At what point will the weight of the scandals and bad decisions sink the Obama ship?
Jim Bridenstine
@RepJBridenstineThe Obama administration and DHS should be held accountable for this reckless decision. goo.gl/CuL8g #tcot pic.twitter.com/qnjLwVsM89
8:24 PM – 9 May 2013
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276 Retweets 64 favorites
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Same-Sex Immigration Reform Amendment Filed By Democrats – Shark Tank
I have been saying that this ‘Gang of Ocho’ immigration reform bill would be dead in the water the minute the liberal faction in the U.S. Senate began to do President Obama’s bidding of imposing their liberal views on the legislation.
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Rubio had been warned that this would happen, and it has. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has filed two amendments that acknowledge same-sex marriage. Rubio recently said that that if his bill was amended with such a measure, he would not support the bill anymore.
This move by the Democrats gives Rubio that immigration reform life raft he needed.
This is the immigration excrement that the liberal Democrats in the Senate and President Obama wanted Rubio to step into all along. Democrats like Schumer would get Rubio to stick his head out on this issue, basically making him there token Julio.
Then they would insert legislation like Leahy’s same-sex amendment, in hopes that Rubio would back out of the bipartisan bill, effectively dinging him as being against Hispanics and immigration reform.
The only thing Rubio can do now is back out, take the hit, and go back to the drawing board. Rubio, who caused himself significant political damage for standing with Schumer, Durbin, McCain and others on immigration reform, will have a lot of damage control to do with his base after all of the immigration dust settles.
Here is what Buzzfeed just reported:
”For immigration reform to be truly comprehensive, it must include protections for all families,” Leahy said in a statement. “We must end the discrimination that gay and lesbian families face in our immigration law.”
Among Leahy’s amendments is one that would include the Uniting American Families Act – a bill that would create a new category of “permanent partners” to enable a U.S. citizen in a same-sex couple to sponsor a foreign partner – in the larger immigration reform legislation. This amendment had been discussed and was to be filed.
A second amendment, according to a news release from Leahy’s office, “provides equal protection to lawfully married bi-national same sex couples that other spouses receive under existing immigration law.” The provision asserts that a person would be considered a married spouse under the Immigration and Nationality Act if the marriage “is valid in the state in which the marriage was entered into” or, if “entered into outside of any state,” was valid where entered into and would be valid in a state.
Lavi Soloway, an immigration rights lawyer who represents same-sex couples and co-founded The DOMA Project, told BuzzFeed the second amendment was “nothing short of a strategic master stroke.”
Explaining, he said, “It would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act so that all marriages of gay and lesbian binational couples would be recognized for immigration purposes only, thus creating the first ever ‘carve out’ or exception to DOMA under federal law.” – Buzzfeed
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Toure, the Junior Race Pimp in Training at MSNBS. He wins the award for this two minutes of inanity
Good Freaking Grief!
James Madison saw the folly of legislation that was too large. His wisdom is being shown to be true. Consider the disaster that Obamacare is becoming. Even some of those who sponsored the bill are now warning us of its unintended consequences. Senator Mike Lee notes that immigration reform, like Obamacare, is being handled in a one-size fits all manner that will not work. It seems Congress cannot restrain itself from attempting grandiose all-encompassing bills that they fantasize will make all our problems go away.
In an op-ed for the Deseret News, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), who is my favorite member of the Senate (though I also have very high regard for several others such as Rubio, Paul, Cruz and Toomey), suggests that we should learn from the disaster of Obamacare, namely that it was a massive bill that nobody understood (or yet understands), and that it hides as much as it reveals.
He applies this lesson to immigration and says that “Immigration reform needs to happen step-by-step, not all at once.”
From Sen. Lee’s op-ed:
Much like the current bill, the comprehensive immigration reform I envision includes: real border security, visa modernization, employment verification, robust guest worker programs for both high- and low-skilled workers, and a compassionate approach to dealing with those currently in the country illegally. But history teaches that each of these vital components must be addressed incrementally and sequentially in order to ensure meaningful results.
