Immigration issues

[Crafty_Dog]

If I am not mistaken, the permits are going to be paid for by the fees charged the illegals.

IMO this self-funding thing (also see Elizabeth Warren's work on self funding the Consumer Agency) is a deeply unC'l evasion of Congress's power of the purse.

[DougMacG]

If I am not mistaken, the permits are going to be paid for by the fees charged the illegals.

IMO this self-funding thing (also see Elizabeth Warren's work on self funding the Consumer Agency) is a deeply unC'l evasion of Congress's power of the purse.

From what I have read, this is true, at least in part.  Still there are parts of it that can be de-funded, and for him to run his government outside of constitutional framework is to drive his approvals numbers down even worse.

If he is deferring deportation on only 5 million of 11 million (I don't believe those numbers), then will he be deporting the other 6 million?  Or is he lying and deceiving again?  I think we all know.

He needs to be called out on his hypocritical incrementalism.  When he says no healthcare for illegals, he means healthcare next, but not in the CBO numbers required for passage.  When he says work legally but not vote, he means, how dare you let them work but not vote!  When he says only those who have been here 5 years, he means that in 5 more years we'll have all of them, and a much bigger round to follow.  If he says any one thing and not the other, you can bet he is going for the latter.

Barack Obama makes Bernie Madoff look like an harmless, well-intentioned salesman.

[ccp]

"He needs to be called out on his hypocritical incrementalism"

Yeah sure that will happen.   

WE need 200 more Jeff Sessions.

I don't know.   Many Republicans will tell us how lots of immigration is good for us.

Blah blah blah.

I am fed up.  We will be watching him do this again and again for two years while the party who vaguely represents me sits on their hands the whole time.   We will get fools like Chris Christy and Jebster Bush calling for compromise.

Neither one of them should even think of running.  If they do I will sit out.  May as well have Hillary.  Little difference. 

 

[objectivist1]

If the Republican leadership does not defend our republic against this lawless tyrant, we are finished.  Sitting out elections is not going to achieve anything.  This may very well devolve into a civil war, with the country splintering into conservative and progressive countries.  However it plays out - it will not be pretty.  It shocks me that so many people STILL refuse to see Obama for the despot he so clearly is.  He has ZERO regard for the rule of law, and believe me - he has every intention of making himself dictator if he has the chance - just as his late buddy Hugo Chavez did.  Mark my words.

[ccp]

"It shocks me that so many people STILL refuse to see Obama for the despot he so clearly is."

Amen. 

I guess that shows us the power of bribery with taxpayer money.

As long as much of the population keeps getting showered with gifts what do they care?

[objectivist1]

To Amnesty 5 Million

Posted By Matthew Vadum On November 21, 2014

Ignoring the brutal, historic slap-down angry American voters gave his party this month, President Obama unveiled plans for a unilaterally imposed amnesty that will shield an estimated 5 million illegal aliens from deportation.

Whether Republicans, now in possession of a thunderous mandate to fight Obama tooth and nail, will fight this despotic usurpation of the lawmaking powers of Congress remains to be seen.

Obama doesn’t care. He is pressing on, hoping to fill America with millions of new Democrat voters. And he’s going to kill American jobs in the process.

“We expect people who live in this country to play by the rules,” said the president. The address from the White House came yesterday, which just so happened to be Revolution Day (also known as Civil War Day) in Mexico.

“We expect those who cut the line will not be unfairly rewarded,” the president continued. Yet Obama went on to propose just such a reward in the form of a special “deal” for unlawful immigrants:

So we’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve with been in America more than five years. If you have children who are American citizens or illegal residents. If you register, pass a criminal background check and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes, you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. That’s what this deal is.

Strangely, Obama, who routinely flouts the Constitution, still acknowledges some limits to his power. The deal, he said, does not apply to recently arrived illegal aliens or illegals who have yet to sneak into the country.

“It does not grant citizenship or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizens receive,” Obama said. “Only Congress can do that. All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you.”

