Immigration Reading, 8/17/18

Share Tweet Forward Immigration Opinions, 8/17/18 Support the Center for Immigration Studies by donating on line here: http://cis.org/donate This email includes a wide range of views, provided for educational purposes. Inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by the Center for Immigration Studies   1. "A Lower Refugee Ceiling Is Better for Most Refugees, the Host Countries, and America," Mark Krikorian 2. "An Open Letter to Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer," Dan Cadman 3. "Does the First Amendment Provide 'Sanctuary' from Removal for Immigration Law Violations?," Dan Cadman 4. "The First Step Act, Revisited," Dan Cadman 5. "Criminal Penalties for Aliens' Failure to File a Change of Address," Andrew R. Arthur 6. "DC District Judge Orders DACA Restoration," Andrew R. Arthur 7. "H-1B Discrimination in the Courts: One Case Moves, Two Do Not," David North 8. "Chain Migration Gone Wild in Third Circuit," David North 9. "Some Suggestions Designed to Strengthen the U (Crime Victim) Visa Program," David North 10. "DHS Can Help with the Current U.S.-Turkey Dispute: A Long-Shot Notion," David North 11. "A Brief Chronology of the Sierra Club's Retreat from the Immigration-Population Connection (Updated)," Matthew Sussis 12. "America Needs a Border Wall Like Houses Need Insulation," Michael Cutler 13. "ISIS Militant Quietly Released after FBI Intervention Surfaces in Minimum Security Jail," Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles 14. "Millions to Help Immigrants 'Foster a Sense of Belonging and Attachment' to U.S.," Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles 15. "Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Welcomes Criminal Aliens," Hans A. von Spakovsky 16. "The Nation's Capital: A Sanctuary City on Steroids," David Jaroslav 17. "Media Ignores Crisis of Indian Illegal Immigrants," Jennifer G. Hickey 18. "ACLU Loses Grip on Reality – and the Law," Matt O'Brien 19. "The Logic of E-Verify," Jack Martin 20. " 'Onward Christian Soldiers' — DEA's Fight Against America's Immigration Disaster," Hubert Collins 21. "Trump Ignores Practical Solution for Stopping Illegal Immigration," Bruce P. Kading 22. "The Debate over Underage Migration," David Stoll 23. "Immigration Activists Fighting to Abolish ICE Have a Bigger Vision," A. Naomi Paik 24. "Congress is Trying to Run Away From Immigration. This Fall May Not Let Them.," Tal Kopan 25. "Trump's Aggressive Stance With Visa Holders and Legal Immigrants Breaks With Conservative Principle," Raul A. Reyes 26. "Trump's New War on Immigrants," Masha Gessen 27. "How to Stop President Trump's Latest Attack on Immigrants," Rebecca Brenner 28. "Three Reasons Trump's New Immigration Rule Should Make Your Blood Boil," Rebecca Brenner 29. "Trump's Hard-Hearted Immigration Policies Are a Stain on the Nation," The Los Angeles Times 30. "We Get It, Mr. President, You Despise Immigrants. Give It a Rest.," The Chicago Sun-Times 31. "U.S. Immigration Agency Chief Spoke at Anti-Immigrant 'Hate Group' Event," Pilar Melendez 32. Sweden: "Sweden is Burning," Joseph Klein 1. A Lower Refugee Ceiling Is Better for Most Refugees, the Host Countries, and America By Mark Krikorian The Corner at National Review Online, August 11, 2018 https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/lower-refugee-ceiling-better-for-refugees-host-countries-america/ The president is finding that changing immigration policy is more like trench warfare than shock-and-awe. Getting anything through Congress has so far proven impossible, due to combination of the filibuster rule, a rump group of loose-border Republicans, and the White House's own poorly run legislative operation. Meanwhile, #Resistance judges have acted lawlessly in an attempt to stymie legitimate exercises of executive authority. The latest example is the almost comical order to fully restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty, an Obama initiative launched not with legislation, nor with an executive order or even a formal regulation, but with a simple memo, which the judge now pretends has the force of law. But refugee policy is one area where the administration can storm some trenches successfully. Even the domestic "charities" that make their living from resettling refugees (on the taxpayers' dime) acknowledge that refugee policy is a component of foreign policy, which is why the president has wide latitude. He has already exercised that authority by reducing the ceiling for refugee resettlement in the current fiscal year to 45,000, down from the Obama administration's FY 2017 ceiling of 110,000. Owing to the development and implementation of new procedures, the actual number of refugees likely to be resettled through FY 2018 (which ends September 30) will be well below the ceiling, maybe 21,000. The new fiscal year starts in a month and a half, and there is a struggle inside the administration over the resettlement ceiling for FY 2019. The hawks are pushing for a lower ceiling while the doves, both career State Department officials and the resettlement "charities," are pushing for a higher one. None of the arguments for raising the number of refugees to be resettled holds water. The humanitarian argument is the weakest; in fact, as I've argued on these pages, large-scale refugee resettlement is immoral. Because the taxpayer funds expended on settling a single refugee in the U.S. could help twelve refugees in the country where they've found shelter, advocacy for resettlement amounts to little more than virtue signaling. As the Pharisee in Luke 19 might have said, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this immigration hawk. I fast twice a week and advocate for increased refugee admissions." Nor is there a good foreign-policy argument for increasing refugee admissions. Countries hosting large numbers of refugees, such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, get no benefit from having a handful of them relocated with great fanfare to America's hard-pressed Rust Belt while millions remain. As my colleague Nayla Rush has written of resettlement, "Even if these numbers were to double, triple, or more, the reality is that the effect of resettlement — both real and symbolic — on host countries is minimal, akin to rain drops in the ocean." Finally, and most absurdly, some argue that refugee resettlement is a fiscal and economic boon. Jason Richwine has shown that the educational level of new refugees has deteriorated dramatically over the past 20 years, both in absolute terms and relative to the native-born. Consequently, most are on welfare. As he's written, "Given their