Saturday, September 11, 2010

U.S. shifts approach to deporting illegal immigrants

The Obama administration is changing the federal immigration enforcement strategy in ways that reduce the threat of deportation for millions of illegal immigrants, even as states such as Arizona, Colorado, Virginia, Ohio and Texas are pushing to accelerate deportations.

The changes focus enforcement on immigrants who have committed serious crimes, an effort to unclog immigration courts and detention centers. A record backlog of deportation cases has forced immigrants to wait an average 459 days for their hearings, according to an Aug. 12 report by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which analyzes government data...

[Full Article]

Friday, September 10, 2010

Ten illegal immigrants caught after van stopped (Milan, Ohio - September 10, 2010)

MILAN — Four illegal immigrants ran from a van that was pulled over during a routine traffic stop on the Ohio Turnpike Wednesday, according to the U.S. Border Patrol. Six others were taken into custody as they stayed by the van. All the men, one from Guatemala, one from El Salvador and the rest from Mexico, were all in custody as of 5:30 a.m. yesterday, according to the Border Patrol.

Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Andy Patterson said agents from the Sandusky Bay Station in a marked border patrol vehicle on the Ohio Turnpike reported a minivan with California plates and 10 people inside driving suspiciously around 11:45 a.m. Wednesday. The agents said the people inside the van were visibly avoiding eye contact and slowing down to avoid the patrol vehicle.

“At one point, he (the driver of the van) was doing 35 mph on the Turnpike,” Patterson said. “Two and two just wasn’t adding up to four.”

As agents pulled over the minivan near US 250 the driver and three of the passengers fled from the vehicle, running south through a cornfield. Six of the passengers stayed with the van and were arrested by agents...

[Full Article]

Sunday, September 5, 2010

President Obama, You're Not Fooling All of Us On Immigration

President Obama thinks that by recently signing a new bill spending $600 million to beef up border enforcement he will look tough on illegal aliens. But decisions such as today?s lawsuit by the Justice Department against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to stop his policies regarding illegal aliens shows where the administration?s policies are really headed.

The bill Obama signed, which authorizes the hiring 1,500 new border personnel, the deployment of a pair of unmanned reconnaissance drones, and replacing some bases along the border is valuable, but it hardly undoes what the president has done up to this point. With a recent Rasmussen poll showing that 68 percent of U.S. voters support a plan to continue building a fence on the Mexican border, Obama's change strikes one as a temporary smoke screen.

Up until now the president has worked to cut the number of border agents. 384 border agents were cut last October 1st and in the 2011 fiscal year budget Obama proposed cutting another 180 agents through attrition.

But it isn't just his record of previously reducing the number of border agents. Obama has strongly opposed the use of fences, whether real ones or virtual ones. In March, he halted funding for the physical fence. Spending on "Total, CBP/Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology" (which included the virtual fence) has fallen from $1.05 billion in 2008 at the end of the Bush administration to $800 million in 2010 to $574 million in the coming 2011 budget. That is a $479 million annual cut, something that isn't going to be made up with a pair of unmanned drones.

Unfortunately, Obama appears to wish for continued illegal immigration as his administration has actively tried to stop states from helping enforce current federal laws...

[Full Article]
The Cost of Educating Limited English Proficient Students in Nevada Soars to $730 Million Annually

Limited English Enrollment has Grown 15-Fold Since 1988, Finds New Report from FAIR

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- While Nevada's struggling public schools face additional crippling budget cuts, the state now spends more than $730 million a year on education for Limited English Proficient (LEP) students, finds a new study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). According to the report, English Learners and Immigration: A Case Study of Clark and Washoe Counties, Nevada, as of the 2008-2009 school year, 78,732 Nevada public school children were classified as LEP, constituting 18 percent of enrollment in the state. This is 15 times the number of LEP students who were enrolled in Nevada public schools in the 1988-1989 school year, when only 5,173 LEP students were reported. Nevada now ranks 4th in the nation in the percentage of LEP students in its educational system.

According to the report, Nevada schools spend an average of $9,273 a year to educate each LEP student, compared with $7,133 – 30 percent more than the per pupil cost for students who are fluent in English. The bulk of the costs are absorbed by the taxpayers of Clark and Washoe Counties, where 94 percent of Nevada's LEP students attend school.

In addition to the direct costs to taxpayers, Nevada children face a loss of educational resources as the state copes with a rapidly increasing population of non-English-speakers. Unlike most states, Nevada does not allocate funds specifically earmarked for LEP education. Thus, the additional costs for LEP students come out of the general education budget.

