Wednesday, May 25, 2016

This Plan Makes Sense

Promise & Peril: Donald Trump's Immigration Reform May Not Be So Crazy After All

Jack Encarnacao, The Boston Herald

Donald Trump’s audacious immigration plans could force reticent countries to accept criminal deportees, better fund U.S. immigration agencies and put a chill on flagrant border crossings — but the billionaire’s proposals also strain the limits of presidential power.

The presumptive GOP nominee has proposed canceling visas for countries like Haiti, Vietnam and China that don’t accept deportees, boosting certain immigration and visa fees and amending banking regulations to block billions in remittances to Mexico.

Kenneth Palinkas, former president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, the union that represents naturalization officers, said Trump’s stance would counter a “liberal mindset” in the past two administrations that led to routine waivers of immigration fees, which fund the over-burdened agencies responsible for deciding who’s allowed into the country.

“Mr. Trump has a lot of good ideas — if you want to come to this country, you should pay for whatever benefits you’re seeking,” Palinkas said.

“If you want to apply for citizenship, they allow for a fee waiver based on the fact you don’t make enough money, so therefore we’ll waive the cost, which could be around $1,000. I understand the mentality being, well, everybody should have the right to citizenship. But you know what? If you can’t afford that, well then how are you going to meet the poverty guidelines for citizenship?” he said. “Are we just going to become a welfare nation?”

Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, predicts Trump’s election also would put an immediate chill on illegal border crossings.

“Right now they’re coming mainly because they know under the Obama administration’s policies they’ll be allowed to stay,” Vaughan said. “The main effect would be in deterring new illegal arrivals because people would say, ‘Oh, wow, I guess he (Trump) is going to crack down and it might not be a good idea to try right now.’”

In addition to social costs, Trump’s stance might also spare the U.S. the tab of monitoring criminal aliens whose home countries won’t accept them.

In Congressional testimony, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have fingered Haiti, China, Vietnam, India and Cuba as habitual decliners. ICE released more than 30,000 criminal aliens from custody in both 2013 and 2014.

“Pretty much the only way you’re not going to be able to deport somebody is because that country won’t agree to take them,” said Matthew Cameron, an East Boston immigration attorney and lecturer at Northeastern University, who opposes many of Trump’s immigration proposals.

“I think it is a very effective sanction. I think as a country we have a right to set that sanction if we want to,” Cameron said.

But Trump’s immigration plans would also butt up against the limits of presidential powers, much as President Obama has with his own executive orders that would have given work permits and legal status to millions of illegal aliens.

Trump’s idea to block undocumented people in the U.S. from wiring money to Mexico and impound those wages — $24.8 billion in 2015, according to Mexico’s central bank — is legally specious, said David Wolfe Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“Anybody who works in this country, whether they have work authorization or not, is lawfully entitled to their paycheck, period,” Leopold said. “There’s all kinds of legal challenges that you could imagine, not the least of which would be a pretty credible equal protection claim.”

Cameron, the East Boston immigration lawyer, also questions how high Trump could raise fees, particularly if he singles out visas popular with Mexicans to help pay for a border wall.

“There has to be an upper limit here, where interest groups are going to say, ‘This is extortionary,’ especially if it’s being used to pay for something as offensive as a wall,” Cameron said.

While the executive branch has the power to make regulations, the Administrative Procedures Act sets out standards to guard against arbitrary and capricious ones. The law — cited by a federal judge last year in striking down Obama’s attempt to legalize undocumented immigrants — requires a public comment period where affected groups make cases against an executive order.

“He would find, like any president finds, that there are lots and lots of constituencies that he had not thought about that may be harmed in ways that he had never expected, and the rules that he envisions, even to the extent that they’re conceptually coherent, just can’t be implemented,” said Stephen Heifetz, an international business and security lawyer who served in the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the CIA.

All presidents underestimate checks on their own power, but Trump “glosses over not just the political opposition, but the very real statutory and constitutional checks on a president’s ability to get things done,” said Matthew Dickinson, an expert on presidential powers and author of “Bitter Harvest: FDR, Presidential Power, and the Growth of the Presidential Branch.”