low education levels and high rates of welfare use, today's refugees cannot be net fiscal contributors by any plausible analysis." Of course, we don't take refugees for economic reasons, but to pretend that they're not costly is a fairy tale. Considering that fewer than 10 percent of the refugees referred in 2017 by the U.N. for resettlement in developed countries were "emergency" or "urgent" cases, amounting to fewer than 6,000 people, the FY 2019 ceiling could be reduced significantly and still accommodate all such cases worldwide. President Trump told the Lebanese prime minister last year that, "Our approach, supporting the humanitarian needs of displaced Syrian citizens as close to their home country as possible, is the best way to help most people." Those voices — both inside and outside the government — arguing for a different approach should be resisted. Return to Top ******** ******** 2. An Open Letter to Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer By Dan Cadman CIS Immigration Blog, August 16, 2018 . . . It has come to my attention that recently, in an attempt to dissuade a federal official from making himself available for discussion and public questioning at a forum, you reviled the hosting organization using a variety of smears borrowed from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The federal official was Francis Cissna, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the host organization was my employer, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which has had to confront these false assertions more than once before. (See here, here, and here.) I am by birth a native of your state, Rep. Hoyer, and I was appalled at your use of tactics more reminiscent these days of those callow far leftists who engage in all manner of disreputable tactics rather than promote or permit the kind of open discussion protected by the First Amendment. This conduct was beneath you. It was all the more reprehensible because you were appropriating smears from the SPLC, a morally bankrupt group that has so liberally applied the phrase "hate group" to other organizations and individuals whose views diverge from its own that it has been forced repeatedly to retrench and retract when faced with the possibility of lawsuits. . . . https://cis.org/Cadman/Open-Letter-Maryland-Rep-Steny-Hoyer Return to Top ******** ******** 3. Does the First Amendment Provide 'Sanctuary' from Removal for Immigration Law Violations? By Dan Cadman CIS Immigration Blog, August 15, 2018 . . . This seems to me a chicken-or-egg thing. Is ICE targeting Ragbir because he's executive director of an anti-enforcement progressive leftist coalition that argues in favor of sanctuaries and open borders — or did Ragbir spearhead formation of the coalition hoping it would shield him from the reach of the immigration laws so that, if-and-when apprehended, he could make exactly the claim that he's now making? I wouldn't bet the farm that it wasn't the latter. I recall posting a blog a couple of years ago about an alien in Portland, Ore., who became stridently activist as ICE was closing in on him for being removable as a convicted heroin dealer. I cannot conceive that the First Amendment was ever intended to provide shelter from violations of law of this kind, and what I know as a certainty is this: . . . https://cis.org/Cadman/Does-First-Amendment-Provide-Sanctuary-Removal-Immigration-Law-Violations Return to Top ******** ******** 4. The First Step Act, Revisited By Dan Cadman CIS Immigration Blog, August 14, 2018 . . . My analysis, which focused on the House version, reflected some significant deficiencies in the bill as written, in that it did not appear to consider the adverse consequences some of its sweeping provisions would inflict on the sensitive issue of detaining and deporting alien criminals. I noted, though, that as of the time the Backgrounder was published, I was reviewing a version of the bill that had not yet gone to the floor of the House — meaning that it could, should the relevant committee members choose, be amended before sending it onward for full consideration. The committee moved at what was, by congressional standards, light speed and, although a few changes were made, some of the most glaring flaws of the bill remained intact. Despite this, the full House passed the bill and moved it onward for Senate consideration and reconciliation with the original Senate version of the First Step Act that had been introduced earlier by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). The bill now being contemplated in the upper chamber of Congress can be seen here. . . . Shortly after my analysis was published I experienced proof that there were White House pressures at work to move the bill forward: I myself received a phone call from a highly placed administration official who chided me for my irresponsible piece and assured me that some of what I perceived as flaws really only reflected the status quo (such as availability of prison reintegration programs for deportable illegal alien prisoners), and/or intimated that the other matters would be dealt with by amendments so I shouldn't worry. This official ended by suggesting that if I felt the need to write further on the bill, I should contact the official's office first. . . . I am left with the observation that drafting a good prison or sentencing reform bill is much akin to threading a needle: Aim wide, and you are sure to fail. With carefully re-crafted language, this bill could have been excised of those provisions that potentially will permit thousands of alien felon prisoners to sidestep the reach of federal immigration officials attempting to take them into custody from the Bureau of Prisons in order to deport them. And such amendments would have done no harm whatsoever to the aim of prison and sentencing reform for deserving American prisoners. . . . https://cis.org/Cadman/First-Step-Act-Revisited Return to Top ******** ******** 5. Criminal Penalties for Aliens' Failure to File a Change of Address Another forgotten immigration crime By Andrew R. Arthur CIS Immigration Blog, August 15, 2018 . . . As USCIS explains, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issues a Form I-94 to aliens admitted to the United States. Among the information included in the Form I-94 for nonimmigrants is the alien's address in the United States. For students, that is generally a university address, and for tourists, the address of a hotel or relative. . . . Although the 2017 report from the USCIS ombudsman identifies issues related to the processing of applications for immigration benefits from applicants who have