"Nevada provides a case study of the real world consequences of policies that ignore the impact of mass immigration on American society," noted Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "Excessive immigration has a profound effect on almost every aspect of life in America. In places like Nevada, the influx of new immigrants – both legal and illegal – is exceeding the ability of the public school system to cope with the ever growing number of LEP students, while still meeting their obligations to provide quality education to all its children.

"The overburdening of public schools in Nevada and other states absorbing large numbers of new immigrants demonstrates the need to rethink our immigration policies," said Stein. "Overall levels of immigration must be reduced and both federal and local governments must make serious efforts to discourage illegal immigration."...

[Full Article]
42 illegal immigrants believed to be Mich. oil spill workers detained in Texas

A group of 42 people believed to have taken part in the cleanup of the July oil spill in mid-Michigan were in federal custody in Houston on Thursday, accused of being in the U.S. illegally.

They are in the process of being deported, said Carl Rusnok, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On Wednesday, the Chambers County Sheriff's Department was contacted about two buses unloading workers in Winnie, a small city east of Houston. Of 59 initially detained, 42 were found to be lacking proper identification, Sheriff Joe LaRive said.

LaRive said the buses were from Michigan and had been chartered by Phillip Hallmark, who runs Hallmark Industrial. The company had been a subcontractor on the cleanup of the spill along Enbridge Energy Partners' Line 6B near Marshall, until it was dismissed this week...

[Full Article]
The DREAM Act debate: Nightmare for legal immigrant students

Once again, immigration has become a hot topic in the United States.

For example, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, (DREAM) Act, was re-introduced to Congress in 2009.

Like the previous versions of the DREAM Act introduced to Congress in 2001, 2005 and 2007, this 2009 version should also not be approved.

The DREAM Act is a bi-partisan proposal sponsored by Sen.Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill).

It would provide approximately 700,000 immigrant children who were brought to the United States illegally and not of their own will with a pathway to become American citizens.

These children would have to meet certain criteria to qualify for the benefits outlined in the DREAM Act.

The applicant would have to be between the ages of 12 and 35 at the time the law is enacted, must have arrived in the United States before the age of 16, must have resided continuously in the United States for at least five consecutive years since just arriving, must have graduated from a U.S. high school or obtained a GED, and must be of “good moral character.”

If the applicant meets these criteria, he or she could be issued temporary residency status for a period of six years during which time he or she would have to either attend college and earn at least a two-year degree or serve in the U. S. military for two years.

If the applicant fulfills all these conditions by the end of the six-year period, he or she would be granted Permanent Residency, which would open the door to U.S. citizenship.

However, if the applicant fails to complete the educational or military requirements, he or she would lose temporary residency status and be subjected to deportation.

With an estimated 65,000 unauthorized migrant youth graduating from U.S. high schools every year, according the official DREAM Act website, supporters of the DREAM Act believe it will benefit the country to give these students—in essence the “future of America”—an opportunity to pursue their hopes and dreams by either attending college or serving in the military and giving them a chance at realizing the coveted American Dream.

While I sympathize with these children’s plight, I also believe that those benefits should be given only to those immigrants who are already legal residents of the United States...

[Full Article]
Non-Amnesty Immigration Bill Emerging

The issue of illegal immigration is a dramatic one for US voters, most of whom understand what is truly at stake. Left wing Progressives are pushing hard for “path to citizenship” schemes aka “amnesty” using every emotional plea and propaganda trick in the book. Right wingers are demanding hard line enforcement of the rule-of-law and want to see most illegal immigrants caught and punished, then repatriated as required by law. Moderates support the rule-of-law but also want to treat illegal immigrants humanely. Thus the three major groups appear entrenched in their positions. Yet one idea has now come forth that seems to bridge the divides between all groups and has gained over 80% in focus group support as the best solution for the nation. It is known as the BUIRA bill proposal.

The Bonn Unlawful Immigration Reform Act is a bill proposal now being quietly considered by many Republican law makers in both the House and Senate. BUIRA is now seen as the alternative to Comprehensive Amnesty that is estimated to cost taxpayers $4 trillion while also violating Article 4, Section 4 of the US Constitution if imposed...

