drop on President Obama the other day by asking him why, with so many American engineers like her husband unemployed, he wants to import even more engineers from abroad. Obama responded that industry tells him there’s a “huge demand” for engineers around the country, and that she should send her husband’s résumé to the White House.

The Republican National Committee has leapt at the opportunity, launching a site called Not Better Off, highlighting the weak job market during the president’s tenure and urging people to send him their résumés.

Keep reading this post . . .

ANOTHER MUSLIM HONOR KILLING – THIS TIME SEVEN DEAD IN TEXAS
01-02-2012 2:56 pm – Americans United for Freedom
Grapevine Texas Real Estate agent Aziz Yazdanpanah was suffering the worst kind of humiliation possible for a Muslim man: his house was in foreclosure, his wife had left him, and she was raising “his” family in the Western, modern fashion – even allowing their children to celebrate Christmas and date non-Muslims. In proper Islamic tradition, Yazpanpanah did what any obedient Muslim should do – perform honor killings – and murdered his entire family to preserve the family’s Muslim “faith” and “good name.”

On Christmas morning, Yazdanpanah dressed in a Santa suit, invaded his estranged family’s apartment and shot all family members dead, leaving their broken bodies strewn among festive Christmas wrapping paper, before shooting himself as well.

THIS IS SHARIAH LAW IN ACTION.

Tragically, the warning signs were all there, but in this day of political correctness, none dared utter the words Shariah – and the promise of justice and freedom failed this young family fleeing medieval persecution. Friends of Nona Yazdanpanah (pictured at the top pof the article), the daughter murdered by Aziz, say that Nona was terrified of her father. She frequently came to school sobbing and describing how her father had installed video cameras throughout the house to monitor his family’s activities, and that Aziz had even nailed his daughter’s bedroom window closed to prevent possible escapes. Nona was reportedly relieved when her mother left Aziz and spirited Nona and her younger brother Ali to an apartment. Nona was reportedly excited about “starting her new life.”

But all that ended Christmas morning, when Aziz “reclaimed” his family’s honor in time-honored Islamic fashion, slaughtering them in cold blood.

TELL CONGRESS – STOP SHARIAH LAW IN AMERICA – SUPPORT HR 973

The arguments are endless of where and how Islam specifically authorizes “honor killing,” which has been practiced by Muslims since their prophet walked the earth. However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2.) The Shafi’i manual of Islamic law ‘Umdat al-Salik, is certified by Al-Azhar University in Cairo as a reliable guide to Sunni Muslim orthodoxy and interpretation of the hadith, or words of the prophet Muhammad. Hadith are regarded by traditional Islamic schools of jurisprudence as important tools for understanding the Quran and in matters of Islamic law, or Shariah.

ALL the hallmark signatures of Islamic “honor” killing are there. Yet Grapevine police are adamantly refusing to publicly offer Islamic Shariah as the motive, and the politically correct media are twisting the facts to ensure their reports never breathe a word that might implicate that the fanatical, bloody Islamic agenda is being carried out right here in America.

Recently, we have seen honor killing after honor killing as successful, friendly and seemingly “moderate” Muslims murder their families in the name of “honor.”

In Buffalo, NY a successful businessman beheaded his wife when she requested a divorce.

In Arizona Faleh Almaleki murdered his daughter for, (as he admitted to prosecutors), being too westernized and therefore “bringing shame upon his family.”

Actress Afshan Azad, of Harry Potter fame, was recently brutalized and nearly killed by her father and brother in another attempted Islamic honor killing.

Bloody honor killings are being carried out with alarming frequency and in the tolerant, civilized West, our media as well as our criminal justice system refuses to call it what it is – Shariah Law.

TELL CONGRESS – STOP SHARIAH LAW IN AMERICA – SUPPORT HR 973

To ignore the facts is not only insane, it is suicide, for this bloody Islamic creed is a program for violent suppression of liberty and human equality that seeks to permeate, then subjugate, America until we are free no more.

I beg you, defend justice and the rule of law in the West. Support HR 973 – Put a STOP to Shariah Law in America.

TELL CONGRESS – STOP SHARIAH LAW IN AMERICA – SUPPORT HR 973

God bless America,

Editors
Americans United for Freedom
PO Box 1310
Herndon, VA 20172

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM JUDICIAL WATCH:

Islamic honor killing in Texas: “Santa” who murdered family on Christmas morning was Muslim who didn’t like his daughter dating a non-Muslim

Aziz Yazdanpanah, a Muslim, didn’t like his daughter’s non-Muslim boyfriend and was exhibiting stalker behavior. “She couldn’t date at all until she was a certain age, but when he was going to let her date she couldn’t date anyone outside of their race or religion.”

Again and again we have seen honor killings in which fathers kill daughters who are dating non-Muslims or have supposedly besmirched the family honor by some sexual indiscretion. Lt. Todd Dearing says that motive isn’t important — which is generally only the case when Islam is involved.

“Neighbors horrified at news of family’s slayings in Grapevine,” by Gloria Salinas and Scott Goldstein for the Dallas Morning News, December 26 (thanks to Steve):

GRAPEVINE — Aziz Yazdanpanah seemed to be losing control of his life in recent months — his wife left him, his house was in foreclosure, and his 19-year-old daughter was dating a young man he didn’t like.
Even so, the 58-year-old former real estate agent from Colleyville seemed to be holding it together. Neighbors say he would smile and wave as he drove through his middle-class neighborhood. Recently, he was seen raking leaves in his yard.

“He was very friendly, a very good neighbor,” said Carrie Stewart, who lives across the street. “He was out here often doing yard work and he even watched our house for us when we went to Colorado.”

A decent fellow indeed.

Yazdanpanah, a volunteer high school debate coach described as a doting father, is the focus of suspicion a day after a Christmas morning massacre in which a man dressed as Santa Claus killed six relatives and then committed suicide.
Grapevine police arrived at the Lincoln Vineyard Apartment Homes a few minutes before noon and discovered bodies sprawled among opened presents and wrapping paper. The victims were ages 15 to 58….

Citing public records and interviews with friends and neighbors, media reports Monday identified Yazdanpanah and others who had died: his estranged 55-year-old wife, Fatemeh Rahmati, their 19-year-old daughter, Nona Narges Yazdanpanah, and 15-year-old son, Ali Yazdanpanah.

Friends of the family said Fatemeh Rahmati’s 58-year-old sister, Zohreh Rahmaty, and her husband, Hossein Zarei, 59, and daughter Sahra Zarei, a 22-year-old pre-med student at the University of Texas at Arlington, also were killed.

Grapevine police Lt. Todd Dearing said investigators were working to piece together a timeline of the murders, but they may never know exactly what set off the gunman.