filed changes of address, there is nothing in that report that would suggest the changes of address filed by aliens within the United States are not properly processed and entered into government databases today. Therefore, the ability of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seek criminal charges under section 266(b) of the INA against aliens who fail to comply with the change of address requirements in section 265(a) of the INA is only limited by the capability of DHS to establish that those aliens have failed to comply with the change of address requirements. DHS should undertake an assessment of the effectiveness of its change of address processing capabilities. Assuming that the department concludes that its databases validly reflect the submission of changes of address by aliens in the United States, the department should seek criminal charges against aliens who have failed to file changes of address in accordance with law. In connection with that effort, DHS may also consider launching a nationwide campaign to advise all aliens of their responsibilities under section 265(a) of the INA. . . . https://cis.org/Arthur/Criminal-Penalties-Aliens-Failure-File-Change-Address Return to Top ******** ******** 6. DC District Judge Orders DACA Restoration By Andrew R. Arthur CIS Immigration Blog, August 15, 2018 . . . Judge Titus' decision is the more rational of the two. Taken to its logical conclusion, Judge Bates would have had DHS make an argument that it did not believe was valid in Texas (which, as stated above, it has not done). This is not a situation in which the government has failed to enforce a provision of law because it does not believe that its position would be legal, or the law itself is not legal, but rather one in which DHS was actually facing the prospect of litigation in Texas over the legality of DACA. In essence, the judiciary would be dictating to the executive branch an argument with which the executive branch disagrees to be made before the judicial branch, forcing the government to either defend what it believes to be indefensible, or to defer making an argument in support of a law (albeit one executed by memorandum) on the books. A ruling by Judge Hanen that DACA is not legal would set up a unique situation of the law. As Vox explains, if Judge Hanen enjoins DACA, "the Trump administration will officially be under two conflicting injunctions from the courts." . . . https://cis.org/Arthur/DC-District-Judge-Orders-DACA-Restoration Return to Top ******** ******** 7. H-1B Discrimination in the Courts: One Case Moves, Two Do Not By David North CIS Immigration Blog, August 16, 2018 . . . Although immigration observers have known for many years that the H-1B program tolerates extensive racial discrimination on behalf of young, male Indians from the south of that country, only relatively recently did the subject of discrimination appear in the federal courts. Allegedly doing the discriminating are the huge, largely Indian-owned outsourcing companies, Tata Consultancies Ltd., Infosys, Cognizant, and others. As we reported earlier, their percentage of H-1B hires from India were: Tata, 99.7 percent; Infosys, 98.1 percent; and Cognizant, 99.6 percent. In the oldest of these three cases, two of which were brought by a plucky little law firm in Washington's Adams-Morgan district (where I once lived), a recent interim decision by a federal judge in California has been handed down favoring the complainants and not the employer, Tata. . . . https://cis.org/North/H1B-Discrimination-Courts-One-Case-Moves-Two-Do-Not Return to Top ******** ******** 8. Chain Migration Gone Wild in Third Circuit By David North CIS Immigration Blog, August 14, 2018 Sometimes a citizen child can save his or her illegal alien parent from deportation, on the grounds that the deportation of the parent would create an undue hardship on the child. For example, if the illegal alien parent is the sole source of the family's income or the child has a medical condition that is unlikely to be treated in the parent's home country. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has just made a caricature of this scenario by stretching the concepts of "marriage", "parenthood", and "hardship" to the extreme. . . . https://cis.org/North/Chain-Migration-Gone-Wild-Third-Circuit Return to Top ******** ******** 9. Some Suggestions Designed to Strengthen the U (Crime Victim) Visa Program By David North CIS Immigration Blog, August 14, 2018 . . . An alien crime victim must complete an I-918 form identifying him or herself, and claiming victim status. The alien then must also obtain from a law enforcement agency a completed form I-918 Supplement B, routinely signed by both an officer familiar with the case and the head of the agency, confirming that a crime has been reported and that the alien is either cooperating with authorities or is "likely to do so", a bureaucratic fudge. If the alien wants to extend U status to close relatives, as many of them do, the alien also completes and files an I-918 Supplement A form. The law enforcement agency has the discretion whether or not to complete the form; data may be available in some localities as to the extent of denials at this point, but it is not available nationally. The assumption is that agencies will routinely sign off on the I-918 Supplement B because nothing negative happens to the agencies if they do so, and if they refuse they may have a controversy on their hands. (I gather California state law makes it hard for a law enforcement agency to deny these applications.) . . . Proposed Reforms In order to make this program more useful to law enforcement and to minimize its misuse, I suggest three reforms: In-person interviews should be conducted in every case, as soon after filing the initial I-918 as possible. All USCIS material on these visas should make it clear that there will be such an interview, and fingerprints will be collected from the applicants. The purpose of this provision is to make sure that there is detailed, useful information for the law enforcement agencies, in something other than a he-said/she-said situation. The fingerprints may, in some cases, indicate that the victim has his or her own criminal record. For a crime to be included in the U visas process, it must be reported within 30 days of its occurrence and it must be the subject of a DHS application filed within 60 days of the event. . . . https://cis.org/North/Some-Suggestions-Designed-Strengthen-U-Crime-Victim-Visa-Program Return to Top ******** ******** 10. DHS Can Help with the Current U.S.