Ben Ferro (Editor, InsideINS.com)




Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Are They Anticipating Amnesty?‏

EXCLUSIVE: April Sets FY2016 Alien Apprehension Record, Surges Past FY2014 Numbers

Brittany M. Hughes, mrctv.org

The recent surge of illegal aliens flooding across the Southwest U.S. border continues undeterred as U.S. Customs and Border Protection set a new FY2016 apprehension record in April, catching a grand total of 38,135 illegal aliens over the 30-day period – an average of about 1,271 per day.

April’s apprehension total is 1,121 aliens higher than those reported in December, which until last month was the record-holder for apprehensions so far in FY2016.

As the number of unaccompanied minors streaming into the United States from Mexico continues to skyrocket past FY2014 numbers, border agents report apprehending another 5,198 unaccompanied minors at the U.S. Mexico border in April, bringing the total number of UACs apprehended since Oct. 1 to an alarming 32,952.

So far, the total number of this year’s UAC apprehensions reflects an alarming 74 percent increase over FY2014 levels, when an unprecedented number of family units and unaccompanied children surged into the United States, quickly overwhelming border patrol stations and raising serious questions into the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement policies. The agency had only reported 26,341 unaccompanied minor apprehensions by this point in FY2014.

CBP reports 509 of the unaccompanied children apprehended so far this year were from countries other than Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

The agency also reports it caught another 5,615 family units at the U.S.-Mexico border in April alone (about 187 per day), bringing the total number of family units apprehended so far in FY21016 to 37,732. That number is up 122 percent from FY2015 levels, and up four percent from FY2014.

Of those family units apprehended this year, nearly 2,000 were from countries other than Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Subtracting family units and unaccompanied minors leaves more than 27,300 adult individuals who were caught illegally crossing into the United States during the month of April.

So far in FY2016, CBP reports having made 223,900 apprehensions at the Southwest U.S. border.

Ben Ferro (Editor, InsideINS.com)


benferro@insideins.com

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Border Patrol Catch and Release Continues (Unbelievable!)

Border Patrol Agent: 80 Percent of Illegals the Agency Apprehends Are Released into U.S.

by Caroline May, breitbart.com

The vast majority of illegal immigrants the Border Patrol apprehends are released into the U.S., the head of the agents’ union testified before a Senate panel Thursday.

“We’re releasing basically everybody as long as you’re not from the country of Mexico. And even if you’re from the country of Mexico and you claim that you have a credible fear and you’re asking for asylum for one reason or another — we’re still releasing those individuals,” Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, said before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest. 

He added, “If I were to guess, I would say that at least 80 percent of the individuals that the United States Border Patrol arrests at the border qualify for this catch and release program and in essence we are just letting them come into the United States.”

Earlier in the hearing Judd described the administration’s policy of releasing illegal immigrants apprehended at the border into the U.S., in some cases with a notice to appear and in other cases — if they claim to have been in the U.S. since before 2014 — without additional paperwork.

“If you are an unaccompanied minor we will not only release you, but will escort you to your final destination. If you are a family unit, we will release you. If you claim credible fear, we will release you. If you are a single male and we do not physically see you cross the border and you claim that you have been in this country since 2014, we will release you,” he detailed.

Ben Ferro (Editor, InsideINS.com)



Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Shameful and Sinful

This is the same Administration that wants us to believe the border is more secure than ever!

Ben Ferro (Editor, InsideINS.com)


Man Deported 4 Times Found Again In Delaware

USA TODAY NETWORK Karl Baker, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal

WILMINGTON, Del. — A man deported from the United States at least four times since 2000 — each time following an arrest in Delaware — was arrested here again in February, this time with a bag of cash, according to a document made public by the FBI.

Wilmington police suspected that Richard Diaz-Garcia, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, was in the United States illegally after he was arrested Feb. 1 in Newark, Del., about 15 miles away, according to court records.

Officers seized $5,000 that Diaz-Garcia held in a black bag, and $393 that he had in his pockets, according to the FBI document. Wilmington Police spokeswoman Andrea Janvier did not respond to requests for comment about the arrest, and why it reportedly took place in Newark.