Whether the benefits illegal aliens receive are as generous as benefits that citizens receive is beside the point. Illegal aliens are already eligible for extensive benefits from the government and Obama is a big believer in getting poor people addicted to welfare. No serious person believes illegals won’t have access to social programs.

In the address Obama played semantic games. What he’s doing is not an amnesty, he said:

Amnesty is the immigration system we have today. Millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules, while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time. That’s the real amnesty, leaving this broken system the way it is. Mass amnesty would be unfair.

The former part-time adjunct constitutional law lecturer has it wrong. A failure to enforce a law isn’t tantamount to amnesty. Amnesty is an official governmental act of forgiveness that excuses a violation of the law. Being in a state of legal limbo in which law enforcement hasn’t yet called your number isn’t the same as amnesty.

Nor is the immigration system broken, at least not in the way Obama means.

When progressives say the system is broken, they mean it is functioning in a less than optimal manner, failing to capture every single prospective illegal alien available to wade across the Rio Grande or walk across the nation’s largely undefended border with Mexico. To them, immigration policy is a taxpayer-subsidized get-out-the-vote scheme for Democrats and the best reform they could imagine would be to abolish America’s borders altogether. Obama’s new amnesty plan is a step in this direction.

It is also a profoundly cynical move that rewards lawbreaking and begets future immigration amnesties. It will spell electoral death for the Republican Party in coming years because Latinos, who are believed to comprise the bulk of the illegals, have traditionally shown a strong preference for the Democratic Party and its left-of-center public policies. The amnesty for 5 million illegals is likely just the beginning. The government recently issued a procurement order seeking a contractor to make as many as 34 million immigration documents over the coming five years.

During his address, Obama quoted the Book of Exodus, saying:

Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too. My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.

But the immigrants in question are not the legal immigrants of the past who followed the rules when they came to this country. They are invaders who broke the law and who continue to break the law by being here. America is not, nor has it ever been, a nation of illegal immigrants.

To qualify for relief from deportation, individuals will have to register with the government, pass criminal and national security background checks, pay their taxes, and pay a processing fee, according to a White House handout. Applications can’t be filed until early next year.

Parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents as of the date of the announcement are eligible, provided that they are not “enforcement priorities” and have been present in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 2010. Also eligible are individuals who arrived in this country before Jan. 1, 2010 and before turning 16 years old, regardless of how old they are now. Processing times for certain categories of green card applicants will be accelerated. Recent arrivals who entered the country after Jan. 1 of this year will not be eligible to apply.

Obama lapdogs were ecstatic about the planned amnesty.

Echoing Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) who absurdly compared Obama’s executive order to the Emancipation Proclamation, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked, “Does the public know that the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order?”

Except that the Emancipation Proclamation freed categories of slaves, innocent people victimized by an abhorrent institution, not illegal aliens who took it upon themselves to invade the country and abuse the goodwill of Americans. The only thing the two executive orders have in common is that a president signed them.

Republicans are deeply split on the amnesty issue so anyone expecting Republican lawmakers to give Obama a well-deserved rhetorical mauling two weeks after the GOP crushed Democrats in midterm elections will be disappointed in coming days. That’s not what the emasculated party of Lincoln does because it is terrified of being called racist for opposing the nation’s first (half) black president.

Despite running a virtually content-free campaign, on Nov. 4 the GOP flipped control of the 100-seat U.S. Senate, winning at least 53 seats as of this writing. The House GOP increased its majority, winning at least 244 out of 435 seats. In the new year Republicans will control at least 31 state governors’ mansions and at least 68 of the 99 state legislative chambers across the country (Nebraska’s legislature has only one chamber). In at least 23 states Republicans will control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature. Democrats can make the same claim about only 7 states.

The election was arguably, depending on the psephological metrics used, the worst showing for the Democratic Party in its history.

Despite the newly enfeebled status of the Democrats, the House GOP’s response was predictably weak. Instead of righteously inveighing against the grave threat that Obama’s actions pose to the republic, on Twitter the official House Republican feed meekly exhorted the president to cooperate with them.