-Turkey Dispute: A Long-Shot Notion By David North CIS Immigration Blog, August 14, 2018 . . . As background, Turkey really wants us to extradite a green card-holding former Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gülen, now holed up in the Poconos. He is the leader of a large, international, conservative Muslim cult, and in the eyes of the Turkish government, he was involved in the attempted coup in 2016. They would happily give up the American clergyman, Andrew Brunson, in exchange for Gülen, but that is not going to happen. . . . The proposal, dealing with migration matters only, is that Turkey return our migrant pastor, and that we in turn do something we should have done anyway, years ago, which is to crack down on the questionable practices of the Gülen charters schools such as Horizon and pay similar attention to one of the two Gülen-dominated universities, Virginia International University in Fairfax, Va., which can also be regarded as an unusually heavy user of the H-1B program. As I see it, well-publicized reports of federal agents visiting several of the Gülen operations would be announced at the same time that Rev. Brunson flies out of Turkey. . . . https://cis.org/North/DHS-Can-Help-Current-USTurkey-Dispute-LongShot-Notion Return to Top ******** ******** 11. A Brief Chronology of the Sierra Club's Retreat from the Immigration-Population Connection (Updated) By Matthew Sussis CIS Immigration Blog, August 14, 2018 . . . 2017. In a statement, the club praised DACA, President Obama's executive action that granted deferrals from deportation to some illegal aliens who were brought to the country as children, and condemned President Trump for deciding to terminate it. Executive Director Michael Brune said it was "mean-spirited" of Trump to terminate DACA and that DACA recipients "are making our country better." These remarks were noteworthy in that they were the first time that the club publicized its position on a specific immigration-related policy. Previously, the club had offered general statements supporting "immigrants' rights", but not concrete endorsements. 2018. After the precedent set by its comments on DACA, in 2018 the club began putting out frequent statements condemning a range of immigration-related policies under the Trump administration. For example, in April, Brune said the Sierra Club opposed the construction of a border wall and of the administration's push to speed up deportation proceedings, calling it "xenophobic". In June, in response to the "zero tolerance" policy and family separations at the border, the club attacked the administration for its decision to "jail and cage kids", and Brune called for a stop to "Trump's racist agenda". . . . https://cis.org/Sussis/Brief-Chronology-Sierra-Clubs-Retreat-ImmigrationPopulation-Connection-Updated Return to Top ******** ******** 12. America Needs a Border Wall Like Houses Need Insulation How Trump's wall will help keep heinous criminals out of America's cities. By Michael Cutler FrontPageMag.com, August 14, 2018 . . . Remittances, massive as they are, do not account for all of the money that flows from the United States to Mexico and because they are legal and transparent are easy to quantify. Money is often smuggled covertly out of the U.S. to other countries around the world. by illegal and hence opaque means. Sometimes the money is concealed in furniture, appliances or vehicles. Sometimes the money is converted to gold or other precious metals to make it more portable. However, no matter how money leaves the United States, a wall would create a barrier against illegal alien workers who send their ill-gotten wages back to Mexico. That wall could help stem the flow of dangerous narcotics into America - an act that destroys the lives of children and fuels the violence that plays out in towns and cities across the country. Indeed, a secure southern border could help to insulate America from terrorists operating in Latin America, an issue of grave concern that I wrote about in my recent article, Congresional Hearing: Iranian Sleeper Cells Threaten U.S.that included the testimony of one of the witnesses, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who said, in part: . . . https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271010/america-needs-border-wall-houses-need-insulation-michael-cutler Return to Top ******** ******** 13. ISIS Militant Quietly Released after FBI Intervention Surfaces in Minimum Security Jail Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, August 10, 2018 . . . The pending release is frightening considering Karakrah's disturbing history, criminal record and documented ties to some of the world's most dangerous jihadists. The collaboration between Mexican drug cartels and Islamic terrorists practiced by Karakrah and his cohorts has become a monstrous national security issue for the U.S. Judicial Watch has exposed a number of the enterprises as part of an ongoing investigation into the critical national security threats along the porous southern border. Among the most distressing is that Islamic terrorists joined forces with the Juárez drug cartel years ago and the partnership has resulted in ISIS operating in a region controlled by the cartel, just a few miles from El Paso in a border area known as "Anapra" in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Other Mexican drug cartels have smuggled nationals of terrorist countries into the U.S. for years, records uncovered by Judicial Watch show. . . . https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2018/08/isis-militant-quietly-released-after-fbi-intervention-surfaces-in-minimum-security-jail/ Return to Top ******** ******** 14. Millions to Help Immigrants "Foster a Sense of Belonging and Attachment" to U.S. Judicial Watch Corruption Chronicles, August 9, 2018 . . . Similar programs, also funded with USCIS grants, were incredibly popular during the Obama years and Judicial Watch monitored them closely. It was part of a broader, government-wide initiative launched by the former president to "strengthen federal immigrant and refugee integration infrastructure." The mission was to facilitate life in the U.S. for immigrants and refugees by enhancing pathways to naturalization, building welcoming communities and providing "mobile immigration services in underserved communities." To carry out the mission Obama created a special Task Force on New Americans chaired by his Domestic Policy Director, Cecilia Muñoz, the former vice president of the powerful open borders group National Council of La Raza (NCLR). Millions of taxpayer dollars flowed to the task force's various enterprises, including multilingual media campaigns promoting immigrant rights. The