“Motive is not really the primary point right now,” Dearing said. “It’s more along the lines of what happened, how it transpired and making sure that who we believe to be the shooter is the shooter. Motive is what comes afterward for us if we can get it.”

He said a neighbor at the apartment complex saw the suspected shooter get out of his white sport utility vehicle dressed in a Santa outfit, including a full coat, pants, boots and belt. Based in part on that witness account, police believe the shootings occurred about the time a 911 call rang into the station at 11:34 a.m. Sunday.

The line was silent….

Grapevine police also searched the Colleyville home where Aziz Yazdanpanah had been living since he separated from his wife last spring. Public records show that the couple had filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and that the property was in foreclosure….

Yazdanpanah said he bought a gun after expressing concern that his daughter’s boyfriend was stalking him. He also insisted on picking up his daughter from her job at a phone kiosk inside Sam’s Club in Grapevine because of concerns about the alleged stalker.

The boyfriend has not been publicly identified.

Neighbors said the family was Muslim but had always hung Christmas lights on their home — except this year.

Terri Baum, who lives three homes down from Yazdanpanah, said she had seen him around the neighborhood in the last couple of weeks.

“They were pretty quiet, but kind, very kind,” Baum said. “They were sweet, good parents, and they loved their kids very much.”

Baum’s daughter, Allison, attended Colleyville Heritage High School with Nona, where the girls were part of an academic team focused on developing business leaders. They graduated together in May.

“Allison would take her to school from here, and then when they moved out she would pick her up from the apartments,” Baum said. “It’s unbelievable because of the people we knew them to be, and their children were good kids, very focused.”

Baum said she was horrified at the possibility the killings had been a murder-suicide.

“All I want to say is, it is so unbelievably shocking because they loved their kids,” Baum said.

Yes, loved them to death.

But a more ominous portrait emerged of Yazdanpanah in interviews with some of his daughter’s other classmates.
“She would come to school crying and telling us her dad was crazy,” said Lacie Reed, 18. “He wouldn’t let her wear certain things. He was always taking her phone away, checking her call history and checking her text messages.”

Friends said Nona’s father had installed cameras all around the home so he could watch the family’s comings and goings. Others said he nailed her bedroom window shut so she could not sneak out at night and see her boyfriend.

“She couldn’t date at all until she was a certain age, but when he was going to let her date she couldn’t date anyone outside of their race or religion,” Reed said.

Yiselle Alvarenga, 18, said Nona’s mother and brother seemed to come to her aid when her father punished her.

“He would take her phone away and her mother would give it back to her and her brother would let her use his phone,” Alvarenga said. “She was doing good. She was just excited that her life was going to start and she was going to have control of it.”…
———————–

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/12/islamic-honor-killing-in-texas-man-

who-murdered-family-on-christmas-morning-was-muslim-who-disliked.html

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01-04-2012 4:10 am – Comment by kristinmak
Do NOT support this HR Bill. It is part of the big lie, this poor man was no part of any “sharia law” that the LIARS would like you to believe. Did you bother listening to the 911 call, made by the shooter? He was screaming help me, help me! I am shooting people!

The big scare the American people (ignorant ones) are being fed is of the guns/terrorist BS. or, “Sharia” bs. There is no such thing as “Sharia Law”.

SANTA FE, N.M. — Santa Fe police expressed frustration on Wednesday as they said illegal immigrants who were arrested on various different charges are ending up back on the streets time after time. 

Police said they’re frustrated that they keep arresting the same criminals over and over when there’s supposed to be a system in place to prevent that. 

Mario Orantes-Munoz, 22, is a wanted man. Police said he’s accused of breaking into someone’s home and stealing two powerful rifles. In June, he was also charged with burglary. According to his records, Munoz is not in this country legally, and in June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement put a detainer on him. 

“Somebody’s dropping the ball,” said Lt. Louis Carlos, of the Santa Fe Police Department. “These suspects have an immigration detainer, meaning Immigration takes control of them. And somehow, they’re ending up back on the streets of Santa Fe.” 

When ICE puts an immigration detainer on an inmate, the Santa Fe County Jail director said they will hold that inmate for an extra 48 hours. ICE officials have that window of time to come pick the accused up. 

The detainers are not always honored, police said, but it’s not yet clear where the loophole lies. 

“We honor those detainers,” said SFCJ Director Annabelle Romero. 

The jail director said she follows all proper procedures. 

“They are held based on the detainer for a period of time, in which Immigration may or may not pick them up,” Romero said. 

The jail director said ICE officials show up almost every day, and most of the time they take the accused illegals with them. 

“I think that the issues fall within other jurisdictions or other parameters,” Romero said. 

Santa Fe police said, sometimes, they bring inmates with immigration detainers to other county jails to make sure ICE can take custody of them. 

KOAT-TV presented a long list of questions to ICE officials and is still waiting to hear back. 

ICE is the only agency that has the authority to put immigration detainers on inmates. On the agency’s website, it says it goes after individuals who present the biggest threat to public safety.

Read more: http://www.koat.com/news/30137022/detail.html#ixzz1ibSgQz8m

The Daily Exclusive: RUBBER STAMP

Posted by Adam On January - 3 - 2012 ADD COMMENTS

Probe reveals feds pressuring agents to rush immigrant visas – even if fraud is feared

By Sarah Ryley Tuesday, January 3, 2012

 

  • Image

    Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan/AP

    Alejandro Mayorkas heads the agency.

  • Image

    Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan/AP

    One-quarter of the USCIS officers surveyed said they have pressured to approve questionable cases.

  • Image

    Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan/AP

    Alejandro Mayorkas heads the agency.

  • Image

    Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan/AP

    One-quarter of the USCIS officers surveyed said they have pressured to approve questionable cases.

12
Higher-ups within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are pressuring rank-and-file officers to rubber-stamp immigrants’ visa applications, sometimes against the officers’ will, according to a Homeland Security report and internal documents exclusively obtained by The Daily.

A 40-page report, drafted by the Office of Inspector General in September but not publicly released, details the immense pressure immigration service officers are under to approve visa applications quickly, sometimes while overlooking concerns about fraud, eligibility or security.

One-quarter of the 254 officers surveyed said they have been pressured to approve questionable cases, sometimes “against their will.”

The report does not call out any particular officials and indicates that the agency has had a problem with valuing quantity over quality since at least the 1980s.

But high-ranking USCIS officials said the pressure has heightened after the Obama administration appointed Alejandro Mayorkas as director in August 2009 during an effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform, bringing with him a mantra of “get to yes.”

Internal communications provided to The Daily indicate that the new leadership seemed to fundamentally clash with career agency employees over when to afford the benefit of the doubt, culminating in a whistle-blower investigation into a senior appointee and, ultimately, the agency-wide inspector general inquiry that produced the report.