FBI spokesman David Fitz would not provide details about the case, saying the Wilmington FBI office was been "extremely busy."

Officers contacted the Dover office of Immigration and Custom Enforcement after the arrest, and Diaz-Garcia was then transferred to federal custody, according to court documents.

Diaz-Garcia's criminal record in Delaware stretches back to 1999 when he was arrested on drug charges and pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine and resisting arrest. He was deported to the Dominican Republic in 2000.

In October 2002, New Castle County Police detained Diaz-Garcia and charged him with resisting arrest. Days later, his 2000 charge of intent to distribute cocaine was “corrected to read possession of cocaine," according to court records. Federal officials deported him once again in December 2002 after he was transported to Louisiana.

Between 2004 and 2008, the drama played out at least twice again — detained in Delaware and then deported.

He pleaded guilty to the charge of re-entry after deportation by an aggravated felon in January 2007. On May 24, 2007, Chief District Judge Gregory M. Sleet sentenced him to time served, which was about six months.

Less than a year later, Diaz-Garcia was back with Delaware State Police arresting him in May for shoplifting men's cologne from a Sears department store in Wilmington.

Again, he was sent back to the Dominican Republic. The News Journal chronicled Diaz-Garcia's multiple attempts to stay in Delaware in a 2008 report.

Diaz-Garcia kept returning to Delaware because he had a girlfriend, who may now be his wife, and two children in the First State, his lawyers said in 2008.

Diaz-Garcia feared for his family's well-being and came back after getting panicked calls from his wife, he said in 2008. Court records show that Diaz-Garcia had been caught trying to enter the United States as a stowaway on a vessel that docked at the port in Elizabeth, N.J.

"I can assure you if he shows up in Delaware again, ... he will end up in federal court," said U.S. Attorney for Delaware Colm F. Connolly in 2008.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

A possible time bomb in North Carolina and several other States

Syrian Refugees in N.C. Still Cannot Be Tracked

Governor, congressman warn of broken screening process

Source: Carolina Journal

RALEIGH — The federal government relocated more Syrian refugees to North Carolina in the last six months than it did the previous 22 months, even as Gov. Pat McCrory and U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, R-8th District, continue to warn that the screening process for admission to the United States remains broken, posing potential danger to the state.

 “We’re not given any forewarning of when they’re coming, where they’re going to, or who they are,” McCrory told Carolina Journal. That raises concerns, he said, because the refugees could be coming from countries embroiled in civil wars or they may be linked to Islamic terrorism.

Refugees are sent to charity relocation agencies that “have more information than my state public safety officials,” McCrory said. The FBI does not have a list of entering refugees and where they are sent, prior to and after relocation, “which was astounding to me.”

The feds “use the privacy card” to deny that information to state and federal public safety officials, McCrory said.

That is a cause for “great concern,” he said. If refugees were involved in some criminal or terror-related activities, state law enforcement investigators would not know where to find them unless the nonprofit agencies provided the information. The state Department of Health and Human Services has some data the nonprofits have provided, but they’re not obligated to do so.

The DHHS Refugee Services Office receives information after a refugee is settled and begins to receive services, such as employment help or English language training, said DHHS spokeswoman Alexandra Lefebvre.

“The challenge is the lack of information sharing from the federal government about individuals prior to arriving in North Carolina,” Lefebvre said. “The state receives some information after the resettlement has taken place. The individual’s personal information is protected by various privacy laws.”

The FBI “does initial background checks on what they can,” but is not allowed to maintain that information due to the privacy regulations, McCrory said. He wanted to ask President Obama about that situation during a February National Governors Association meeting, “but the president wouldn’t take my question at the White House. I think he was given forewarning that I was going to ask.”
Hudson said North Carolina “absolutely” remains at risk because of the weak vetting process for refugees.

Last year he introduced the American Safe Act barring entry to the United States of any Iraqi or Syrian national unless the FBI director certified a thorough background check had been completed. The House passed it overwhelmingly. Senate Democrats blocked it from coming to that body for a vote.
“I hope we don’t have a problem with ISIS sneaking folks in through this program, but it’s definitely a vulnerability,” Hudson said.