goal was to "strengthen civic, economic and linguistic integration and to build strong and welcoming communities," according to a report issued by the task force. In its final months, the Obama administration doled out $29 million via USCIS grants to register new immigrant voters that likely supported Democrats in the presidential election. Officially it was described as "citizenship integration" aimed at enhancing pathways to naturalization by offering immigrants free citizenship instruction, English, U.S. history and civics courses. The money flowed through two separate USCIS grants, the first for $19 million and a second, just five months later, for $10 million. That grant came in a final push before the presidential election to prepare approximately 25,000 residents from more than 50 countries. More than a dozen states—including California, New York, Florida, Washington and Ohio—with large resident immigrant populations were targeted as well as cities with huge immigrant populations such as Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C. . . . https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2018/08/millions-to-help-immigrants-foster-a-sense-of-belonging-and-attachment-to-u-s/ Return to Top ******** ******** 15. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Welcomes Criminal Aliens By Hans A. von Spakovsky Heritage Foundation, August 10, 2017 . . . Had these offenders not been in the country, their victims would have been spared much suffering. Or if cities and states had notified Washington that they were about to release these repeat offenders, the feds could have picked them up and removed them from the country. The sanctuary policies championed by Rahm Emanuel make that impossible. Yet he arrogantly boasts that Chicago will not be "blackmailed into changing our values." The "value" he seeks to uphold is the self-proclaimed right to flout federal law to protect known predators. Only the most twisted logic could equate withholding federal agency grants from a city that refuses to allow the federal agency to do its job to some form of blackmail. Emanuel's lawsuit makes the false argument that the federal government would "force the City to detain individuals longer than justified by probable cause, solely to permit federal officials to investigate their immigration status." In fact, the Justice Department is simply asking the city to give the federal government 48 hours' notice of its intent to release a criminal alien. That will give the feds time to pick up the offender. The lawsuit also claims without foundation that this new DOJ memo "effectively federalizes" local detention facilities because it requires the city to give "federal immigration officials access to local police stations and law enforcement facilities in order to interrogate any suspected noncitizens held there." Giving federal authorities access to criminals in custody in no way "federalizes" local detention facilities. Under that absurd claim, local police and sheriffs would have to bar FBI agents and all federal law enforcement officers from interviewing prisoners in their facilities who are suspected of committing federal crimes. . . . https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/chicago-mayor-rahm-emanuel-welcomes-criminal-aliens Return to Top ******** ******** 16. The Nation's Capital: A Sanctuary City on Steroids By David Jaroslav ImmigrationReform.com, August 16, 2018 . . . The District started officially adopting sanctuary policies at least as far back as 1984, when then-Mayor Marion Barry (D) issued a memo prohibiting D.C. officers and employees from asking anyone about their immigration status, with a narrow exception only for determining eligibility for public benefits. In 2011, then-Mayor Vincent Gray (D) expanded this to also prohibit officers from stopping or detaining anyone based on suspicion of being an illegal alien, and to deny immigration authorities access to inmates in D.C. custody "without a criminal nexus." And in 2012, the D.C. council passed a local law saying immigration detainers would only be honored if: 1) there was a written agreement with the federal government to reimburse D.C. for compliance costs and 2) the arrestee had been convicted of a "dangerous crime" or "crime of violence" within the previous ten years. Current Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has defiantly insisted that even in the age of President Trump's commitment to enforcing our immigration laws, "[t]he District is and will continue to be a sanctuary city." Her own addition to D.C.'s ever-growing panoply of sanctuary policies was the creation of its "Immigrant Justice Legal Services Grant Program," which since 2017 has paid out more than half a million taxpayer dollars a year, including on lawyers to fight the deportation of illegal aliens. It's set to increase to $900,000 next year. . . . https://immigrationreform.com/2018/08/16/the-nations-capital-a-sanctuary-city-on-steroids/ Return to Top ******** ******** 17. Media Ignores Crisis of Indian Illegal Immigrants By Jennifer G. Hickey ImmigrationReform.com, August 15, 2018 . . . According to data from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearing House (TRAC), in the current fiscal year, 3,752 Indian nationals were arrested by Border Patrol agents – a figure that already surpassed the total number arrested in FY2017 (2,055) and FY2016 (3,398). The spike, however, is not isolated, nor is it new. "There is an unprecedented flood," immigration attorney John Lawit told The Hindustan Times in 2016, adding that illegals were paying smugglers $30,000 to travel from India. And in 2013, Arizona experienced a flood of Indians, some of whom had paid $35,000 to illegally cross the border. While there was a temporary decline, the flood of illegals are once again exploiting holes in the nation's immigration system. . . . https://immigrationreform.com/2018/08/15/media-ignores-crisis-of-indian-illegal-immigrants/ Return to Top ******** ******** 18. ACLU Loses Grip on Reality – and the Law By Matt O'Brien ImmigrationReform.com, August 15, 2018 . . . That shouldn't be particularly shocking. USCIS and ICE (and U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP]) were once separate divisions within the former Immigration and Naturalization Service. And as part of the Department of Homeland Security, they exercise distinct, but complementary, responsibilities. But, according to the ACLU, ICE is prohibited from removing any aliens who have applied for a "Waiver of Unlawful Presence" and are waiting for USCIS to adjudicate their waiver application. The basis for this prohibition is, supposedly, the "Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver" regulations, enacted under the Obama administration. The ACLU claims that the government created a "path" for illegal aliens to obtain a green card and, "the government can't create that path and then arrest folks for following that path." So, the social justice warriors at the ACLU have filed a class action suit on behalf of nine illegal aliens, residing in New England. All nine have repeatedly violated U.S. immigration law but still think they're entitled to a green card. You see, under the warped logic applied by the ACLU, it's the law-breaking foreigners who are really the victims here. . . . https://immigrationreform.com/2018/08/15/aclu-loses-grip-on-reality-and-the-law/ Return to Top ******** ******** 19. The Logic of E-Verify By Jack Martin ImmigrationReform.com, August 15, 2018 . . . In an August 13 article in The Hill newspaper, a retired immigration enforcement professional argued that making E-Verify a national mandatory system would be more effective in shutting down illegal immigration than the proposed border wall expansion Again, why then hasn't it been implemented? Some appear to think the E-Verify system is already in force. And in fact it does exist as a voluntary system nationwide and it has been made partially or wholly mandatory in some states and local jurisdictions. But, as long as illegal alien workers can flow to states where the system is not required or not effectively enforced, it will not constitute an effective deterrent to illegal immigration. There are two major reasons that an effective E-Verify system is not the law of the land. The first is that there is a broad network of employer organizations that oppose the system because it would deprive them of cheap exploitable illegal alien labor. Those organizations have influence not just with libertarians but also with politicians. The other reason is that any meaningful immigration reform has long been stymied by the logjam between the Democrats who insist on a full-scale amnesty for all illegal aliens as part of any reform legislation and Republicans who oppose an amnesty. . . . https://immigrationreform.com/2018/08/15/the-logic-of-e-verify/ Return to Top ******** ******** 20. "Onward Christian Soldiers"—DEA's Fight Against America's Immigration Disaster By Hubert Collins VDare.com, August 14, 2018 . . . With an annual budget of only two billion dollars, and about 10,000 employees, the DEA is a small agency. ICE, which is not considered big either, has twice as many employees and nearly four times as much money. But the DEA is still a force to be reckoned with. This July, in the Bronx, agents seized about 55 pounds of heroin and fentanyl. To give you a sense of just how much that is, consider that the amount of heroin that typically leads to overdose is 200 to 500 milligrams (it varies widely because of the different tolerances among users, and the differing levels of purity of street heroin). If we split the difference and put the average overdose amount at 350 milligrams, then one pound of heroin contains a total of 1,296 average overdoses. 55 pounds contains a total of 71,280 average overdoses—enough to kill every resident of Bismarck, North Dakota. With that seizure came five arrests. The defendants are: Luis Guzman-Rojas, Matias Rosario-Ramon, Anthony Polanco, Willy De La Cruz, and Pedro Sandoval. Those names struck me as curiously similar to the names of drug pushers in another DEA action from July: Midence Oqueli Martinez Turcios, Arnaldo Urbina Soto, Carlos Fernando Urbina Soto, and Miguel Angel Urbina Soto. Mr. Martinez is a sitting congressman in Honduras. Arnaldo Urbina is a former mayor in Honduras, and the other two are clearly relatives of his. Why did the four of them attract the interest of the DEA? Well: . . . https://vdare.com/articles/onward-christian-soldiers-dea-s-fight-against-america-s-immigration-disaster Return to Top ******** ******** 21. Trump Ignores Practical Solution for Stopping Illegal Immigration By Bruce P. Kading TheHill.com, August 13, 2018 . . . Unfortunately, the President does not seem interested in crafting a balanced and comprehensive immigration bill that could address a whole host of issues that have been festering for years. That would require working with Democrats, most of whom would find a document verification system far more palatable than a wall. Even Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), a hard line opponent of almost any immigration enforcement measure, has expressed support for mandatory verification of immigration documents if it is part of a larger reform effort. If Trump would drop his obsession with a wall and embrace the more effective, popular, and less costly idea of mandatory E-Verify, a compromise is very possible. But it seems doubtful Trump will rise to the occasion. Although it would be good for the country, resolving this contentious issue would deny him a valuable political weapon, one that helped vault him to victory in 2016 and that he hopes will do the same in 2020. What's more, calling for the use of a "big, beautiful database" to combat illegal immigration just doesn't have the same ring to it. . . . http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/401492-trump-ignores-practical-solution-for-stopping-illegal-immigration Return to Top ******** ******** 22. The Debate over Underage Migration By David Stoll The-american-interest.com, August 2, 2018 The idea that the United States is a haven for the poor of low-income countries is an enduring feature of American national mythology. In actuality, American capitalism takes quite a toll on immigrants, especially when immigration levels are high, as they are at present. Fortunate outcomes can never be presumed. The consequences of high immigration flows for sending societies are, if anything, even more troubling. Immigration advocates have yet to realize that the migration industry and its remittances are a mighty contributor to the extortions and homicides wracking Central America. As a lucky remittance-receiver in a poor neighborhood wends her way down a rutted lane, chatting on her iPhone, she presents quite an opportunity for enrichment. . . . https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/08/02/the-debate-over-underage-migration/ Return to Top ******** ******** 23. Immigration Activists Fighting to Abolish ICE Have a Bigger Vision By A. Naomi Paik The Conversation.com, August 13, 2018 . . . Many abolitionists, like Mariame Kaba, refuse to limit their vision to what is feasible. They instead believe that social change first requires a bold vision. Along the