“We need a real fix, not a quick fix. Let’s fix our broken immigration system together,” read one GOP tweet. Another said, “Mr. President, stop acting alone. Let’s work together.” Maybe the GOP’s communications professionals would like to roast some s’mores and sing Kumbaya with the president.

And Obama must be quaking in his jackboots. Even after six years of getting beaten to a pulp, constantly sucker-punched by the nation’s Alinskyite president, congressional Republicans still aren’t anywhere close to grasping what he really is. They continue to treat Obama as if he’s a legitimate, sincere president who actually wants to do what’s best for America. They foolishly believe Obama cares about his falling public approval numbers and his presidential legacy. They refuse to acknowledge that he is a radical revolutionary figure hellbent on destroying, or in his own words, fundamentally transforming, the U.S. They actually seem to think Obama is interested in negotiating with them to find policy solutions that benefit the country. Many elected GOPers appear not to have an inkling that embracing amnesty is the same as signing a death warrant for the Republican Party.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who supports amnesty in principle but is under intense pressure from conservative lawmakers, is trying to put down a rebellion in his own House GOP conference. Although Obama has previously protested that he is not a king or an emperor, “he’s sure acting like one,” Boehner, who may face a challenge to his speakership in January, said yesterday.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was characteristically vague.

“If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act,” he said.

Retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told USA Today earlier this week that Obama’s amnesty could spark civil unrest. “The country’s going to go nuts, because they’re going to see it as a move outside the authority of the president, and it’s going to be a very serious situation.”

“You’re going to see — hopefully not — but you could see instances of anarchy … You could see violence,” Coburn said. Obama will be behaving like “an autocratic leader that’s going to disregard what the Constitution says and make law anyway.”

“Instead of having the rule of law handling in our country today, now we’re starting to have the rule of rulers, and that’s the total antithesis of what this country was founded on,” he said. “Here’s how people think: Well, if the law doesn’t apply to the president … then why should it apply to me?”

House Appropriations Committee chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) appears to have taken the wrong lesson from the electoral bloodbath this month that set Democrats back 150 years. Although voters delivered the message that they want Obama stopped, Rogers interprets the election as a mandate for surrender.

“I believe a major consequence of this election is a loud and clear mandate from the American people for Washington to stop the gridlock, work together across ideological lines and start producing real accomplishments on their behalf,” Rogers wrote in an op-ed.

Rogers wants Congress to pass a long-term funding bill called an omnibus appropriations bill before the government’s authority to spend money expires on Dec. 11. It would keep the government operating for the rest of the federal fiscal year which runs to Sept. 30, 2015.

There will be “an extraordinary amount of work to do when the new Congress convenes in January … but there simply won’t be the political bandwidth available to address these pressing issues if Congress is bogged down in old battles and protracted to-do lists.”

Some Republicans have proposed defunding the parts of the government that would process amnesty-related paperwork.

Separately, Rogers has made the absurd suggestion that Congress approve a big, all-encompassing spending bill now and then rescind amnesty-relating funding next year. Rescissions happen but they’re relatively rare. Why bother giving Obama a green light to proceed with the amnesty now in the hope of slamming on the brakes in the new year?

The real problem with enacting an omnibus spending bill, according to Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, is that such a funding measure “would enable Obama to complete his lawless amnesty scheme.”

Rogers insists that the amnesty cannot be stopped through the appropriations process.

It would be “impossible to defund President Obama’s executive order through a government spending bill,” House Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Hing said yesterday, explaining that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is funded by user fees.

It is a facile, easily disproved argument. USCIS, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is part of the federal government. It was created by Congress and Congress can do anything it wants to it. It can give it money, take money away from it, give it a spanking, or order it to stand on one leg and bark like a dog.

In a development overshadowed by the unveiling of the amnesty, DHS announced yesterday that it will grant “temporary protected status” to up to 8,000 people from the Ebola-afflicted African countries of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. These visitors may apply for work permits for 18 months. Unlike ordinary recipients of temporary protected status, these Ebola refugees will not be allowed to travel to their home countries and then return to the U.S., in order to prevent the spread of Ebola.

