Contrary to Administration claims of record deportations, the AP reports.....

Immigrant Removals Continue To Decline Under Obama

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL - Associated Press - Wednesday, April 29, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration is on pace to deport the fewest number of immigrants in nearly a decade, according to internal government data obtained by The Associated Press.

As of April 20, federal immigration officials sent home 127,378 people in the United States illegally. That puts immigrant removals on track to be among the lowest since the middle of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The internal statistics reveal a continuing decline in deportations even as the Obama administration fights a legal challenge to a plan it announced late last year to shield millions of immigrants from deportations.

“With the resources we have … I’m interested in focusing on criminals and recent illegal arrivals at the border,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during an oversight hearing Tuesday.

The new figures, contained in weekly internal reports not publicly reported, average about 19,730 removals a month for the first six months of the government’s fiscal year that began in October.

If that trend continues, the government will remove about 236,000 by September - the lowest figure since 2006, when 207,776 were sent home.

Removals have been declining for nearly three years after Immigration and Customs Enforcement recorded a record 409,849 removals in 2012. That federal agency, known as ICE, is responsible for finding and removing immigrants living in the country illegally.

President Barack Obama announced a plan in November that would protect millions of immigrants living in the country illegally, but that effort is on hold after a federal judge in Texas blocked its implementation.

Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Department has continued to slow removals, and a program launched in 2012 to protect young immigrants from deportation remains in place.

Johnson has directed immigration authorities anew to focus on finding and deporting immigrants who pose a national security or public safety threat, those who have serious criminal records and those who have recently crossed the Mexican border. Roughly 11 million immigrants are thought to be living in the country illegally.

Johnson confirmed Tuesday that removals have decreased but did not provide the committee with specific numbers. He said a variety of factors, including a corresponding drop in arrests of immigrants caught crossing the border, have led to the drop.

Last week, Johnson said the Border Patrol had arrested about 151,800 people trying to cross the Mexican border illegally, the fewest number of people caught at the border during the same period over the last four years.

“There’s lower intake, lower apprehensions,” Johnson said Tuesday. “There are fewer people attempting to cross the southern border, and there are fewer people apprehended.”

Since Obama first took office in 2009, the number of immigrants arrested and deported from the interior of the country has steadily declined. That year, nearly two thirds of the 389,834 immigrants removed were found in the interior of the country. By 2014, roughly a third of the 315,943 people removed were living in the country, according to internal ICE figures.

As deportations have slowed in recent years, Homeland Security officials have repeatedly attributed the drop to the changing demographic of border crossers. A 2014 analysis of government data by the AP found that the Obama administration had quietly slowed removals by about 20 percent.

The change in deportations has included increased numbers of immigrants from countries other than Mexico, including a flood of tens of thousands of children and families, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. ICE shifted a variety of resources to the border, including deploying agents to quickly opened family detention centers.

Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Johnson’s explanation of moving resources to the border “a red herring.”

“It’s clear to me that the department no longer seems to have a will to enforce immigration laws,” Grassley said.

The number of children caught traveling alone has dropped by about 45 percent compared to the same time last year, while the arrests of families have declined about 30 percent.

Johnson said again Tuesday that those changes make it more difficult for ICE officials to quickly remove people.

“They are increasingly from noncontiguous countries, and the process of a removal of someone from a noncontiguous country is more time-consuming,” Johnson said. “You see greater claims for humanitarian relief, for asylum, and so it’s not as simple as just sending somebody back across the border.”

Ben Ferro (Editor)

benferro@insideins.com

ICE Continues to Release Dangerous Illegal Alien Criminals into Our Communities

Feds Releasing Hundreds Of Illegal Immigrant Rapists, Murderers: Report

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times 

The administration is deporting fewer criminal aliens than it did last year, according to new statistics released Tuesday that undercut President Obama’s justification for his new amnesty, which he said was intended to free agents to focus on the most dangerous of criminals by focusing on “felons not families.”

Instead, both arrests and deportations of criminal aliens are down about 30 percent through the first six months of fiscal year 2015, signaling that agents, who have been told to stop focusing on rank-and-file illegal immigrants, have not been able to refocus on criminal illegal immigrants instead.

The data, released by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte at the beginning of a hearing with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldana, also showed that the 30,558 criminal aliens ICE knowingly released back into the community in 2014 had amassed nearly 80,000 convictions, including 250 homicides, 186 kidnappings and 373 sexual assaults.

“The nonsensical actions of this administration demonstrate its lack of desire to enforce the law even against unlawful aliens convicted of serious crimes,” Mr. Goodlatte said.

Ms. Saldana said she’s required under the laws passed by Congress to grant due process to everyone, and said both court decisions and federal law require her to make judgments about whom to hold.

“Even the Congress contemplated some people would be released,” Ms. Saldana said.

 But she said she’s also taken steps to require senior managers to review the releases in the future, which she said should being consistency and a more thorough review to the process.

“I myself have a concern — are we making the proper decisions?” she said.

According to the statistics, the aliens released by ICE had amassed 13,636 convictions for driving under the influence, 1,589 weapons offenses, 994 aggravated assaults, 56 arsons and 31 smuggling offenses.

The Obama administration has claimed that many of those releases are required by court order stemming from a years-old Supreme Court ruling, Zadvydas v. Davis, that says immigrants can’t be held indefinitely and if their home countries won’t take them back, they must eventually be released.

But the new numbers suggest those released are a small fraction. Of the nearly more than 30,000 criminal aliens released, only 2,457 were cut loose because of considerations stemming from the Zadvydas ruling, the House committee said. And for the serious crimes, only about half the homicide convictions and a third of the kidnapping convictions were Zadvydas-related releases.