Seems pretty logical doesn’t it? Fix the border FIRST. Carefully come up with plans AFTER the border is secured to address those already here, and the issues of visas, and any guest worker programs that might be implemented. Instead, the Gang of Eight seems hell bent on passing as big a bill as possible, as quickly as possible. And, anyone who dares suggest more prudent approaches, or who suggests that maybe the American people ought to be able to read any proposed legislation is labelled as racist, or anti-immigration. In other words, again, like with Obamacare, we see that our representatives have forgotten where the power lies. They will pass bills, THEN allow us lowly peons to “see what is in it”. They seem far more worried about passing a bill, no matter how bad it may be, as long as they can tie a ribbon around that bill that reads “bipartisan”. Frankly, I do not care if any bill is ever passed just because it is bipartisan. A bad bill is a bad bill. What I do care about is that the bill be constitutional, and that the people support it. Is that really so hard?
Marco Rubio: Corrupted By Washington In Only Two Years – Canada Free Press
It’s hard to believe that Marco Rubio has only been in the Senate since January 2011. With the way he has been going on lately, telling conservatives what a bunch of unenlightened rubes we are for objecting to his immigration reform, you would think he’d been a Senator for 20 years.
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The once Tea Party favorite, whose chances of being elected President are now on par with Mark Sanford, has been at the forefront of jamming the Democrat’s dream of opening the immigration floodgates through Congress, an effort that shares many the hallmarks of the passage of Obamacare:
Put together in the dead of night by Washington insiders with zero transparency. Check.
Rushing the bill through the legislative process as fast as humanly possible before the opposition can get their act together. Check.
Refusing to accept even the barest hint of cooperation with Republicans who aren’t RINOs. Check.
We’ll have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it! Check.
Representing everything the Tea Party movement has dedicated itself against Rubio is blazing a trail of lies and deceit that must make Obama proud.
Despite Rubio’s assurances that legalization efforts won’t go into effect until after the border is secure, a multitude of analysts have shown this to be a complete falsehood. Once DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano says the border is secure, whether it is or not, the bill goes into effect. Trusting someone who is stocking up on hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo, more than enough to conquer all of Asia Minor, isn’t exactly what most conservatives would call a good bet.
Other fun facts that Rubio has neglected to mention during his magical media tour include:
1, The immediate shutdown of the E-verify system.
2. The potential for 33 million newly minted American citizens in only the first 10 years – a “conservative” estimate, the actual total could be much higher.
3. A permanent voting majority for Democrats guaranteed to last a generation.
4. Making it illegal for law enforcement to arrest and deport anyone who “appears eligible” for legalization.
5. Allowing judges the ability to waive what is now mandatory deportation for certain classes of criminal aliens.
6. Free “Obama phones” for immigrants as they cross the border.
7. A gigantic boon for immigration lawyers as countless appeals, court appearances and so on are granted to illegals before they can be deported.
And that’s just what we know so far. With the endless ability for the DHS Secretary to grant exceptions to not only individuals, but entire “classes of aliens” from conforming to the law, things could get much worse.
The question conservatives are asking themselves lately is why would Rubio serve as a patsy for this clearly dangerous legislation? The answer is he is corrupt. Corrupted by a Washington culture where the elites think they are smarter than us, that they have the power to tell us what to do and who we have to accept into our communities, regardless of the cost to our society and pocketbooks. Where attending Georgetown cocktail parties attended by only the very best sort makes them better than the common people they lord over. A symptom of a government that is no longer of the people, by the people, for the people, but now only for the elite.
From Tea Party favorite to corrupt Washington insider in only two years, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Marco Rubio.
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Judge To Janet Napolitano: You have To Deport Illegal Immigrants – Washington Examiner
Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano does not have the authority to refuse to enforce laws that require illegal immigrants to face deportation, according to the federal judge hearing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement union’s lawsuit against DHS.
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“The court finds that DHS does not have discretion to refuse to initiate removal proceedings [when the law requires it],” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor said today, per Business Week. O’Connor asked DHS and the ICE union to offer additional arguments before he makes a final ruling on the legality of President Obama’s “deferred action on childhood arrivals” (DACA) program, which invoked prosecutorial discretion as a means of allowing people to stay in the country if they would have qualified for amnesty under the DREAM Act, which never passed through Congress.
The judge’s comments come one day after Napolitano scolded the union, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill, for challenging the policy she and Obama have implemented.
“There are tensions with union leadership, unfortunately,” Napolitano told Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., yesterday. “Here’s what I expect as a former prosecutor and attorney general: that is that law enforcement agents will enforce the law in accordance with the guidance they are given [by] their superiors.”
Sessions faulted Napolitano for refusing to meet with the ICE officers’ union. “I have never heard of a situation in which a group of law officers sued their supervisor, and you, for blocking them from following the law,” he said. “They weren’t complaining about pay, benefits, working conditions – they were saying their very oath they took to enforce the law is being blocked by rules and regulations and policies established from on high, and that this is undermining their ability to do what they are sworn to do.”