“We recognize their right to interpret things as liberally as possible, but you still have to follow the law,” said one high-ranking official who was unhappy with the current push.
 
At least five agency veterans seen as being too tough on applicants were either demoted, or given the choice between a demotion or a relocation from Southern California — where their families were — to San Francisco and Nebraska, according to sources and letters of reassignment provided to The Daily.

Those kind of threats have caused lower-level employees to fall in line, sources said.

“People are afraid,” said one longtime manager, who requested anonymity for fear of being fired. “Integrity only carries people so far because they’ve got to pay the rent.”

A rank-and-file officer who was not involved in the investigation claimed he was demoted to working on less technical cases because he had a high denial rate. “They don’t reprimand you, they just move you,” he said.

“They attempted to basically get me to come into line and approve a bunch of cases. And I just wouldn’t compromise myself because the approvals they ordered, they weren’t in line with the laws,” said the officer.

These employees’ claims are reflected in the inspector general report, which found that 14 percent of respondents had “serious concerns” that employees who focused on fraud or ineligibility were evaluated unfairly. The report also found that supervisors sometimes take cases away from an unwilling officer and assign them to someone else, against agency rules.

Recommendations for improvements in the report included raising the burden of proof and doing away with the popular informal and special appeals practices, which immigration lawyers said would only lengthen an already onerous process.

Attorney David Leopold, who was recently president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the formal appeals process can take up to two years.

“When you’re dealing with business visas, those visas cannot wait around a year, or two years, for review. They needed an answer yesterday,” said Leopold. “I think when they’ve [the officers] made a mistake at that level … sometimes you can just reason with people and ask them to take a look at it again.”

Nevertheless, USCIS approved 86 percent of the 3.9 million immigration cases it reviewed between October 2008 and October 2009 — a 4 percent drop from the year before, according to the most recent data provided to The Daily.

And immigration attorneys complained that it seems like officers are just looking for reasons to deny a case, and already demand a higher standard of proof than what is required. That standard is now considered a 51 percent likelihood that a fact is true.

“We’re getting ridiculous denials and requests for evidence on things that should be approved very easily,” said immigration attorney Deb Notkin, adding that it’s particularly tough for specialty industries like fashion, software development and graphic design.

The attorneys applauded Mayorkas’ more open dialogue with them, and other proponents of immigration reform, who had previously felt shut out of the bureaucracy. “Mayorkas, to his credit, is very accessible, so we are able to express our concerns about the adjudication process,” said Leopold.

But sometimes, the openness led to a perception that private attorneys were “running” the agency, according to the inspector general’s report, which cited emails in which individual cases were granted special review after private attorneys complained to management.

Mayorkas and Homeland Security press officers said yesterday they could not comment on the allegations.

Sarah.Ryley@thedaily.com

GOP Candidates Betray the Spirit of Reagan on Immigration

Posted by Daniel Griswold On January - 3 - 2012 ADD COMMENTS

Immigration has loomed larger as an issue in the Republican presidential debates than it does in the minds of most voters. Driven by a minority of activists in their party, the candidates have been drawn into an unhealthy competition to see who can sound the harshest in cracking down on low-skilled illegal immigrants from Latin America.

So far the biggest loser in the competition is the Republican party.

Keep reading this post . . .

A Vandalized Valley

Posted by The Editors On December - 21 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS

I am starting to feel as if I am living in a Vandal state, perhaps on the frontier near Carthage around a.d. 530, or in a beleaguered Rome in 455. Here are some updates from the rural area surrounding my farm, taken from about a 30-mile radius. In this take, I am not so much interested in chronicling the flotsam and jetsam as in fathoming whether there is some ideology that drives it.

Last week an ancestral rural school near the Kings River had its large bronze bell stolen. I think it dated from 1911. I have driven by it about 100 times in the 42 years since I got my first license. The bell had endured all those years. Where it is now I don’t know. Does someone just cut up a beautifully crafted bell in some chop yard in rural Fresno County, without a worry about who forged it or why — or why others for a century until now enjoyed its presence?

Keep reading this post . . .

The nation’s capital has officially become the latest safe haven for illegal immigrants.

District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray on Wednesday signed an executive order instructing police officers not to question people about their immigration status — even people who are arrested on other matters — unless immigration status is directly related to a criminal investigation.

“This executive order ensures public safety by ensuring that our police resources are deployed wisely and our immigrant communities feel safe cooperating with those who are sworn to protect them,” Gray said in a statement.

“The district is home to thousands of immigrants,” he added. “If they are afraid to cooperate with authorities on criminal investigations because they fear it might endanger their presence in the United States or the presence of a loved one, then it endangers their public safety and that of our entire city.”

Although district officials say the order only confirms a longstanding policy, critics still blasted the move.

“This is an abomination,” said Corey Stewart, the Republican chairman-at-large of Prince William County of Virginia, which is about 25 miles south of D.C. Stewart’s county has sued the Department of Homeland Security twice, seeking information on 4,000 illegal immigrants that the county has arrested and turned over to Homeland Security for deportation.

“This is the capital of the United States,” Stewart told FoxNews.com, “and to have the nation’s capital as a sanctuary city where essentially federal law is not going to be enforced sends all the wrong messages — not just in the United States but around the world.”

The term “sanctuary city” is used to describe places where local officials refuse to enforce federal immigration laws and undocumented workers are free to seek jobs, housing or local government services without fear of deportation unless targeted by federal agencies.

Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Paul Quander said the order does not mean the district is opting out of a mandatory federal program called Secure Communities, which directs local agencies to share fingerprints collected from people in local jails with the Department of Homeland Security. The program is expected to be in place nationwide by 2013.

But Stewart noted Secure Communities is only relevant once people are arrested and jailed.

“So the fact they they’re going to comply with Secure Communities is of little consequence.”

In signing the order, Gray said he wanted to clarify that the local police in district are not in the business of enforcing federal immigration laws.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/19/mayor-orders-dc-police-to-stop-checking-peoples-immigration-papers/print#ixzz1bKQqM5hZ

Cops say illegal alien driver hit Ipswich girl

Posted by Adam On September - 29 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS

An illegal alien who was driving without a license hit and dragged an 11-year-old Ipswich girl with his truck as she was riding her bicycle to school yesterday, authorities said.

Wanderson DaSilva-Neto, 35, a Brazilian national who was wanted by immigration authorities, was pulling out of his High Street driveway shortly after 7 a.m. on his way to work when his 1998 GMC pickup truck struck and dragged the screaming girl about four feet, a witness told police.

The Ipswich Middle School student, who was not wearing a helmet, was conscious and sitting on the sidewalk when officers arrived.

She was taken to Beverly Hospital with minor injuries, police said.

“She’s more scared than anything — and spooked,” Police Chief Paul Nikas said.