Or so the story goes. If Obama can find a way to let them stay in the U.S., he’ll do it.

[objectivist1]

Obama's Immigration Amnesty Speech - Top 10 Lies

Daniel Horowitz - Conservativereview.com - November 21, 2014

“The one [a president] can confer no privileges whatever; the other [the king] can make denizens of aliens, noblemen of commoners; can erect corporations with all the rights incident to corporate bodies.”

– Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 69

Make no mistake about it. Obama’s illegal amnesty will not just apply to 5 million individuals. It will apply by default to all 12-20 million illegals in the country as well as the millions more who will now come here to enjoy the permanent cessation of borders and sovereignty.

Lie #1: Every President has Taken Executive Action on Immigration: No other president has ever issued an amnesty of anywhere near this scope, created it out of thin air, or built it upon a prior executive action instead of a statute. And in the case of President Eisenhower, his executive action was to deport 80,000 illegal immigrants.

Lie #2: Illegal Immigrant Crossings are Down: Actually, this is the third straight year that border crossings have gone up, not to mention the entirely new wave from Central America.

Lie #3: It does not grant citizenship or the right to stay here permanently: Under the royal edict, the work permits can be renewed every three years, and most likely, they will be renewed at the same 99.5% acceptance rate as DACA applications.  And once they get Social Security cards, they are going nowhere.  So yes, this is permanent.  And yes, they will be able to get green cards, which puts them on an automatic path to citizenship: “we are reducing the time that families are separated while obtaining their green cards.  Undocumented immigrants who are immediate relatives of lawful permanent residents or sons or daughters of US citizens can apply to get a waiver if a visa is available.”

Lie #4: Only 5 Million: Make no mistake about it.  Obama’s illegal amnesty will not just apply to 5 million individuals.  It will apply by default to all 12-20 million illegals in the country as well as the millions more who will now come here to enjoy the permanent cessation of borders and sovereignty.  Given the numerous options for people to become eligible for amnesty, ICE and CPB will be restricted from enforcing the law against anyone because each individual has to be afforded the opportunity to present themselves and apply for status.  There is no way those who were here for less than 5 years will be deported and there’s no way the new people rushing the border and overstaying their visas will be repatriated.

Lie #5: Deport Felons: Obama claims he is going to focus on deporting felons. Yet, he has done the opposite.  36,000 convicted criminal aliens were released last year, 80,000 criminal aliens encountered by ICE weren’t even placed into deportation proceedings, 167,000 criminal aliens who were ordered deported are still at large, 341,000 criminal aliens released by ICE without deportation orders are known to be free and at large in the US.  Again, this is cessation of deportations for everyone. They are leaving no illegal behind.

Lie #6: Don’t deport families: Obama is playing the family card. It works like this: people are encouraged to come here illegally, Obama grants them amnesty, then their relatives all get to come, even though they would otherwise be ineligible under public charge laws.  Yet, at the same time, because the bureaucracy will be flooded with applications of illegals, and those are the applications that will be prioritized, those families who came here legally will have to wait longer to be united. There is no longer an incentive to enter the legal immigration process.

Lie #7: They have to pay taxes to stay: Aside from the absurd notion that they would turn someone away for not paying taxes, almost every one of these illegal immigrants lacks a high enough income to incur a net positive tax liability.  Hence, by paying taxes, he actually means they will collect refundable tax credits!

Lie #8: Background Checks: Just the thought of a criminal background check of people coming from the third world on a lawless program is a joke.  But the reality is that Obama has already done this with DACA, and 99.5% of applications were approved, including those of criminals.

Lie #9: Cracking Down on Illegal Immigration at the Border: Obama promises to beef up resources at the border.  But as we’ve seen over the past few years, what good are more agents if they are explicitly intimidated into turning a blind eye.  Moreover, there is no promise to build a fence or implement a visa tracking system, so any talk of enforcement is an insult to our intelligence.  Moreover, he is unilaterally abolishing the Secure Communities program, the only successful interior enforcement program left after he abolished 287g state-federal cooperation in 2012.  At a time when we are facing threats from Islamic terror and deadly diseases, this invitation to the world will present a security nightmare.