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The administration has approved 99.5 percent of applications of those who have applied for legal status under President Obama’s nondeportation policy for young adults, granting legal status to more than 250,000 formerly illegal immigrants.
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Officials said they expect the approval rate to drop as more cases make their way through the system, as it takes longer to deny an application than to approve it. Indeed, the approval rate already has dropped from 99.8 percent just a month ago.
But the high rate leaves others wondering whether the administration is doing all it can to weed out fraud or potentially dangerous illegal immigrants in DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as it’s formally known.
“You really have to wonder who they’re giving deferred action to, and what kind of risk they represent to us,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. “The screening process is much less for DACA than it would be for a green card, and so it’s all that much more susceptible to fraud.”
DACA is seen by many as a test-run should Congress pass a broad legalization for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
That means the pressure is on Homeland Security to get it right, and officials say they are taking steps to combat fraud, including warning that bogus applicants will be prosecuted and deported.
Mr. Obama created the program last summer to try to help illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children by their parents.
His policy allows them to remain and work in the U.S. on tentative legal status with no fear of deportation, though they do not have a direct path to citizenship. That path could come, though, under the immigration bill senators are beginning to debate, which would give DACA-approved immigrants a speedier chance at citizenship.
On Monday, one of those legalized under DACA pleaded with Congress to give her that chance.
“Legalizing people like me, the 11 million of us, will make the United States stronger and will bring about significant economic gains,” said Gabriel Pacheco, who was brought to the U.S. from Ecuador at age 8 by her parents. “Doing nothing is no longer acceptable.”
Her situation captures the complexities of American immigration: One of her sisters is about to earn citizenship as the wife of a U.S. citizen, with two citizen children; another sister is here illegally and didn’t qualify for DACA because she was too old; and her younger brother, 27, who owns a carwashing business, did qualify. Ms. Pacheco’s husband, meanwhile, is a Venezuelan who has lived in the U.S. for 26 years and earned his green card last year after an 18-year wait.
Mr. Obama announced the DACA policy in June, and the government began taking applications in August.
It was a galvanizing moment for immigrant rights advocates, and Hispanic voters in particular rewarded the president by voting for his re-election in overwhelming numbers.
The policy applies to illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. before age 16 and who were not yet 31 when the program was announced.
Illegal immigrants with serious criminal records aren’t supposed to qualify. To be eligible, applicants must have graduated from high school or earned an equivalency degree or served in the military.
Through the first 7 months of the program, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved 268,316 illegal immigrants for tentative legal status, while denying just 1,377 applications.
A Homeland Security official said the denials will tick up as time passes. Those whom the department plans to reject are given time to submit more evidence or appeal their denial, while approvals go through immediately.
For example, while USCIS approved 29,793 applications in the first six weeks of the program, it denied just six applications, or one out of every 5,000. But in March, the agency approved about 98.2 percent, meaning it denied nine out of every 500 applications.
“USCIS has issued some denials but expects denial rates to increase once requests for evidence and notice of intent to deny responses are received and reviewed by USCIS,” a Homeland Security official said.
Louis “Don” Crocetti Jr., who retired in 2011 after serving as the head of the USCIS fraud branch, also predicted his old agency’s denial rate will rise because of how it handles cases.
“It’s not uncommon, in fact it is more common than not, that the questionable cases are put on the back end in order to [make sure] the more deserving candidates get the benefit,” said Mr. Crocetti, who now runs the Immigration Integrity Group, a consultancy.
Cesar Vargas, one of those who has gained legal status under DACA and is executive political director of DRM Action Coalition, said the high approval rate makes sense given who is in this pool of immigrants.
“I am not surprised, just as most Americans and senators should not be not surprised, since many of the DACA applicants who applied were youth and students who were committed to their school and work,” Mr. Vargas said. “Dreamers have been in the U.S. for most of our lives such that it was not as difficult to put the paperwork proving our presence and moral character.”
Through the end of March, the department had received 472,004 completed applications and had settled nearly 270,000 of them.
Mr. Crocetti said DACA is a chance for the administration to test its screening process as it prepares for the possibility of a broad legalization for all 11 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S.
“We are in a post-9/11 world, as most recently evinced by the events in Boston,” he said. “This is a pivotal time that we have to get this right. We have to screen these people accurately, and we really have to know what are the key indicators to look for when these people file.”