Police were booking DaSilva-Neto for negligent operation of a motor vehicle, unlicensed operation and failure to use care in starting or stopping when they found he was wanted for deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Nikas said. An ICE spokesman was unable to provide details on the case.

Although DaSilva-Neto’s fingerprints matched his name, Assistant District Attorney Tom Sholds questioned his identity because there is no license associated with the registration number of his vehicle.

DaSilva-Neto’s attorney, Anthony Papoulias Jr., said he has no criminal record in Massachusetts and has lived in Ipswich for six years, sending his earnings back to his four children in Brazil.

The accident, Papoulias said, “could have happened to anybody.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1369641

A Phoenix woman is fighting to get health care for her husband, an undocumented immigrant who was in the process of obtaining legal status before he suffered brain damage while playing soccer.

Evelyn Saenz-Cornelio, 23, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that her husband, Jesus Armando Cornelio of Mexico, collapsed Sept. 19 while playing soccer at a park with his 13-year-old brother.

Saenz-Cornelio, who was born in Mexico but was raised in Phoenix and is now a U.S. citizen, said that doctors at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center told her that her husband’s brain was without oxygen for about 13 minutes after he collapsed, causing severe brain damage.

She said Cornelio, a 23-year-old construction worker, had obtained an employment authorization card and a Social Security card from the U.S. government and had an appointment this week for a final interview to get a permanent resident card.

She said the hospital told her Friday that Corelio’s health care bill was at $120,000 so far and that Arizona’s Medicaid program wouldn’t cover his health care costs, telling her that she would either have to take him to Mexico for treatment or put him in hospice care, which could mean death.

But Saenz-Cornelio said the hospital gave her husband a one-week extension Tuesday. After that, she said she isn’t sure what she’s going to do.

Spokespeople at Banner Good Samaritan released a statement saying that its staff is focused on Cornelio’s care and could not comment further to protect Cornelio’s privacy.

Monica Coury, a spokeswoman at Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, Arizona’s Medicaid program, said federal law prohibits undocumented immigrants from health care coverage. Even if Cornelio had obtained the permanent resident card he was seeking, an immigrant must be a legal permanent resident for five years to be covered, she said.

“They’re federal rules, it’s not a state issue,” Coury said. “All this individual has is employment authorization and a Social Security number. That doesn’t meet the requirement.”

Saenz-Cornelio said doctors gave her little hope last week that her husband could recover but that over the weekend he made astonishing strides, including opening his eyes, squeezing family members’ hands, yawning and coughing — all things he hadn’t done since Sept. 19.

She said although Cornelio has not spoken, he is recognizing people in the room and responding to some of their prompting.

“I have to learn to be strong, and right now that’s what I keep in my head: ‘He wants you to be strong, to stay positive,’” she said. “I have to have faith that little by little, he’s going to get better and show the doctors and nurses that he wants to be here.”

She said Cornelio came to Phoenix when he was 10 years old in 1998, and that the two first met in the sixth grade. They began dating at 16 and were high school sweethearts.

They married at 22 and were trying to have children and get Cornelio legal status in the U.S. when he collapsed playing soccer.

She said Cornelio has played soccer all his life and had initially qualified for a scholarship to attend Phoenix College. But it turned out that he was ineligible because of a 2006 voter-approved Arizona law that says illegal immigrants can’t get in-state tuition or financial aid funded by state coffers.

Saenz-Cornelio described Cornelio as always having a positive attitude and being incredibly responsible.

“He was like an adult stuck in a teenage body ever since I met him — his way of thinking, looking at life, his goals, his plans for himself and me,” she said.

“He’s my best friend, he’s my husband,” she added through tears. “He’s my everything.”

Lydia Guzman, an immigrant-rights advocate, said Cornelio’s story shows the importance of solving some of the nation’s toughest issues, including immigration and health care.

“This young man is stuck in the middle of all this turmoil,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/09/28/arizona-woman-fighting-for-health-care-for-immigrant-husband-who-suffered-brain/print#ixzz1ZFxyFqa0

Police say the man who allegedly stabbed a young mother to death inside a Massachusetts apartment complex Monday may be in the country illegally, MyFoxBoston.com reports. 

Marcela Almeida, 41, was arrested for allegedly stabbing 24-year-old Patricia Frois during a domestic dispute inside their apartment in Marshfield.

Almeida reportedly fled the crime scene, sparking a massive manhunt and causing at least three area schools to go on lockdown.

Authorities later found Almeida hiding in a backyard shed not far from the crime scene, according to the website. 

Almeida’s citizenship status is now under investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Police say the man has a Brazilian passport and that immigration officials have no record of anyone under his name having entered the country legally.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/27/man-suspected-murdering-young-massachusetts-mom-may-be-in-us-illegally-police/#ixzz1ZAVP0DWH

The drug war violence that has driven many to stay away from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, but hasn’t scared off one group – the college students who make daily trek over the Mexican-U.S. border to attend school in El Paso, Texas.

The University of Texas-El Paso sits only a couple of hundred yards away from line that straddles the neighboring countries. During the 2010-2011 school year, 1,400 Mexican nationals were enrolled, administrators reported – many crossing the border everyday.

University students fear the commute, however. Yet the panic isn’t only about being robbed or struck by bullets in crossfire – it’s being set up by the Mexican cartels to unwittingly smuggle drugs.

“It could be easy for a person to put something in your bike or car,” said graduate student Alonso Fierro.

Students worry about this traveling to and from El Paso.

“I revise the trunk, and I revise under the car, the tires,” said Martha Rayas, who graduated from UT-El Paso with a bachelor’s degree and is now pursuing a Master’s in linguistics.

Fierro and Rayas recalled the story of a Mexican teacher who made a daily commute from Juárez to teach at an El Paso elementary school. Traffickers placed narcotics in her vehicle; Mexican officials discovered them and arrested her in Mexico.

The teacher was later released, but students have made it a daily habit to check their vehicles’ trunks and underneath their cars to make sure drugs aren’t strapped on.

Mexican national students believe it’s worth the risk, however, to attend the American university. Rayas, for example, wanted the opportunity to improve her English.

Still, in addition to the dangers involved making the daily cross, the wait time to cross a port of entry could last two hours. Some commuters choose to buy a yearly $122 Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) express lane pass that cuts their wait time to as little as 20 minutes.

Mexican students attending the University of Texas-El Paso who cannot afford out-of-state tuition can apply for Texas in-state tuition through a tuition assistance program called Programa de Asistencia Estudiantil.

Violence in Juárez has changed everyday habits for people who live there. Fierro said he only leaves home to go to school and work. He rarely stops anywhere in public for more than a few minutes.

“I don’t go to public places anymore. I just go to my house, be with my wife,” he said. “If I want to get something to eat I will just pick it up and take off.”