Lie #10: Scripture tells us, we shall not oppress a stranger: It’s great to see him quoting the Bible for once, but nice try.  There are different variations of this verse throughout the Bible, but each one uses the Hebrew word “Ger” to describe what Obama translates as “stranger.”  A Ger is a convert to Judaism.  The commandment was not referring to people who illegally migrate to a nation state.  And more importantly, it is downright offensive to Americans to insinuate that not granting them benefits is tantamount to oppression, especially given the fact that they have been the biggest recipients of our generous legal system.  Moreover, if there is oppression taking place it is to the American taxpayer and worker and those who suffer from gangs like MS-13.

Daniel Horowitz is Senior Editor of Conservative Review. Follow him on twitter @RMConservative.

- See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2014/11/top-10-lies-from-obamas-nullification-speech#sthash.987Hhrqh.dpuf

[ccp]

The tenth lie is even more annoying coming from this guy.  For him to suddenly find convenient [misuse] of scripture after he and his leftists are doing everything they can to disassemble religion in this country (except of course for the benefit of Muslims) is just beyond the pale.

Yet not a peep from MSM.  They are mostly Democrats so they just don't care and by their silence reveal their delight.

After reading a biography of Stalin I find the only difference between Obama and the other tyrant is the lack of 'physical' violence.  I have no doubt this guy would be using that too if it could further his goals. Otherwise, no difference between the two men.

[objectivist1]

The parallels with other tyrants and Obama have been evident now for 6 years.  It's shocking and disgusting to witness the media and probably the majority of Americans clueless about this, or simply in denial and willfully looking the other way.  As I've said here before - this is exactly how the Holocaust was allowed to happen in Europe.  Wonder no longer - look around you at current world events.

Further - don't think for a moment Obama won't impose martial law and fire on American citizens when he feels the time is right.  He is an Alinskyite through and through, and as such - the ends justify the means.  He doesn't deserve the benefit to the doubt at this point - he's a proven liar and fraud.

[DougMacG]

Obama answers constitutional question with a 3 word misdirection:

If you have children, you understand the rhetorical value of misdirection.

When I was a boy, two of my brothers and I were in the kitchen downstairs with Nan, when we heard a loud crash upstairs.


Nan hollered up the staircase at our other brother, “What are you doing up there?”

His answer was immediate, in just two words: “Coming down.”

And so he did.

We all agreed it was a masterful answer, in that it was both true, and it deflected any real truth-telling. We never did find out what caused the crash.

President Obama is less skilled than my little brother. After all, Obama’s deflection during last night’s immigration speech took three words — 50 percent more.

Here are those three words: “Pass a bill.”

Here’s the context…

Obama: “And to those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill. I want to work with both parties to pass a more permanent legislative solution. And the day I sign that bill into law, the actions I take will no longer be necessary.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/21/with-3-words-obama-admits-his-just-announced-immigration-actions-are-illegal/

[Crafty_Dog]

The President's Gruber Speech
Originally published at CNN.com.

President Barack Obama's speech Thursday night was technically a fine speech. It sounded good. It was rhetorically impressive. Its problem – or perhaps to the President its virtue – is that very little of it was true.

President Obama described what sounded like a reasonable plan to prioritize the deportation of felons, criminals, and gang members over the deportation of other people in the United States illegally. "We'll prioritize," he said, "just like law enforcement does every day." The whole proposal was entirely within his authority, he argued, because it amounted to a kind of prosecutorial discretion: "All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you."