Unlike the 1986 amnesty, when every applicant was interviewed in person and there still was double-digit fraud Mr. Crocetti said that’s not likely to be an option this time around. But he said technology has become so advanced that the agency can come up with analytical tools that can predict applications most likely to be fraudulent.
Ms. Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors a crackdown on immigration, said that in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings that should be a priority for any legalization program, including the ongoing DACA system.
“That’s very concerning in light of the most recent reminder namely this terror attack in Boston, near where I live,” she said, “that we simply are not taking enough care in screening the people we admit for legal status whether it’s this kind of deferred action or a green card or an asylum application.”
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I have no doubt it will be another disaster. I am not shocked at all that law enforcement is against it
The leader of an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement union on Thursday called on lawmakers to vote down the Gang of Eight’s sweeping immigration proposal, warning that the new legislation would make the country more dangerous if implemented into law.
“This bill will put the public safety at risk without doubt,” ICE agent Chris Crane, the president of the National ICE Council, said during a press conference in the Russell Senate Office Building.
There is no way this is a good bill in my view, the first problem? It is 844 pages long. NO bill ever needs to be anywhere near that long. The ones supporting this bill do not even know everything in it. Any bill that long is bound to be full of waste, pork, and tons of red tape. Second it does not do what any reasonable immigration bill would do. It does NOT secure the border FIRST! Third, it comes from many of the same folks who have not enforced existing law. Finally, anything sponsored by Chuck Schummer is likely not a good idea.
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Ed’s two cents worth:
With all due respect, Senator Rubio, why should the American citizenry believe that our federal government – or any liberal state government, for that matter – will actually enforce new immigration laws they disagree with when they aren’t enforcing the ones they object to right now?
As for a secure border fence, we were promised one of those years ago, and it still hasn’t materialized. Tell me, how can the feds be trusted to do the right thing tomorrow when they’ve allowed sanctuary cities to exist – in conspicuous violation of federal law – for so many years?
While elucidating your plan, you mentioned a new commission who’s ultimate administrative authority would be “triggered” into play if the Mexican border remains less than 90% secure after half a decade. Yet the Obama regime tells us that this border is more inviolable today than ever before, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
Suppose the Democrats win the White House in 2016. Are we to just accept the word of another leftist-controlled Department of Homeland Security when it inevitably tells us that the border is suddenly and miraculously more than 90% secure? Do you not believe that such a DHS might lie to us in order to retain its authority in this respect?
Perhaps after the southern security fence we’ve already paid for is actually completed, and government officials and business owners are prosecuted en mass for blatantly defying our laws as pertains to illegal aliens, we can begin to talk about a new set of rules that deal with our remaining immigration problems. Is that not a reasonable proposition?
Whether you believe so or not, Senator, I can only hope you will eventually come to understand that the reason why few conservatives are getting behind your plan isn’t because your ideas are necessarily objectionable. It’s because true right-wingers like me don’t believe that most of your colleagues are honest people who will keep to their word on this issue. In short, we have no reason to think that our federal government will do this time around what it has failed utterly to do in the past, which is faithfully enforce its own immigration laws.
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Grab your ankles, because our “representatives” are going to ram an immigration bill through, WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK IS IN THE BILL!
The “Gang of Eight” senators will release their immigration bill on Tuesday, just one day before the only scheduled hearing, according to news reports, bolstering GOP charges that advocates are planning to rush the controversial bill through the Senate before the public knows what is in it.
The bill is to be released April 16, according to a Friday report by The Associated Press.
The next day, before other senators have time to understand what is in the complex bill, Vermont Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy is slated to hold an April 17 hearing with one witness, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano.
There is no evidence that Democrats plan to hold additional hearings that would help senators — and Americans — to get testimony from immigration, police and wage experts about the workability and impact of the bill, which reportedly includes more than 1,000 pages.
The Democrats’ blitz has prompted protests and requests for additional hearings from GOP Senators, including Alabama Sen. Jess [ed.- they mean Jeff] Sessions, the ranking chairman of the Senate’s budget committee.
Every Senator in the Gang of Eight Ass Hats should be forced to resign like the disgraces they are. And do not give me that “but it is a bi-partisan bill” crap either! A bad bill is a bad bill, no matter who votes for it. And yes, any bill that the people cannot have time to read and digest is a bad bill!