Less than a month ago he was robbed in a Juárez restaurant.

“Somebody opened the door for me and I said ‘thank you,’” he added. “And they said, ‘no, it’s not thank you. You should drop to the floor and give me your stuff, and give me your cell.’”  

He said the robber got away with his cell phone – but they threw back his wallet because he had no cash on him.

Despite the violence of making the daily commute through Juárez, both students told Fox News Latino it is worth it for their education.

“You have the opportunity to get in contact with a lot of cultures,” Rayas said.

Mexican national students attending American universities are required to obtain student visas. Rayas said they are not automatically granted U.S. temporary workers visas, however, after graduation.

As far as the danger, Rayas added that the students, believing in the power of numbers, travel in packs.

“We stick together,” she said.  

Patrick Manning is a Junior Reporter for FoxNews.com based in El Paso.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2011/09/20/amid-drug-cartel-violence-el-paso-students-make-daily-trek-across-border/#ixzz1Ybb2Go9y

One Friday when Congress was on vacation and President Barack Obama was out the door on his way to a Martha’s Vineyard vacation, he had his press staff make a conference call to reporters around the country announcing a change in immigration law. This was done without congressional approval and suddenly changed the immigration status of 300,000 illegal immigrants awaiting deportation hearings.

It also changed their work status and allows them to apply for work permits and join the workforce competition with legal Americans. One of those affected was an illegal immigrant activist who lives in Indiantown. The story in your newspaper made me wonder what would happen if you or I were in his country, how would I be treated and what are the immigration rules in Mexico?

The Mexican General Law of the Population is very strong on illegal immigration.

According to multiple published reports and presentations, it states:

Noncitizens cannot in any way participate in political affairs of the country.

It will “bar foreigners if they upset the equilibrium of the national demographics.”

“No outsiders are allowed that are an economic burden on society.”

“No criminals or those who are mentally unfit.”

“Those seeking Mexican citizenship must have a birth certificate, have a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can pay for their own health insurance.”

“Entering the country illegally is a felony punishable by two years in prison.”

“Document fraud is punishable by fine and imprisonment.”

“Alien marriage fraud is prohibited.”

“Avoiding deportation is a severe crime and being caught re-entering the country after being deported is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.”

“Law enforcement officers on all levels are empowered to enforce immigration laws including deportation.”

“Any illegal immigrant of foreigner can be deported by these same officers without due process at any time.”

“All foreigners must possess and show identification whenever asked by law officers or be considered illegal.”

Along with these rules, a National Catalog of Foreigners tracks all outside visitors and foreign nationals. A National Population Registry verifies the identification of every citizen. There is no clamor for “comprehensive immigration reform” because pro-illegal immigration speech, flag waving or rallies are a punishable crime.

When it comes to abuse of illegal immigrants, Mexico is notorious for human rights violations. According to the Red Cross, Central Americans illegally trying to reach the United States are routinely beaten, robbed and raped by the National Police. Cubans reaching the shores of Mexico are robbed and promptly returned to Cuba over the complaints of left-wing social justice groups and the Catholic Church.

These all seem like laws any rational country would implement to protect itself against illegal immigration. We have some of these laws on our books already but when Arizona tried to implement them, the state got sued by the federal government.

And to add insult to injury, we had Mexico’s president Felipe Calderon filing a friend of the court brief accusing the state of Arizona of “racial discrimination” and in “violation of human rights.” We have our law enforcement officers, ranchers and border patrol being marked for death by drug cartels. Instead of our president standing up and saying he won’t stand for these threats, he stands on the side on the other side and sues taxpayer of America.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Friday that President Obama’s half-uncle, an illegal immigrant who was picked up but has reportedly been released from jail, appears to have benefited from the new “backdoor amnesty” the administration announced last month.

“It appears there is a double standard — one for President Obama’s family and one for everyone else,” Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, said. “Last year, President Obama’s illegal immigrant aunt was granted asylum and now his illegal immigrant uncle has been released from [the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency] custody, even though he was arrested by authorities for drunk driving.”

Mr. Smith said the case will be the first “test case” for a new Homeland Security policy announced last month that gives immigration authorities more discretion to let illegal immigrants go, rather than pursue efforts to deport them.

The Boston Globereported Friday that Onyango Obama, the half-brother of the president’s father, was released from jail Thursday after being held for more than two weeks on an immigration detainer after he was arrested on a drunk-driving charge.

Asked about the case last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters she couldn’t comment on a specific matter and didn’t know enough about the incident.

A White House spokesman said last week that he did not expect the man to receive special treatment.

The Globe said it was unclear where the president’s uncle was.

NBC has yet to cover a major shift by the Obama administration that would halt deportation of illegal immigrants who have not committed a crime. According to the Washington Times, up to 300,000 cases could be impacted by this decision.

Despite ignoring the development, NBC did find time to cover the story of Boris, the 550 pound pig. Natalie Morales explained, “His owners have him on a diet and he’s dropped an impressive 75 pounds.”

The pig coverage appeared on Friday’s Today, a program that lasts for four hours. Boris warranted more attention than the new immigration policy.

The change garnered more coverage on CBS’s Evening News and Early Show. ABC’s World News also mentioned it briefly.

On Friday’s Evening News, John Blackstone mostly framed the development through the prism of an illegal immigrant.

He related, “Andrea Garcia  was five years old when her mother brought her here illegally from Mexico. Now she’s a college graduate.”

The reporter sympathetically relayed, “The new policy directing immigration authorities to focus on deporting convicted criminals may mean Andrea’s family can stay.”

Blackstone allowed one clip of Dan Stein with the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform.  He derided, “They think most immigrants are going to vote Democrat. It’s pure partisan politics.”

ABC wasn’t much better. On Thursday’s World News, Diane Sawyer briefly explained:

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2011/08/22/nbc-skips-obamas-major-shift-immigration-covers-500-pound-pig#ixzz1Vrfi5Nz4

You Lie Vindicated?

Posted by Adam On August - 22 - 2011 ADD COMMENTS
Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), who gained national notoriety for shouting, “You lie!” during an address by President Barack Obama to a joint session of Congress, now says he’s been “vindicated” for calling out the President. 

On his campaign website, Wilson wrote that the President did, in fact, lie when he said that no money from the health care overhaul would go to illegal immigrants. Wilson wrote that a $28.8 million grant recently awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services to community healthcare centers — of which $8.5 million is earmarked toward migrant and seasonal workers — has proven that Obama was lying.

“The president specifically promised the American people that ObamaCare would not cover those who are here illegally,” Wilson wrote. “He misled all of us.”

The law does not require that health centers verify the citizenship of patients before administering services, though Wilson offered no evidence that the migrant workers who will benefit from the grant are illegal immigrants.