But the policy the White House actually announced, as opposed to the policy the President described in his speech, was not merely a directive to emphasize enforcement against those who have committed crimes, or even a simple pause on deportations for millions of people here illegally. The policy the White House actually announced, in a memo from its Office of Legislative Affairs hours before the President's speech, was a 17 point plan including several new programs without Congressional approval, budget appropriation or spending authorization, and many of which the President either didn't mention or which bore only a faint resemblance to what he described in his speech.
The President, according to the White House, has directed the Department of Homeland Security to "create" a "new deferred action program" which will give millions of people here illegally "work authorizations" for at least three years. It establishes extensive new criteria by which people can register to be exempt from deportation. DHS will have to employ thousands of bureaucrats to process those who "come forward and register, submit biometric data, pass background checks, pay fees, and show that their child was born before the date of this announcement." Applicants supposedly will also have to prove they’ve been in the U.S. for at least five years and will have to pay taxes.
Well, a brand new program that hands out three-year work authorizations and processes more paperwork than many state DMVs is not merely saying, as the President put it in his speech, that "we're not going to deport you," and it is certainly not simple "prioritization" or "prosecutorial discretion," as many administration officials have been calling it before and after the announcement.

It is new law, created by the executive without Constitutional authority.

The President said in his speech that the new program will allow people here illegally to "come out of the shadows and get right with the law." Meanwhile administration officials explained on the record that he wasn't really legalizing anyone, since he couldn't technically do that.

The President also said in his speech that his actions would offer relief only to people who met certain criteria he described, including being in the country for at least five years and having child dependents in the U.S. But the actual policy memo makes clear that "DHS will direct all of its enforcement resources at pursuing" people who are "national security threats, serious criminals, and recent border crossers."

In other words, there will be one group, estimated at 4 million or so, who are eligible for the new work authorization program. But at the same time, there will be no resources directed at enforcing immigration law against the other 7 million people here illegally as long as they do not fall into a few narrow categories, according to the President's Office of Legislative Affairs. And indeed, a "senior administration official" told Roll Call that the administration "will order immigration agents to prioritize deportations of criminals and recent arrivals — and let people who are not on that priority list go free." This is not at all the program the president described in his speech.

President Obama said his plan would "stem the flow of illegal crossings" in the future. Yet every time the government has pledged to stop deporting certain classes of people in the past, there has been a huge surge in the number of illegal border crossings, including most recently the humanitarian crisis of unaccompanied minors on our southern border, which President Obama created with DACA, his last unauthorized executive action on immigration.

The President assured us his actions "are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every single Democratic president for the past half century." Except the primary examples his administration cites are cases of presidents implementing Congressionally-approved amnesties, narrowly expanding them to include cases Congress didn't anticipate, with no objection from Congress. The President has no such Congressional sanction, and his actions are an order of magnitude larger.
This was a Gruber speech. It was designed to sound acceptable to the American people, even if it was largely a lie.

For those not familiar with Jonathan Gruber, he is the now infamous co-architect of Obamacare who was recently revealed on video bragging about the administration's deceitful approach to passing that law. Gruber described how Obamacare was written "in a tortured way to make sure" the CBO did not "score the mandate as taxes," even though the administration knew it was a tax. He described how the administration won support for the tax on "Cadillac" health plans "by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people, when we know it’s a tax on people who hold these insurance plans"--a deception he thought to be a "very clever...exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter." Gruber described how the President "is not a stupid man" and understood Americans cared about cost control over coverage--so even though the bill was "90 percent health insurance coverage and 10 percent about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control."
With Obamacare, Gruber concluded, “the lack of transparency" was "a huge political advantage” and “the stupidity of the American voter" was "really, really critical for the thing to pass."

Listening to a speech in which the President lied about what he was proposing and lied about his authority to implement it, it was hard not to think of the Gruber model – which is really the Obama model, after all. He said what he needed to say to do what he wants to do.

Immigrants will "get right with the law," but not be "legalized," just as Obamacare's taxes weren't taxes, until they were taxes before the Supreme Court, but after which they weren't taxes again. Only immigrants who meet certain specific criteria will be eligible for relief, except for the millions of other people he doesn't mention for whom he will also stop enforcing the law.

In the past few years, President Obama has described 22 times on video how he doesn't have the legal and Constitutional authority to take many of the actions he announced Thursday night.

"With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed," he said in 2011. "…[W]e’ve got three branches of government. Congress passes the law. The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws...There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President."

President Obama made a good case back then. It's a shame he apparently thinks, like Gruber, that Americans are all so stupid we won't figure out he's not telling us the truth today.