“The three areas that I’m concerned about is the folks that can come here without a visa, the terrorists exploiting the Syrian refugee program, and our porous Southern border,” he said. “Until we get serious about that, we don’t know who and what’s coming across that border.”

Hudson said he continues to highlight the refugee vetting vulnerabilities, but “everybody’s moved on to another issue, and they’re pretending like this isn’t a problem,” even though two terrorists were arrested on Jan. 8 after entering the country on the refugee program, and the director of national intelligence “tells us that they’ve caught terrorists trying to come through the refugee program.”

Obama’s goal is to admit 1,500 Syrians per month, and expedite the screening process “that we know is already broken,” Hudson said. Some Democrats now want to raise the target number of Syrian refugees from 10,000 to as many as 100,000 Syrian refugees, he said.

Congress has heard reports of counselors “just overwhelmed with the number of people applying for visas, and needing to be screened,” Hudson said. Pushing 1,500 Syrians per month through a cheesecloth-like process already requiring between 18 and 24 month is “an absolute recipe for disaster, and I hope it’s not going to take some terrible incident to wake people up,” he added.

Jim Hanson, executive vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, told CJ  that identities and backgrounds of Syrians cannot be verified in most instances, regardless how many times interviews are conducted. He called Syria a non-functioning state with no U.S. embassy, government offices that have been ransacked, and official records and databases that have been destroyed or are missing.

Jimmy Broughton, McCrory’s deputy chief of staff, on Nov. 18 told the Joint Legislative Committee on Government Operations “the difficulty of thorough background checks was again confirmed” by the White House in a Nov. 17 teleconference with the nation’s governors and their staffs.

Frank Perry, secretary of the state Department of Public Safety, told the Gov Ops committee that collaboration between federal agencies and state intelligence personnel authorized to receive all sensitive information collected about the refugees “simply doesn’t exist. [That’s] sad as to how they are not communicating” at state and federal levels.

Perry said he believes some of the Syrian refugees already in North Carolina could present a threat.
“Alerts are going out as we speak that are serious,” but not imminent,” he said. “There are people here who seriously mean to harm us.”

State Rep. John Szoka, R-Cumberland, a retired Army infantry officer in whose district Fort Bragg is located, issued a stark warning at the Gov Ops meeting.

“Make no mistake, ISIS is our enemy,” Szoka said. “They’ve told us that they are our enemy. In fact, in North Carolina they’ve told us that Fayetteville and New Bern are targets that they want to hit.”


Ben Ferro (Editor, InsideINS.com)

benferro@insideins.com


Friday, May 6, 2016

Are they Anticipating a Clinton Amnesty?

Invasion of US up 131%

Source: The News Observer

The illegal nonwhite invasion of the US through Mexico has continued unabated in 2016, with a 131 percent increase over the previous year, new figures from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have shown.

“Unaccompanied minors” are now pouring in at a rate on par with the record 2014 levels, but the numbers of “families” entering are also increasing.

The surge has completely swamped border authorities, immigration courts, and health workers, media reports have revealed.

In addition, the new figures indicate there will be another increase this summer, a move which will create additional strains upon border enforcement—and heighten the political tension over the issue as a result of Donald Trump’s campaign.

Through the first six months of fiscal year 2016, which ended on March 31, border officials apprehended 27,754 “unaccompanied children,” the CBP reported—a 78 percent jump from 15,616 apprehended in 2015, and just shy of the 28,579 apprehended in 2014.

For “family units,” which consist of at least one child traveling with at least one adult, the increase was even more dramatic. In the first six months of 2016, 32,117 families were apprehended, the CBP reported—an increase of 131 percent from the 2015 figure (13,913), and 62 percent from the 2014 figure (19,830).

The increased invasion has come despite Congress last year approving $750 million in “aid” to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in hopes of slowing the flow of people trying to come to the US.

That policy, devised by the race-blind political class in Washington DC, was doomed because of the failure to understand the real reason for the invasion.

While the politicians and controlled media continue to claim that the invasion is caused by “refugees fleeing violence” in Latin America, the actual reason is much simpler: the nonwhites are simply drawn to the US because they know that the white-ordered society there offers better criminal opportunities, welfare handouts, and education.