[Full Article]

Illegal Aliens Taking Jobs From American Laborers In New Orleans

Workers Rebuilding New Orleans Face Rampant Wage Theft

Jacinta Gonzalez, an organizer with the Congress of Day Laborers in New Orleans, tells a story about the abuse of workers rebuilding the city after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. She once met a man who went to his employer’s house to demand payment for his labor on a construction site after the employer stiffed him of his dues. The man’s boss came at him, swinging a hammer. The worker immediately called the police.

When they showed up, she says, the first thing they did was ask for his immigration status. “These are the sort of situations that prevent day laborers from asking for help when their wages are denied,” Gonzalez says.

The politics of immigration are thorny, but it is a simple truth that construction companies routinely use day laborers without checking their immigration status: Thousands of those workers have helped and are helping to rebuild New Orleans. But those workers commonly suffer abuse due to their immigration status, including threats of violence and wage theft. Despite the best efforts of workers’ rights groups, five years after the hurricane, advocates say abuse remains rampant. Now, those groups are calling for specific legislation to protect vulnerable workers — documented and not — and to make sure they get their due.

After Hurricane Katrina, the number of undocumented workers in New Orleans increased substantially, in part because of a Department of Homeland Security directive to suspend employment immigration enforcement in the area immediately following the storm. The suspension expired quickly, but it created an inviting environment for undocumented immigrants, says Elizabeth Fussell, a professor at Washington State University...

[Full Article]
Fed agents frustrated by judges’ immigration decisions

WashingtonExaminer.com
By: Sara A. Carter
National Security Correspondent
August 31, 2010

In March, Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Sandoval — who had committed serious crimes in the United States since 1998 — stood before Florence, Ariz., Immigration Judge Bruce Taylor on a deportation hearing. That day the judge canceled his removal proceedings, allowing him to stay in the United States.

Four months later, Sandoval was arrested again on an outstanding warrant but was released. Three days after that release he led police on a 100 mph car chase. Then in August, in response to a 911 call from his family, he shot at Arizona deputies who came to his home. That night, he escaped. He later turned himself into authorities after they began a public manhunt for him.

Sandoval, who had resident status, is only one example of a legal system that lacks working mechanisms for deporting criminal aliens, said Rep. Ted Poe, a Texas Republican and former judge.

“The federal government has the responsibility, the moral duty to send these criminal aliens back where they came from after they do their prison time and before they commit more crimes,” said Poe, who is co-chair of the Victims’ Rights Caucus. He said both the Obama and Bush administrations handled the issue ineffectively, hiding facts from the American people and “sugar-coating” the truth regarding the deportation of criminal aliens.

This month, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced that the Obama administration is planning to dismiss thousands of illegal alien deportation cases, possibly 17,000, if the immigrants have a potential path to legal residency or overstayed their visas.

But critics say many illegal aliens with long criminal records composed of what some courts consider to be lesser charges will see their deportation cases dismissed as well. They cite Sandoval as an example.

“The system is skewed to release these criminals,” said Poe, a former judge. He recalled many times he saw repeat criminal offenders back in his courtroom after issuing detainers, which required the federal government to deport them after they served their U.S. sentences.

“The detainers don’t work, because we either don’t have enough federal agents, the administration doesn’t make it a priority and there isn’t any accountability when alien criminals are released back into society,” Poe said.

ICE, Border Patrol and local law enforcement officers told The Washington Examiner that law enforcement agencies are frustrated by the judicial system’s approach to handling immigrants charged with crimes...

[Full Article]
Deal Would Provide Dialysis to Illegal Immigrants in Atlanta

ATLANTA — Thirty-eight end-stage renal patients, most of them illegal immigrants, would receive the dialysis they need to stay alive at no cost under a rough agreement brokered Tuesday among local dialysis providers and Atlanta’s safety-net hospital, Grady Memorial...

[Full Article]
OC gov't contractor busted for hiring illegals

A Fullerton company busted for allegedly hiring illegal immigrants is now being sued by some of its employees.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the suit on behalf of immigrant workers who claim the company abused them, denied them overtime pay and threatened them.

The complaint was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and other groups against laboratory equipment supplier Terra Universal Inc.

Illegal immigrants working for a government contractor were kept in virtual economic slavery, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The Fullerton-based manufacturer of laboratory equipment allegedly used the fear of deportation against employees. The lawsuit alleges employees had to work off medical bills and worked without overtime...