Your Friend,
Newt

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

http://www.dailynews.com/20100522/doug-mcintyre-ten-steps-to-solve-the-immigration-problem

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/amnestied-illegal-aliens-in-california-to-get-free-healthcare/

[ccp]

 

What about the rights of us taxpayers?

NO ONE except Tea Party people are representing us.

Not Boehner, not McConnell not Bushes not Christy.

 

[Crafty_Dog]

What of Romney's strategy here to put a good bill on Obama's desk?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/26/Mitt-Romney-Republicans-Should-Swallow-Hard-Pass-Permanent-Amnesty-Bill?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+November+27%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20141127_m123307895_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+November+27%2C+2014&utm_term=More

[objectivist1]

NO immigration changes ought to be made unless and until the border is secured - which will never happen under Obama.  Romney is a fool.

[Crafty_Dog]

Not sure if I agree here.  Taking the other side for sake of conversation:

Reps have ducked answering the tough questions here-- which is why and how Baraq is making his play.  Until they confront this fact, things will get vituperative and the Reps usually lose when it comes to that.   

First pass a stern, clear enforcement bill that neuters his BS claims of limited resources and takes away bureaucratic leeway identified by the SCOTUS decisions proffered by the OLC.

Whether he signs or not, the Reps should have the advantage-- yes?

[DougMacG]

Agreeing with Obj on this point, this President isn't going to do any more enforcement over the rest of his term than what they were doing the first 6 years.  I can't see how any bill with any language changes that.  What are we going to do if he ignores the next law, sue him, de-fund him, impeach him, just like we aren't doing now?

One thing Republicans could pass is the 14th Amendment fix to end the misinterpretation of anchor babies.  That does not go to Obama desk.  If passed by the House and Senate, it goes the the state legislatures.

To give an 'anchor baby' citizenship is to break up a family, assuming we intend to enforce laws in the future.  Let them apply as a family in the normal line.

Obama is approaching this piecemeal; so can the Republicans. 

If certain actions and results must come before amnesty, such as the amendment, a fence, an airtight visa system, an employer verification system, then get started on those first.

If we don't favor full, unconditional amnesty, then require the President to rescind his executive order before negotiations begin on a comprehensive bill.  He won't do it. 

Other things Republicans can do:  accuse Obama of screwing up immigration and move on to other things.  Pass the economic agenda now that we should run on in 2016.  Let him veto, and then run on it.  Fry the administration on IRS targeting, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Obamacare, and every other lie.  Hold hearings on the results of previous programs, cash for clunkers, crony solyndra governmentism,  shovel ready jobs, dismantling of the workforce, epidemic of disability and food assistance claims, dual mission Fed, government's role in mortgages, etc.

[objectivist1]

Another strategy suggested by Rush Limbaugh (with which I agree fully) is for the Republicans to pass a bill legalizing all the aliens Obama has done with his amnesty action, BUT with two addenda:  1) Fully secure the Mexican/U.S. border, and 2) A stipulation that none of these people under ANY circumstances will have the right to vote for 20 years hence.

Brilliant suggestion in my opinion - because it will expose the Democrats' ACTUAL reason for wanting this amnesty.  Obama will NEVER sign such a bill.

[ccp]

" accuse Obama of screwing up immigration and move on to other things"

None starter for me.

[DougMacG]

" accuse Obama of screwing up immigration and move on to other things"

Non starter for me.

To clarify, nothing positive is going to happen in the next two years on immigration.  The President proved himself unable to negotiate in good faith.  

On November 4th Republicans won a wave election.  The President and his party were shellacked, or whatever term people want to use.  Ever since, we have been on defense, because that is his strategy.

Shouldn't it be the other way around?  He is governing this country into an economic, cultural and strategic ash-heap.  We should be on offense and he should be on defense, IMHO.

What about holding hearings on the enforcement and implementation of the last immigration law passed by congress?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006  He says the fence is built, yet infants and children are walking through?

Moving on would also follow passage in congress of the constitutional amendment.  Move that debate to the states for action.  