Shortly after his outburst in 2009, Wilson issued a full apology. “”This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill,” he wrote. “While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility.”

But now two years later, Wilson is using his professed vindication as a rallying cry to his supporters, urging them to donate to his reelection effort with the message, “Joe was right: Stand with him again.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/joe-wilson-i-was-totally-right-after-all-obama-was-lying-2011-8#ixzz1VmCD7QA8

STEINS, N.M. — New Mexico state police and the U.S. Border Patrol are investigating the killing of a rancher about 100 miles from the Mexican border.

State police Maj. Scott Weaver says 68-year-old rancher Larry Link was found dead about 6:15 a.m. Tuesday outside his ranch in Steins in Hidalgo County, which borders Mexico and Arizona.

Weaver says the killing is being investigated as a homicide and there are no suspects. He declined to release any other information about the case.

But the president of the union that represents border patrol agents says Link was shot twice and his body was found next to his vehicle.

Jim Stack of the National Border Patrol Council says there’s no evidence that illegal immigrants were involved in the killing.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/07/cops-investigate-killing-rancher-in-new-mexico-border-town/#ixzz1Oh3l05Pi

A shadowy man suspected of fighting against U.S. soldiers in Iraq has sparked a far-flung terror probe after entering New York Harbor as a stowaway aboard a freighter and taking up residence in a fenced-off Port Authority warehouse, The Post has learned.

Asem Ellbahnsany Haroon, 26, managed to easily infiltrate Port Newark — where there are just the kind of oil refineries that Usama bin Laden talked about blowing up as part of a global-chaos plot in papers found in his Pakistan hideout.

“There have been reports . . . that indicate Al Qaeda is trying to use explosives to blow up oil tankers to disrupt the world’s economy. What’s right next door to Port Newark? All of these oil refineries that line the highway there,” said one law-enforcement source.

Authorities are now scrambling to figure out how Haroon managed to elude border checkpoints at the port — and they are also nervously wondering whether he came here with others who have yet to be caught.

Barack Obama has declared that “immigration reform is an economic imperative“, and is promising to do his best to get an immigration bill pushed through Congress this year.  But will “legalizing” all of the illegal immigration that has taken place over the last several decades improve the struggling U.S. economy or will it actually make our economic problems worse?  One of the favorite tricks of top politicians is to promise that the economy is going to improve if we just support what it is that they are currently pushing.  Hopefully the Americans people will not buy the nonsense that Obama is spewing.  The truth is that Barack Obama is wrong about the economic impact of illegal immigration.  Illegal immigrants don’t do jobs that Americans “don’t want” to do.  A million Americans recently showed up to apply for a job at McDonald’s.  That is how desperate Americans are for work these days.  Please don’t try to tell me that there aren’t millions of Americans out there that would not pick fruit for minimum wage.  The millions upon millions of illegal immigrants in this country are stealing jobs, they are depressing wages in a whole host of industries and they are a huge factor in the erosion of the middle class.  Millions of middle class American families can’t afford to provide for their families anymore and are losing their homes, drowning in debt or going bankrupt.  Rather than what Barack Obama is proposing (which is to essentially “legalize” illegal immigration), we need an immigration policy that makes sense and that protects American jobs.

Before we go any further, it is important for me to make a few points.  It is not a bad thing that people want to come to this nation from another country.  A lot of people that want to come to the United States are really hard working and have really solid character.  This nation has a long tradition of immigrants arriving to build a better life here. At different times this country will need different levels of immigration, but we will always need new immigrants.  People on one side of a border are not more “valuable” than people on another side of a border.  There is a reason why our founding fathers believed that “all men are created equal”.  In every nation on earth there are really wonderful people.  We should love all men, women and children no matter where they were born and no matter what they look like.  God created us all and He loves us all dearly.

The reason I went into all that is because of the way politics is played in America in 2011.  The moment that anyone suggests that there might be a problem with illegal immigration they are immediately branded with all kinds of horrible labels.  To put a horrible label on someone that is completely and totally untrue just to score political points is absolutely despicable.

The funny thing is that some of the organizations that denounce others the loudest should actually be examining themselves.  For example, one of the largest pro-illegal immigration organizations is called “La Raza”, which literally means “The Race” (as if we all couldn’t figure it out).  Perhaps it is time for them to come up with a new name.

Look, we all have to start learning to love each other.  If not, our society is going to continue to break down.

A majority of the American people (yes, that is what the polls show) are not against illegal immigration because they “hate” another group of people.  Rather, they just want all immigrants to go through the “front door” and they want the government to be sensitive to changing economic conditions.

The sad truth is that the U.S. government has absolutely refused to secure the U.S. border with Mexico for decades, and this has allowed millions upon millions of criminals, drug dealers and gang members to cross freely into the United States.  In addition, by refusing to secure the border we have allowed new diseases to spread unchecked into this country.

Meanwhile, the law abiding people that would like to get into this country legally are put through absolute hell.  I used to practice law and I have filled out immigration forms.  The process is a complete and total nightmare.

So we have been making it really easy for law breakers to sneak in the back door of our country and we have been making it really hard for law abiding people to get in the front door.

What in the world could be wrong about wanting to fix that?

Once many illegal immigrants arrive in the United States they either try to make a living legally (by directly competing with blue collar American workers  for jobs and driving their wages down) or illegally by selling drugs or being involved in other kinds of criminal activity.

Apparently Barack Obama believes that this kind of behavior should be rewarded with a “path to citizenship”.

The vast majority of illegal immigrants pay absolutely no federal or state income taxes and they never intend to.  At the same time, they seem more than happy to take advantage of the free social services and benefits offered to them.  In fact, stories of how “good” life in America is just encourages more and more immigrants to come to the United States illegally.

We need an immigration policy that insists that everyone come in through the front door.

Is there anyone out there that cannot agree with that?

We also need to set immigration levels that our economy can handle.

Right now our economy is struggling.  Millions upon millions of Americans are out of work.  44 million Americans are on food stamps.  47 million Americans are living in poverty.  We just can’t take in a whole lot of extra workers right now.

You would think that would just be common sense.

But instead, Barack Obama wants to grant amnesty to all of the illegal immigrants that are already here and put them on a path to citizenship.

Wow – do you think that might embolden millions more illegal immigrants to come flooding in?

Barack Obama is against a border fence.  He says we don’t need it.

Meanwhile, thousands more illegal immigrants pour into this country every single day.

Barack Obama supports all of the “sanctuary cities” that have openly declared that they are not going to enforce our immigration laws.

So where do you think illegal immigrants are going to flock to?  The truth is that word about these “sanctuary cities” gets around really fast.  If you live in one of these cities, then you probably know all about it.

If Barack Obama gets his way, nobody will be breaking our immigration laws because essentially there will not be any more immigration laws.