Liars! Illegal Immigration Surging While Obama Administration Claims It Is Declining- Gateway Pundit
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Via Fox Nation, newly released statistics show that illegal immigrant infiltration along the U.S.-Mexico border is increasing markedly despite recent statements to the contrary by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano:
“I can tell you having worked that border for 20 years, it is more secure now than it has ever been. Illegal apprehensions are at 40-year lows,” Napolitano told reporters this week in Houston.
But figures released Thursday by Customs and Border Protection to Fox News tell a different story.
Arrests are actually up 13 percent compared with the same time last year. The number was 170,223 in 2012, and is 192,298 this year.
Indeed, the U.S.-Mexico border has steadily become less safe under the present administration, which, rather than securing the border to protect the lives of American citizens, is pushing an amnesty bill that will reward millions of foreign criminals:
The numbers back up anecdotal claims that Texas is seeing a marked surge in traffic. The increase comes as Congress prepares to debate immigration legislation, which in its draft form is expected to include a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already here. Some have expressed concern this provision could entice illegal immigrants to cross over.
Ya think?
Meanwhile, rather than carrying out its constitutionally mandated duty to protect our borders, the Obama Administration prefers to target those whom they deem a true threat to the homeland: practitioners of Evangelical Christianity, Catholicism, and Judaism.
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…CONGRESSMAN PAUL RYAN
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…NRA EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT WAYNE LAPIERRE
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…FORMER SENATOR RICK SANTORUM
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…CONGRESSMAN STEVE SCALISE
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…LOUISIANNA GOVERNOR BOBBY JINDAL
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…CITIZENS UNITED PRESIDENT DAVID BOSSIE
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…………Note: more videos to be posted as they become available.
…………………..Click HERE to watch highlights from Day 1.
…………………..Click HERE to watch highlights from Day 3.
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…LIEUTENANT COLONEL ALLEN WEST
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…CONGRESSMAN LOUIE GOHMERT
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…SENATOR MARCO RUBIO
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…SENATOR RAND PAUL
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…GOVERNOR RICK PERRY
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…JUDICIAL WATCH PRESIDENT TOM FITTON
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…………Note: more videos to be posted as they become available.
…………………..Click HERE to watch highlights from Day 2.
…………………..Click HERE to watch highlights from Day 3.
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California Dreaming.
More than 20,000 California illegal aliens are seeking state financial aid for the first time under the state’s new Dream Act.
Contra Costa Times reported:
More than 20,000 college-bound students are seeking state financial aid for the first time under California’s new Dream Act laws that allow them to get the help despite their immigration status.
While far from a complete picture, that number is the best indicator yet of how many students hope to benefit from a pair of laws that could radically change the college experience for a generation of students whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally when they were young – the same group that has taken center stage in the national immigration reform debate.
“For many of them, it’s a game-changer,” said Meng So, who coordinates UC Berkeley’s months-old Undocumented Student Program.
As college-bound high school graduates await word of their state financial aid – Cal Grants – other kinds of help have begun to flow for students already enrolled in public colleges and universities.
For the record… California has more debt than Greece.
Napolitano Promises To Release More Illegals – Daily Caller
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano promised to release more illegal immigrants into the United States, saying the budget sequester has left her no choice.
Several hundred detainees have already released because of the sequester, she insisted. They were released on bail, or because their legal status had changed, she said.
“We’re going to continue to do that… for the foreseeable future,” Napolitano said at a March 4 breakfast meeting hosted by Politico. “We are going to manage our way through this by identifying the lowest risk detainees, and putting them into some kind of alternative to release.”
However, Napolitano’s statement clashed with a March 1 report by The Associated Press, which said that internal agency documents show that her managers had already released 2,000 detainees, and planned to release 3,000 more detainees.
Napolitano’s threat reflects the White House’s determination to ramp up public distress until the GOP ages to another tax increase.
Under the sequester, budgets at the Pentagon and the numerous civilian agencies are being cut by roughly 8 percent from March to September. The cuts will trim roughly 1 percent from federal spending in 2013.
President Barack Obama suggested the sequester plan in 2011, and is now refusing any changes until the GOP agrees to tax increases.
There are roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, of whom roughly 7 million are working, mostly in low-skill jobs. However, roughly 20 million Americans are without jobs, including several million Americans with few job skills.
In the run-up to the 2012 election, Obama offered work permits to more than 750,000 illegals, and rolled back enforcement of immigration law.