The “violence” from which these nonwhites are supposedly “fleeing” does not stay behind in their countries, but comes with them, as the rapid spread of Latino gangs, crime, and murderous mayhem in the US has shown.

The only solution to the invasion is not wasting money trying to “stabilize” the Third World—because it can never be “stabilized” to be like the white First World—but only by strictly enforcing an anti-illegal immigration policy.

Ben Ferro (Editor, InsideINS.com)


Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Is This Surprising to Anyone?

Half Of Immigrant-Led Households Collect Welfare As Admission Rules Go Unenforced

Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times

Immigrants are supposed to be beneficial to the U.S. - so much so that federal law requires them to prove they won't end up on the public dole if they are legally admitted.

But it's a stricture honored more in the breach than in compliance, according to statistics obtained by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which found that of the millions of legal immigrants living in the U.S. and collecting welfare or other public benefits, only a single person was kicked out of the country over the last three years for becoming a public burden.


That seems to fly in the face of federal policies that, dating back to the very first broad immigration law in the 1880s, have demanded that immigrants prove they will be able to support themselves.

New immigrants can be denied if they can't show their financial means, and those already in the country can be deported if they fail to live up to the bargain - but that hardly ever happens, according to FAIR's data.

The group had asked the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which hears the cases, for data on five countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba and Colombia. EOIR said it found just three cases brought between 2013 and 2015, all of them against Mexicans, and only one of those charges was sustained.

EOIR said it didn't have data for all nationalities.

No enforcement means more impoverished immigrants willing to test their chances, said Ian Smith, the FAIR investigator who obtained the data.

"Like all removal grounds, they're supposed to deter that behavior, and it's there to make sure that [those] people come into this country are at least somewhat desirable," he said. "It was supposed to be a filtration mechanism. It's like anything. If you don't enforce it, the deterrence element gets turned off."

More than half of immigrant-led households use at least one welfare program, according to research by the Center for Immigration Studies. By comparison, 30 percent of households led by native-born U.S. citizens take welfare.

Immigrants from Mexico and Central America have the highest rate, with nearly three-quarters using at least one program. The Caribbean is second, with a 51 percent use rate.

The center said that's not surprising given that welfare is inversely related to education, meaning the less educated someone is, the more likely he or she will be poor and will take welfare. Central American and Mexican immigrants are overwhelmingly less educated, according to the center's findings.

But making charges stick against immigrants on the dole is exceedingly difficult, analysts say.

While the law doesn't define "public charge," court cases and guidance the Clinton administration issued in the late 1990s has restricted when agents can pursue cases.

According to those requirements, many welfare programs don't even count against immigrants, and even when they do, states or federal agencies must have tried to get the immigrant to repay the money, a judge has to have sided with the government's case, and the immigrant must have refused to comply in order for a public charge case to stick. The violation also must have occurred in the first several years after an immigrant was admitted.

"Collectively, the various sources addressing the meaning of public charge suggest that an alien's receipt of public benefits, per se, is unlikely to result in the alien being deemed removable on public charge grounds," the Congressional Research Service concluded in a report earlier this year.

Mr. Smith, the FAIR investigator who obtained the new data from the government, said it's time to loosen the requirements.

"More programs, not just cash programs, should be made out of bounds for immigrants when it comes to public charge removability. America's bountiful welfare system is a major magnet for unskilled foreigners to come here," he said.

A top EOIR official told FAIR that the government's rare use of public charge cases is likely due to the difficulty of making the charges stick. He said when federal officials decide someone needs to go, they go after some other breach that's easier to prove.

The EOIR declined to comment to The Washington Times, saying the agency doesn't interpret its data, nor will it discuss individual cases.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for bringing the cases in the first place, signaled that it's focused on more serious cases such as risks to national security.

"ICE is committed to focusing on smart, effective immigration enforcement and makes custody determinations on a case-by-case basis, prioritizing serious criminal offenders and other individuals who pose a risk to national security or public safety," said Jennifer Elzea, an ICE spokeswoman.

Ben Ferro (Editor, InsideINS.com)