Ms. Saldana said federal law instructs her agents to take account of how old the crimes are when deciding whether to continue detaining someone.

ICE also says that even when people are released from detention, they are still being monitored and are supposed to check in, and to return for their court hearings.

Even as she took fire from Republicans for lax enforcement, Ms. Saldana faced criticism from Democrats who said her agents are still doing too much to go after rank-and-file illegal immigrants.

Ben Ferro (Editor)

benferro@insideins.com

Immigration Agents Risk Being Fired For Doing The Right Thing

ICE Director: Agents Risk ‘Termination’ For Not Enforcing Obama’s Immigration Policy

Sarah Saldana, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told members of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that ICE agents who do not enforce President Barack Obama’s immigration priorities, outline in a Nov. 20 DHS memo, could be fired for not following an agency directive.

During a hearing on ICE oversight on April 14, Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) referred to Obama’s statement during a town hall event in February, during which the President said there would be “consequences” for ICE agents who enforce federal immigration laws outside of his mandated enforcement priorities.

Representative Franks then asked Saldana what those consequences would be.

“The president also said, and I know this question was proffered earlier, if somebody’s working for ICE and they don’t follow this policy, there’s going to be consequences for it,” Franks explained. “Have you enforced that? I mean is there, are there consequences for not following that policy?”

“There are consequences for not following the rule of the employee’s status with the agency. I have a whole manual on that -- ” Saldana said before being cut off.

“What would the consequences be if someone in the position that required them to follow through with the president’s directives -- and again we’ll set the constitutional issue aside for the moment, if the president’s done that then I guess we can do that – what would be the consequences for doing that?” Franks pressed.

“Well, whether it’s that directive, or assaulting an employee in the office, or not abiding by some other rule or policy, the range of punishment can range from anything to a verbal meeting, where you counsel that person, to ultimately what’s available to any employer and that’s termination,” Saldana said.

“So, in other words, there are employees that work with you that are subject, or potentially subjected to termination for not following the president’s directive in this particular case?” Rep. Franks asked.

“For not following any policy or directive or rule of employment,” Saldana agreed.

“Which includes the president’s directive. All right, I understand,” Franks concluded. Saldana did not argue.

Speaking at an immigration town hall event at Florida International University on Feb. 25, Obama defended his unilateral immigration policies that “focus on felons,” not “families.”

“We are now implementing a new prioritization,” Obama explained. “There are going to be some jurisdictions, and there may be individual ICE officials or Border Patrol who aren’t paying attention to our new directives. But they’re going to be answerable to the head of the Department of Homeland Security, because he’s been very clear about what our priorities should be. And I’ve been very clear about what our priorities should be.”

“The bottom line is, is that if somebody is working for ICE and there is a policy and they don’t follow the policy, there are going to be consequences to it,” he added.

Saldana also explained at the hearing Tuesday that all ICE agents are required to carry cards that lay out ICE’s immigration enforcement priorities, which group illegal aliens deemed eligible for deportation into three ranking categories. Priority 1 includes aliens who threaten national security, border security and public safety; Priority 2 includes aliens convicted of three or more misdemeanor offenses or a "significant misdemeanor," as well as recent border-jumpers; and Priority 3 involves aliens who have been issued a final order of removal on or after Jan. 1, 2014.

"We have actually put out real substantial training on this, sir," Saldana told Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), holding up a card she said she carries herself. "And every officer uses one of these cards, which clearly outlines those priorities."

"And quite frankly, I carry it myself -- and try to make sure that each of these priorities...the first one is outlined on the front, the second and third priorities on the back," she said. "Again, trying to make an effort to clarify for law enforcement where our priorities should be."

Saldana said she has directed her staff to raise any questions about the Obama administration's immigration priorities up the chain of command.

Reprinted from CNSNews.com

Ben Ferro (Editor)

benferro@insideins.com

Huh????DHS not invited?????

FBI Holds “Special” Meeting in Juárez to Address ISIS, DHS Not Invited!

Responding to Judicial Watch’s report earlier this week of ISIS activity along the Mexican border, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) supervisors called a “special” meeting at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez.

A high-level intelligence source, who must remain anonymous for safety reasons, confirmed that the meeting was convened specifically to address a press strategy to deny Judicial Watch’s accurate reporting and identify who is providing information to JW. FBI supervisory personnel met with Mexican Army officers and Mexican Federal Police officials, according to JW’s intelligence source. The FBI liaison officers regularly assigned to Mexico were not present at the meeting and conspicuously absent were representatives from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It’s not clear why DHS did not participate.

Publicly, U.S. and Mexico have denied that Islamic terrorists are operating in the southern border region, but the rapid deployment of FBI brass in the aftermath of JW’s report seems to indicate otherwise. A Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector were among the sources that confirmed to JW that ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas. The base is around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming for easy access to the United States, the same knowledgeable sources confirm. During the course of a joint operation last week, Mexican Army and federal law enforcement officials discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as “plans” of Fort Bliss – the sprawling military installation that houses the US Army’s 1st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were recovered with the documents during the operation.

“Coyotes” engaged in human smuggling – and working for the Juárez Cartel – help move ISIS terrorists through the desert and across the border between Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, New Mexico. To the east of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, cartel-backed “coyotes” are also smuggling ISIS terrorists through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas. These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing.

Last August JW reported that ISIS, operating from Ciudad Juárez, was planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level U.S. federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed then that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border had been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies were placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning the imminent terrorist threat.

Reprinted from the Judicial Watch blog (www.judicialwatch.org)

Ben Ferro (editor, insideins.com)

benferro@insideins.com