[Full Article]
Manhunt over, suspect accused in injuring state trooper arrested

WTEN.com

BRUNSWICK – After nine days on the run, the man accused of injuring a state trooper has been caught. Abel Jiminez, 30, of Easton, was arrested by State Police in Brunswick Sunday morning after a search of a barn the Wagner Farm on Dater Hill Road.

State Police had been searching for Jiminez in Washington and Rensselaer Counties since Aug. 20, when Jiminez allegedly fleeing a traffic stop. As he tried to get away, he dragged a trooper with his pickup truck for approximately a quarter of a mile.

The trooper, Joseph P. Smith, of State Police at Greenwich, suffered numerous injuries and was hospitalized at Albany Medical Center Hospital for several days.

Smith had stopped Jimenez in response to a domestic incident reported to State Police by Jiminez's girlfriend.

State Police reported following a tip Saturday that Jimenez, an illegal Mexican immigrant who had been a farm laborer in the area for the last five years, had left the Washington County area and moved south.

Jimenez was arraigned on first-degree assault, reckless endangerment, aggravated assault of an officer and endangering the welfare of a child charges in Easton Town Court on Sunday afternoon.

Felons by the thousands among infiltrating hordes
Documentary also uncovers alarming link between illegal aliens and radical Islamists

Tens of thousands of convicted felons, including murderers and sex offenders, regularly are breaching the United States national boundary along just one section of the shared line with Mexico, according to a revealing new documentary called "Southern Exposure: Battle for the Border."

Eyefull Video Productions, located in the migration hotbed of Tucson, Ariz., has produced a made-for-TV special about the U.S./Mexico border crisis. It suggests that the invading hordes also may have an agenda of damage to the U.S. far beyond ordinary crime such as robbery, looting and even homicide.

In anticipation of its Sept. 15 release date, when it is scheduled to be available on DVD on Amazon, producer Stan Wald and director Jerry Misner talked about their documentary with WND.

"We used to be in broadcasting, and we were getting towards retirement age and saying, 'What do we really want to do?' That's one of the joys of actually retiring," said Misner, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam vet. "We started about four years ago doing television commercials and corporate-imagingvideo , and we started thinking we'd really like to do something meaningful and give something back to the country because it's been good to us overall," he explained.

"We discovered there were elements of the mass migration that were not being covered in major news across the country, but only in local communities adjacent to the border," said Wald. "So we decided to start digging into things and getting some answers that the media wasn’t providing."

Wald said that in fiscal year 2008-2009, there were 378,000 apprehensions by the Border Patrol in the Tucson sector alone, which is only 262 linear miles.

In the documentary, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Michael Scioli says the USBP estimates that agents apprehend one out of every three or four illegal migrants. He says that 15 percent of the aliens caught in the Tucson sector are convicted felons. That's 57,000 convicts.

"I'm talking about major things: homicides, sex offenders is one of the top three – hugely sex offenders," Scioli says.

He explains that many alien sex offenders are arrested by police, do some jail time, then they are deported, and the USBP subsequently catches them re-entering the U.S. He also says that while U.S. sex offenders have to register where they live, alien sexual predators could be in anyone's neighborhood stalking children.

Misner said, "Of that 15 percent of bad guys, there were lots of MS-13s, La Familia, SureƱos – all the Mexican and South American gangs. So the ones that didn't get caught, which is more than did get caught, they come and they do their same gang thing here in the United States."...

[Full Article]

Obama’s Backdoor Amnesty Follows A Pattern of Disrespect for Our Laws

President Barack Obama lets people break laws that he doesn’t like. The latest example is his backdoor amnesty for thousands of illegal immigrants, as a still-fuzzy but insidious picture is emerging.

Obama shows a pattern of refusing to enforce laws (or refusing to permit states like Arizona to enforce them). When he dislikes our laws, Obama forces change by dictate rather than seeking legal change through the political process. Congress gets bypassed.

Those benefiting can claim a new category of legal immunity: FBO’s–Favored By Obama.

Selective enforcement is being taken to new extremes. Furor would follow any straightforward official announcement that Obama is forgiving thousands from deportation, so the new amnesty policy is coming to light gradually, memo by memo and place by place.

One new memo from Obama’s Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) declares ICE’s unwillingness to act on local arrests of illegals unless they are accused of serious offenses like felonies or DUI’s; a second memo announces that thousands of pending deportations will be dismissed because the defendants don’t face serious charges–if of course you don’t count immigration violations.