Not that George W. Bush was any better.  He was an absolute disaster on immigration as well.

The truth is that our immigration policy has been slowly eroding the U.S. middle class for many decades.

But according to Barack Obama, we desperately need to implement his “immigration reform” plan for the good of the middle class….

“One way to strengthen the middle class in America is to reform the immigration system, so that there is no longer a massive underground economy that exploits a cheap source of labor while depressing wages for everybody else.”

What a joke.  The reality is that illegal immigration hurts that U.S. middle class and it is severely damaging to the U.S. economy.  Because of illegal immigration, every single day wages are lost, taxes don’t get collected, hospitals provide “free health care” for which they are never paid, huge criminal gangs of foreigners are roaming our streets and the cost of providing social services to illegal aliens is slowly bankrupting state and local governments.

The following are 18 facts which prove that illegal immigration is an absolute nightmare for the U.S. economy….

#1 Illegal immigrants take jobs away from American citizens. According to a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau data, legal and illegal immigrants gained over a million additional jobs between 2008 and 2010 even as millions of American citizens were losing their jobs during that same time period.

#2 The majority of our immigrants now sneak in through the “back door” that the federal government purposely leaves open.  Thanks to the negligence of the federal government, far more people move into the United States illegally than come in through the legal immigration process.  This has got to change.

#3 Illegal immigrants generally don’t pay taxes.  The vast majority of illegal aliens would never even dream of paying income taxes, but Mexicans living in America send billions upon billions of dollars out of the United States and back to Mexico every single year.

#4 Although illegal aliens pay next to nothing in taxes, they have no problem receiving tens of billions of dollars worth of free education benefits, free health care benefits, free housing assistance and free food stamp benefits.  Many communities in the United States now openly advertise that they will help illegal aliens with these things.

#5 The cost of educating the children of illegal immigrants is staggering. It is estimated that U.S. taxpayers spend $12,000,000,000 a year on primary and secondary school education for the children of illegal immigrants.

#6 Thanks to illegal immigration, California’s overstretched health care system is on the verge of collapse.  Dozens of California hospitals and emergency rooms have shut down over the last decade because they could not afford to stay open after being endlessly swamped by illegal immigrants who were simply not able to pay for the services that they were receiving.  As a result, the remainder of the health care system in the state of California is now beyond overloaded.  This had led to brutally long waits, diverted ambulances and even unnecessary patient deaths.  Sadly, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

#7 It was estimated that there were approximately 7.7 million illegal aliens employed by U.S. employers during 2008.  How much better would our economy look if all of those jobs were being filled by American workers?

#8 The region along the U.S./Mexico border is now an open war zone. Just across the U.S. border, the city of Juarez, Mexico is considered to be one of the most dangerous cities on the entire planet because of the brutal drug war being waged there. In fact, Juarez has now become the murder capital of the western hemisphere.  Much of that violence has begun to spill over into areas of the southwestern United States.

For example, a while back NPR described one incident in the Juarez Valley that involved American citizens….

A couple of weeks ago, gunmen in the Juarez Valley killed the Mexican relative of a Fort Hancock high school student. When the student’s family in Fort Hancock heard about it, they crossed the border at 10 a.m. to see the body, and took the student with them.

“By 10:30, they had stabbed the relatives that went with him, which included his grandparents, with an ice pick,” says school superintendent Jose Franco. “My understanding is that the gentleman is like 90 years old, and they poked his eyes out with an ice pick. I believe those people are still in intensive care here in a hospital in the U.S.”

#9 A substantial percentage of young illegal immigrants end up in gangs.  U.S. authorities say that there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs operating inside the United States. According to federal statistics, these 1 million gang members are responsible for up to 80% of the violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year.  Latino gangs made up primarily of illegal aliens are responsible for much of this violence.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, some of the most notorious gangs in the country are made up almost entirely of illegal immigrants….

“Gang investigators in Virginia estimate that 90% of the members of MS-13, the most notorious immigrant gang, are illegal immigrants.”

#10 The “18th Street Gang” is certainly giving MS-13 a run for their money.  It is believed that the 18th Street Gang has thousands of members in the city of Los Angeles alone. In fact, the gang has become so notorious that there are even rumors that some police officers in Los Angeles simply will not venture into the areas most heavily controlled by the 18th Street gang.

The following is what Wikipedia says about the 18th Street Gang….

A US Justice Department report from 2009 estimates that the 18th Street gang has a membership of some 30,000 to 50,000 with 80% of them being illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America and is active in 44 cities in 20 states. Its main source of income is street-level distribution of cocaine and marijuana and, to a lesser extent, heroin and methamphetamine. Gang members also commit assault, auto theft, carjacking, drive-by shootings, extortion, homicide, identification fraud, and robbery.

#11 The “drug war” in northern Mexico is one gigantic bloodbath. The Mexican government says that as many as 28,000 people have been slaughtered by the drug cartels since 2007.  A very significant percentage of those deaths have happened in areas right along the U.S. border, and yet our federal government still sees no reason to get serious about border security.

#12 It is an open secret that Mexican drug cartels are openly conducting military operations inside the United States.  The handful of border patrol agents that we have guarding the border are massively outgunned and outmanned.

One agent who patrols the border and who asked to remain anonymous told Fox News the following….

“To say that this area is out of control is an understatement.”

A different federal agent put it this way in an email to Fox News….

“Every night we’re getting beaten like a pinata at a birthday party by drug, alien smugglers.”

#13 Federal border officials say that Mexican drug cartels have not only set up shop on U.S. soil, but they are actually maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona.  If you go to Arizona today, there are actually signs that have been put up by the federal government warning American citizens not to venture into certain wilderness routes that are used by Mexican drug cartels to bring in drugs.

#14 The drug war being waged on both sides of the border is so violent that it is almost unimaginable.  For example, one very prominent Mexican assassin known as “the soupmaker” has confessed that he made approximately 300 bodies disappear by dissolving them in acid baths.  But right now there is essentially nothing that is preventing the next “soupmaker” from crossing the U.S. border and moving into your neighborhood.

#15 Arizona police are being openly warned by the Mexican drug cartels that if they try to interfere with the drug traffic in their area that they will be “taken out” by drug cartel snipers.

#16 While the U.S. military endlessly hunts for “members of al-Qaeda” in the caves of Afghanistan and on the streets of Iraqi cities, a very real threat has been building just south of the border.  Over the past 15 to 20 years, Hezbollah has set up operations all over Mexico, Central America and South America.  Hezbollah is reportedly making a lot of money in the drug trade and in trafficking illegal aliens.  Sadly, our government is largely ignoring this.

#17 Each year, it costs the states billions of dollars to incarcerate illegal immigrant criminals that should have never been allowed into the country in the first place. It is estimated that illegal aliens make up approximately 30 percent of the population in federal, state and local prisons and that the total cost of incarcerating them is more than $1.6 billion annually.