Napolitano’s threat to release more illegals was not criticized by Tom Ridge, a former secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, who was also interviewed at the Politico breakfast.
Instead, Ridge complained that the controversy over the illegals’ release threatened passage of the draft immigration rewrite.
Progress towards a legislative success “gets sidelined – well, did you release 2,000? Didn’t you release 2,000? What about this, what about that?” Ridge complained.
The pending rewrite would offer immediate work permits to roughly 11 million illegal immigrants, a path for their relatives to join them in the United States, plus a ramped-up flow of foreign workers into the United States, despite the high unemployment rate.
“The job of the secretary of Homeland Security… with regard to securing the border would be a heck of a lot easier if the U.S. Congress would forget about the partisanship and come up with a broad-based, comprehensive immigration plan,” Ridge complained.
“Story ends right there,” said Ridge, who is now a consultant to various business groups, and a board member of the American Action Forum.
The forum is a business-linked advocacy group that is promoting the pending immigration rewrite. It is chaired by Fred Malek, a GOP donor and activist, who owns the Thayer Lodging Group. The group owns several hotels, some in partnership with a Chinese hotel firm.
Ridge’s complaint was backed by Napolitano. “Ditto, absolutely,” she said.
Napolitano’s promise to release more prisoners was indirectly criticized by Michael Cherthoff, who also served as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
To win passage of an immigration revamp, the public needs to be reassured that immigration enforcement will continue after the law is passed, said Cherthoff, who led President George W. Bush’s effort in 2006 to push through a controversial amnesty law. The effort was backed by business Republicans and progressives, but was derailed by a wave of public protests.
“Making people confident there will be continued enforcement and security, and it won’t go away once you have some kind of amnesty” is vital, he said.
He also warned Napolitano that legislators need to rush the draft rewrite through Congress before the opposition can mobilize.
In 2006, “the time between agreement and getting it to the floor really allowed a lot of erosion from both the right and let… [so] you’ve got to move it it quickly,” said Chertoff, who is now employed by Covington & Burling, a large legal and lobbying firm.
Committee Chair Demands Answers From ICE On Illegal Immigrant Release – Daily Caller
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul is demanding answers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton regarding the release of illegal immigrants from detention centers.
In a letter addressed to Morton and carbon copied to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Wednesday, McCaul expresses concern about news that ICE has started releasing detained illegal immigrants, and in doing so is failing to enforce the law.
“This decision reflects the lack of resource prioritization within the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is indicative of the Department’s weak stance on national security,” McCaul wrote.
“Congress mandated and provided resources to maintain 34,000 bed spaces for illegal immigrant detainees,” he continued. “As of last week, ICE reported 30,773 spaces filled, in clear violation of statute. I am also concerned that these releases were undertaken without notification to the appropriate Congressional oversight committees.”
McCaul demands that by March 6 Morton explain how many individuals ICE has released, the number of detainees marked for release, a timeline of future release dates and where the detainees have and will be released.
For each individual detainee released, McCaul requested ICE to provide the reason they were detained, the amount of time, and what is being done to monitor them upon release.
This week ICE revealed that in preparation for budget cuts as a result of the sequester they have started to release detainees.
“Over the last week, ICE has reviewed several hundred cases and placed these individuals on methods of supervision less costly than detention,” ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said according to Fox News. “All of these individuals remain in removal proceedings. Priority for detention remains on serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety.”
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Rage-inducing to say the least.
WASHINGTON – The federal government released groups of illegal immigrants from custody across the country Monday at the same time the White House was making its case that impending budget cuts would harm efforts to protect the border and enforce federal immigration laws.
Advocates reported “waves” of illegal immigrants being released from at least three detention centers in Texas, Florida and Louisiana.
U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement confirmed the release of some illegal immigrants Monday night but would not say how many or from which detention centers.
“In order to make the best use of our limited detention resources in the current fiscal climate and to manage our detention population under current congressionally mandated levels, ICE has directed field offices to review the detained population to ensure it is in line with available funding,” said ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen. “As a result of this review, a number of detained aliens have been released around the country and placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release.”
Christensen said ICE is continuing to prosecute their cases in immigration court and will seek their removal from the country.
“We’re getting reports from multiple detention centers in Texas, Florida and New Orleans where detainees who are low priority are being released in mass without bond,” Domenic Powell, a spokesman for the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, an immigration advocacy group, said Monday night.
darcprynce
Dave C
Gatordoug