From Houston comes word that immigration lawyers have been “stunned” when they arrive in court only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases, part of a systematic review of thousands of pending deportation cases. From Miami it’s reported that tens of thousands of cases are involved. From Dallas we hear that even some with criminal records will have cases dismissed, that “defendants can have one misdemeanor conviction, but it cannot involve a DWI, family violence or a sex crime.”

Excusing an additional misdemeanor, in addition to violations of immigration law, makes a mockery of the legal process...

[Full Article]
Tension over Obama policies within Immigration and Customs Enforcement

As it poises for further immigration initiatives, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is struggling with festering internal divisions between political appointees and career officials over how to enforce laws and handle detainees facing deportation.

Under the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security has shifted its focus away from the worksite raids and sweeps employed during George W. Bush's presidency to deporting more criminals and creating less prisonlike detention settings. But ICE, a branch of DHS, is facing intensified resistance from agency middle managers and attorneys, and the union that represents immigration officers.

The internal conflict has grown increasingly public over ICE's plans, among them to expand a risk assessment tool to guide agents on detention decisions, cut down on transfers of detained immigrants, and open more "civil" detention facilities -- what field directors call "soft" detention...

[Full Article]
Immigrant Who Voted Illegally on Road to Becoming a U.S. Citizen

Can an immigrant who resides legally in the U.S. on a work visa but who voted illegally in a presidential election year still become a naturalized U.S. citizen?

Yes, actually. Especially if the Department of Homeland Security sends a letter instructing him to request removal from the voter rolls.

That happened this summer in Putnam County, Tenn., where County Administrator of Elections Debbie Steidl says an immigrant who illegally registered to vote – and then voted – in 2004 is now seeking to become a U.S. citizen.

Steidl says the man gave her a form letter from the DHS instructing him to:

"Submit … evidence that you have been removed from the roll of registered voters. This can be accomplished by contacting your local election commission where you registered and voted. Submit a letter of explanation of why you registered to vote, and where you registered to vote, when you discovered that you were not a United States Citizen."

Steidl provided FoxNews.com with a copy of the letter, with the man's name and address redacted. Click here to see the letter.

She told FoxNews.com that, were the immigrant to be removed from the voter roll, as the DHS suggested, all traces of his illegal voting record would normally be shredded within two years.

"I went to my election commission and I said: ‘this frightens me for my country,'" she said. "They agreed with me. Why would you let someone who committed voter fraud become a citizen? That's what they're doing."...

[Full Article]
Maryland lawmaker targets officials who ignore federal immigration laws



BALTIMORE, Md. - In a bid to break the silence, Baltimore City Police are calling upon members of the Hispanic community to report crimes, and their legal status will go unquestioned.

Critics suggest it’s a form of amnesty that could back fire.

"If I say I was beat up and almost killed and I want to report that. Fine,” said Cynthia Gross of Southeast Baltimore, “Don’t ask me about my immigration status, but what if Jose beat me up and killed me? You gonna let Jose, whose a bad guy, stay here. You forgot to ask him when you could have gotten Jose when you had him."

Delegate Pat McDonough agrees, and he’s prepared to arm the average citizen with the power to sue public officials who violate federal immigration laws.

"Here you have a mayor who is saying to her police force, which is supposed to protect the people, 'You're not a law enforcement agency any more, you're a lawless enforcement agency and if you're an illegal immigrant, you now have special status and protection," said McDonough.

Under his proposed bill, a citizen could file a complaint against a public official in circuit court and then a judge would determine if the case moves forward.

If convicted, that official could be ordered out of office or could face criminal charges...

[Full Article]
Black Americans Discuss The Impacts Of Illegal Immigration On Their Communities [Video]

DiggersRealm.com

Reverend Wayne Perryman, Ted Hayes, C. Mason Weaver and others address the impact of illegal immigration on the black community in the video below. Unemployment is higher in the black community than in the hispanic community, yet there are those urging an amnesty for illegal aliens. As Ted Hayes points out, some so-called "black leaders" in congress and members of the Congressional Black Caucus do indeed see the devastation of illegal immigration, yet they are afraid to speak out. They don't want to lose votes, they fear violent retaliation in the streets against blacks by hispanics and "they don't want to be called racists".

Enough is enough though! Why would you sit by and watch your communities be destroyed? What kind of leader would do such a thing? It doesn't matter if the community is black, white, hispanic, asian or any other ethnicity, these are Americans we are talking about and they should be defended against this influx of law breakers who are making the lives of the poorest among us a living hell.

Watch the video below and pass it on.