#18 The drug cartels and the gangs always seem to be a couple steps ahead of our agents along the border. Approximately 75 tunnels along the U.S. border with Mexico have been discovered by law enforcement authorities in the last four years alone.

How much do you think all of this crime, gang violence and drug cartel activity is costing our economy?

Why won’t the federal government do what the Constitution requires and secure the border?

Oh, but Barack Obama says that he has a plan.

He says that he is going to save the day.

The following is how Barack Obama describes his plan…

“We are not going to ship back 12 million people, we’re not going to do it as a practical matter. We would have to take all our law enforcement that we have available and we would have to use it and put people on buses, and rip families apart, and that’s not who we are, that’s not what America is about. So what I’ve proposed… is you say we’re going to bring these folks out of the shadows. We’re going to make them pay a fine, they are going to have to learn English, they are going to have to go to the back of the line…but they will have a pathway to citizenship over the course of 10 years.”

So how many illegal immigrants do you think are going to step forward to pay a fine?

One percent?

How many of them do you think are going to show up for English classes?

Who is going to make them do it?

Obama?

Are we going to have law enforcement officials running around trying to collect fines from illegal immigrants and trying to get them to attend their English lessons?

According to Obama, the millions upon millions of illegal immigrants that are in this country are going to be glad to willingly do the following….

1) Admit they broke the law

2) Pay back taxes and a fine

3) Learn English

4) Be willing to undergo background checks before starting the legalization process

Those four points are taken directly from Obama’s plan.

So what are illegal immigrants going to do when this plan is passed?

99 percent of them are going to laugh and they are just going to keep on doing what they have been doing.

Large numbers of illegal immigrants are already enjoying the “high life” in the dozens of “sanctuary cities” across the United States.

The following is how the Ohio Jobs & Justice PAC defines sanctuary cities….

Generally, sanctuary policies instruct city employees not to notify the federal government of the presence of illegal aliens living in their communities. The policies also end the distinction between legal resident aliens and illegal aliens–so illegal aliens often benefit from taxpayer funded government services and programs too.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Can I sign up for that plan?

After all, who wouldn’t want to earn all income tax-free and yet enjoy unlimited government services?

Today we are being told that we need to make life as comfortable as possible for the waves of illegal immigrants that are coming in.  In fact, Barack Obama says that all of us need to make sure that our kids are learning how to speak Spanish….

“I don’t understand when people are going around worrying about, we need to have English only. They want to pass a law, we just, we want English only…Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English, I agree with this. But understand this, instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, they’ll learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.”

All of this is utter insanity.

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that we have tightly secured the border between South Korea and North Korea for over 50 years and we could secure our own borders if we really wanted to.

But instead, we continue to leave our border with Mexico completely wide open. Thousands of criminals, gang members and drug pushers continue to come in completely unchecked every single day.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have to subject ourselves to some of the most humiliating “security measures” imaginable before we are even allowed to get on to an airplane.

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?

Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/11/05/1073591/barack-obama-is-wrong-18-facts-which-prove-that-illegal-immigration-is-an-absolute-nig#ixzz1MuCv1cPH

President Obama is in El Paso Tuesday to give a speech on what he calls “the broken immigration system.” He’d know because he’s the one helping break it. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Secure Communities program under which local law enforcement must turn over illegal criminals to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation. The agency estimates that local law enforcement arrests over 1 million people a year who are not U.S. citizens.

Liberal officials in both Illinois and San Francisco last week announced that they will no longer participate in the the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program, preferring instead to allow criminal illegal aliens to roam the streets. While the White House has not responded to the immigration retreat, some in Congress want action. “The Obama administration has said that states and localities cannot opt out of Secure Communities, so the  administration should make sure that all states comply with this mandatory program,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith told me Monday.

Under the program, those taken into local law enforcement custody have their fingerprints checked against a biometrics database for DHS immigration status and FBI criminal records. If there’s a match, local law enforcement must detain the individual for 48 hours beyond scheduled release in order to allow ICE to investigate whether deportation is warranted. Illegals who are given prison sentences in local jurisdictions must serve their time, then ICE will return them to their countries of origin.

Secure Communities was created by the George W. Bush administration in 2008 and grows incrementally by jurisdiction. The program is currently active in 1,200 jurisdictions and is supposed to be fully implemented at a national level by 2013. Through the program’s fingerprint matching, ICE has taken custody of over 140,000 criminal aliens arrested by local law enforcement. About half of these were deported.

Officially, DHS and ICE insist that they are strong supporters of the program. “Secure Communities is a critical part of transforming our approach to immigration enforcement by focusing our resources on those in our country illegally, who have also broken criminal laws,” said ICE Public Affairs Director Brian Hale. And while DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has said that local states and cities do not have the right to opt out of the program, she has not done anything to enforce the requirement that lawbreaking illegals be held until ICE can take custody.

Unofficially, the Obama administration will not force states or cities to adhere to the federal program. Illinois and San Francisco can let their criminal illegals out of jail immediately after booking, without checking their fingerprints with the DHS database, and there are no consequences from Washington.

Liberal activists and Democratic politicians hate the idea of allowing ICE to deport low-level criminals or non-criminals, even though they are in the country illegally. Mr. Obama’s sudden interest in immigration issues coincides with the uptick in his 2012 re-election campaign activity. After his speech in El Paso, he will fly to Austin for fundraisers for his campaign.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn sent a letter on May 4 to the director of Secure Communities, Marc Rapp, saying his state police “will play no role in Secure Communities, either actively or as a pass-through for information.” The Democratic chief executive complained that 30 percent of those deported had not been convicted of a crime (other than being in the country illegally). As a result, those arrested in Illinois will no longer have their fingerprints compared to FBI criminal or DHS immigration records. Illegals will also get a free pass in San Francisco, thanks to Sheriff Michael Hennessey who announced on Thursday that, beginning June 1, his police department would no longer participate.

“Criminal illegal immigrants who are booked should not be released into our streets,” said Mr. Smith. “All too often, illegal immigrants who have committed crimes go on to commit more. Those who oppose this common-sense program are putting partisan politics ahead of saving Americans lives and reducing illegal immigration.”

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called on the president to freeze the Secure Communities program immediately because of the “astonishing rate of non-criminal deportations.” Mr. Gutierrez also complained that the program “may endanger the public, particularly among communities of color” because it supposedly makes local police a source of fear to law-abiding immigrants.

The Secure Communities program works to get illegal immigrants with criminal histories off the streets of America. Instead of giving a flowery speech on the Texas border, Mr. Obama should instruct Ms. Napolitano and others in his administration to do their jobs and enforce the current program.

Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.

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