way, constant organizing builds mass consciousness and works to reduce, for example, state violence. The fact that local governments are canceling deals with ICE to detain migrants suggests to them that eliminating a relatively young agency is a winnable goal. In calling to end the agency, advocates highlight what they say are ICE's racist origins and abuses of power. Immigrant organizers like Tania Unzueta point to ICE's origins in a post-9/11 panic motivated, in part, by anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment. This shift flagged immigration as a national security problem and immigrants as threats to the nation. At the same time, the call to abolish ICE goes beyond the agency itself. It requires a thorough rethinking of immigration law and policy. It is at this point that skeptics and detractors question the movement. . . . https://theconversation.com/immigration-activists-fighting-to-abolish-ice-have-a-bigger-vision-100939 Return to Top ******** ******** 24. Congress is Trying to Run Away From Immigration. This Fall May Not Let Them. By Tal Kopan CNN.com, August 10, 2018 . . . Once the courts ordered the administration to continue renewing DACA permits, some of the pressure was off Congress. Republican leadership in both chambers have shown no appetite to return to the issue, especially heading into a fraught election cycle. Republicans' divisions on the program have been laid bare in the process, pitting hardline conservatives who refuse to accept any path to citizenship for DACA recipients against moderate Republicans from diverse districts who see it as their only acceptable outcome. But the judge in the Texas DACA case is seen as particularly likely to rule the program has to be ended. That judge was the one to block a similar program from going into effect in 2014. Meanwhile, appellate courts in California and New York are considering the orders to keep the program running, and another district court has ordered the government to reopen the program in full, including new applications. The issue is likely to reach the Supreme Court regardless. But if those conflicting orders were to happen in the next month, as is increasingly likely, it could fast-track the issue for consideration this fall. . . . https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/10/politics/daca-immigration-fight-congress/index.html Return to Top ******** ******** 25. Trump's Aggressive Stance With Visa Holders and Legal Immigrants Breaks With Conservative Principle By Raul A. Reyes TheHill.com, August 16, 2018 . . . What Miller is trying to do is expand the definition of "public charge" under U.S. law. For decades, the likelihood of someone being a "public charge," or dependent on the government for subsistence, has been grounds for denying a potential immigrant permanent residency or citizenship. Under Miller's plan, the definition of "public charge" would be broadened to include anyone who has used subsidies available under the Affordable Care Act, some forms of Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). To be clear, Miller's plan is not aimed at undocumented immigrants. It targets legal immigrants and people like Gutierrez, who are valid visa holders. That marks a break with the traditional conservative principle of only being against illegal immigration. His proposal is troubling because it doesn't just take into account a potential immigrant's use of government benefits. It also takes into account benefits used by any member of their household. This could include citizen children, family members, or perhaps even roommates. Miller's plan is not yet law. However, according to the Washington Post, the State Department's foreign affairs manual is instructing consular officials to consider the use of public benefits in deciding whether to issue visas. . . . http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/402064-trumps-aggressive-stance-with-visa-holders-and-legal-immigrants-breaks Return to Top ******** ******** 26. Trump's New War on Immigrants By Masha Gessen The New Yorker, August 10, 2018 . . . In 2016, the last year for which statistics are available, more than seven hundred and fifty thousand immigrants became American citizens. In order to apply for naturalization, an immigrant has to have lived in the United States as a legal permanent resident for thirty months out of a consecutive five years, depending on the reason she gained permanent-resident status. Because a green card often takes a number of years to obtain, most new citizens have been living in the United States for well more than five years. During that time, the chances are good that the immigrants have benefited from the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (either through the Medicaid expansion or by enrolling in an Obamacare marketplace plan) or used a program such as CHIP, which provides low-cost health insurance for children; in New York State, children in families of four earning up to $97,200 are eligible for CHIP. With an approach this broad, it seems likely that hundreds of thousands of people a year will be affected by the rules change. . . . The new rules will mean that this category of disenfranchised immigrants will grow by millions in the next few years. It will probably be one of the most significant acts of political exclusion in American history. It is ordered by the President who gave us the commission to investigate phantom voter fraud, the President who is obsessed with imaginary millions of immigrants whose illegal votes deprived him of a majority victory in 2016. The new naturalization rules provide perhaps the clearest example yet that Trump's war on immigrants is a war on democracy. . . . https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-new-war-on-immigrants Return to Top ******** ******** 27. How to Stop President Trump's Latest Attack on Immigrants By Rebecca Brenner The Washington Post, August 13, 2018 If the Trump administration successfully wields the public charge clause against documented immigrants, they would be using this provision to resurrect the very restrictionist immigration policies from the interwar years that Perkins and her allies attempted to challenge. And they'd be doing it despite decades of subsequent laws that opened up and liberalized immigration policy. The gray area in American immigration law means that the same legal provisions can be mobilized to protect vulnerable migrants or to stigmatize and subject them to violence. . . . https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/08/13/how-to-stop-president-trumps-latest-attack-on-immigrants/?utm_term=.c1b5a11ec13f Return to Top ******** ******** 28. Three Reasons Trump's New Immigration Rule Should Make Your Blood Boil By Rebecca Brenner The Washington Post, August 9, 2018 Any policy that discourages, even a little bit, poor families' use of such services is not just heartless. From an economic perspective, it is foolish. We need healthy, well-nourished, well-educated children to become healthy, well-nourished, productive workers. But once again, children and the economic future they represent are the casualties of Trump's casual cruelty. . . . https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/three-reasons-trumps-new-immigration-rule-should-make-your-blood-boil/2018/08/09/1f59a7fe-9b4c-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html?utm_term=.ecb619d8e42d a href="#top">Return to Top ******** ******** 29. Trump's Hard-Hearted Immigration Policies Are a Stain on the Nation The Los Angeles Times, August 10, 2018 . . . Then there's this: The White House is reportedly drafting a plan that would allow immigration officials to deny citizenship, green cards and residency visas to immigrants if they or family members have used certain government programs, such as food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit or Obamacare. And this: The now largely abandoned "zero tolerance" policy of filing misdemeanor criminal charges against people crossing the border illegally led to a surge of cases in federal court districts along the southwest border as non-immigration criminal prosecutions plummeted, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. In fact, non-immigration prosecutions fell from 1,093 (1 in 7 prosecutions) in March to 703 (1 in 17 prosecutions) in June, suggesting that serious crimes are taking a back seat to misdemeanor border crossing. . . . http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-immigration-enforce-trump-congress-20180810-story.html Return to Top ******** ******** 30. We Get It, Mr. President, You Despise Immigrants. Give It a Rest. The Chicago Sun-Times, August 10, 2018 . . . We get the game. Single out the exception and call it the rule. Find the immigrant, here illegally, who committed a horrendous murder and tar all undocumented immigrants as violent criminals. Find the drug-dealing gang members and suggest all the desperate men and women crossing the border are drug-dealing gang members. Point to a handful of Muslim immigrants engaged in terrorist activity, and paint all Muslim refugees as potential terrorists. . . . https://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/immigration-deportations-president-donald-trump-nationalism-racism-refugees-daca-elections-editorial/ Return to Top ******** ******** 31. U.S. Immigration Agency Chief Spoke at Anti-Immigrant 'Hate Group' Event Francis Cissna, head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, spoke Wednesday at an event led by a group known for its 'hateful' anti-immigrant rhetoric. By Pilar Melendez The Daily Beast, August 15, 2018 . . . Cissna is the third Trump administration official to take part in the Center for Immigration Studies' "Immigration Newsmaker" event, following appearances by James McHenry, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and Thomas Homan, former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Beyond its association with white nationalists, CIS is known for publishing misleading data to push nativist immigration policies. In 2008, the organization published a report alleging widespread fraud among marriages between immigrants and American citizens, while admitting to "having no way of knowing" because of a lack of systemic data. . . . The organization's executive director, Mark Krikorian, is also known for his radical anti-immigration beliefs and is credited for popularizing the belief that undocumented immigrants overstaying their visas should be pushed out, or "self-deported." . . . https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-immigration-agency-chief-spoke-at-anti-immigrant-hate-group-event Return to Top ******** ******** 32. Sweden Is Burning Will Swedes Finally Wake Up and Deal With Their Immigration Problem? By Joseph Klein FrontPageMag.com, August 15, 2018 . . . There were 306 confirmed shooting incidents across Sweden last year, resulting in 41 deaths. These may seem like small numbers compared to the total number of shootings and homicides from gun violence in Chicago alone last year. However, it is not a small number for a Western European country. Indeed, Sweden is now reported to be the second most violent country in Europe. Its homicide rates are "significantly above the Western European average," Politico reported. "Social unrest, with car torchings, attacks on first responders and even riots, is a recurring phenomenon." At the same time, Sweden has become a haven for migrants because of Sweden's past open border policies. More than 600,000 immigrants have flooded into Sweden over the past five years, ZeroHedge has reported. Sweden is at the top of the list in Europe for admitting the most asylum seekers per capita, many of whom have come from the Middle East. The correlation between the increase of the immigration population and the rise of violent crime in Sweden is striking. While correlation does not necessarily prove causation in all cases, disturbing patterns have appeared that point to Sweden's past open borders policies as having contributed substantially to its rising crime problem. Swedish authorities have been reluctant to release crime statistics based on national origin in recent years out of concern for political correctness. However, the evidence we do have points to the outsized impact that the influx of immigrants, many from terrorist-prone areas in the Middle East and elsewhere, have had on the rising crime rate. The same Politico report cited above, for example, noted that gang-related gun murders in Sweden, which have increased in number, are "now mainly a phenomenon among men with immigrant backgrounds in the country's parallel societies." According to the Swedish publication Dagens Nyheter in 2017, cited in a Wikipedia article on immigration to Sweden, "at least 90% of all murders and attempted murders through gun violence in Sweden are performed by either immigrants or those with at least one immigrant parent." The Wikipedia article also cited a 2017 police report on organized crime in Sweden, which stated that "in most areas of Sweden with the highest crime rates (sv: särskilt utsatta områden) population share of immigrants is around 50-60%." . . . https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271035/sweden-burning-joseph-klein Return to Top ******** Visit Website