A debate that centers on the plight of the people already here, when no one is sending them home anyway, favors him.

[DougMacG]

I need Gomer Pyle's accent to properly say:  Well surprise!  Surprise!  Surprise!

Who saw this coming?

Washington Post, Nov 25, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/illegal-immigrants-could-receive-social-security-medicare-under-obama-action/2014/11/25/571caefe-74d4-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html

Illegal immigrants could receive Social Security, Medicare [and everything else] under Obama action

Under President Obama’s new program to protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, many of those affected will be eligible to receive Social Security, Medicare and a wide array of other federal benefits, a White House official said Tuesday.

[Crafty_Dog]

Gents:

I am still waiting for a response to the OLC's arguments justifying the EO.  Right now the Reps are getting maneuvered into supporting breaking up families with American children and illegal alien parents.  With a plausible patina from the OLC (and if we have no telling response that is what will be the case) this becomes yet another case where the Reps are seen as meanies.

All of us here are making good points, but the actual Reps in Congress are bumbling along , , ,

[DougMacG]

Crafty poses a tough challenge. 

"I am still waiting for a response to the OLC's arguments justifying the EO."

Previously:  "The standard he cites is not FDR, but the APA and SCOTUS decisions."

From the piece:  "Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which has served ever since as the legal charter of the modern administrative state."

   - There isn't an act of a congress, from 80 years ago or any other time, that changes the constitution and the relationship between the branches of government contained in it.

"the Supreme Court ... Heckler v. Chaney,... In a decision joined by seven other justices, Justice William Rehnquist noted that, “This Court has recognized on several occasions over many years that an agency’s decision not to prosecute or enforce, whether through civil or criminal process, is a decision generally committed to an agency’s absolute discretion.” "

   - Generally?  Absolute??  Really??!?  My guess is that he referring to enforcement of individual cases, not to changing the entire immigration system or things like the EPA writing new laws or changing existing ones.

Eric Holder's OLC:  "This discretion is rooted in the President’s constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,”

   - Yes it is!  This isn't a case of an executive not having the resources to enforce the law, in spite of the numbers you cite, 11 million illegals and only funding to allow deportation of 400,000 per year.  That was the limitation BEFORE this executive order.  The point of the executive order is described in the President's own statement, "I changed the law".  He is declaring his intent to NOT faithfully execute the law.  This was NOT a mis-speak.  The speech in question had 91 1st person references in it, I, me, my, while the relevant articles of the constitution refer to specific roles for the House, Senate, and President, and back to the House and Senate for super-majorities when the different branches are not in agreement.  The constitution gives the Legislative branch power to over-ride the Executive to make law, but not vice versa!

I know you are looking for a technical argument to explain how this is different from all other executive orders and over-reaches, and the related Supreme Court cases, but one more incremental expansion of these encroachments becomes unconstitutional whenever a challenge makes it to the Court and 5 Justices deem what the President already admitted, he [effectively] changed the law.

In the meantime, this is a political matter to be tried in the court of public opinion.  People see this for what it is, one person making or changing law in defiance of the constitutional process.  See the SNL skit, and see the Obama statement mentioned.


"Right now the Reps are getting maneuvered into supporting breaking up families with American children and illegal alien parents." 

   - Republicans were not deporting more illegals than Obama.  And if they returned minors crossing the border to their families, and/or made the proposal to "fix" the 14th amendment right now, they would be on record as opposing the further breakup of families caused by our broken system.  How about taking positive actions rather than always reacting to the Ayers and Pliven agenda?

"... this becomes yet another case where the Reps are seen as meanies."

   - There isn't really a way around that without abandoning the rule of law.  I admired Marco Rubio's attempt to engage the other side and solve this, but no one liked the results that came out of that.  I also asked here, just before the executive order, what would comprise a good comprehensive bill from our point of view.  Now the ball is in the President's court because he took it.  We can box him in but we don't have a simple way to solve this IMHO.

[Crafty_Dog]

Thank you for your effort to engage on the merits.

In that our side is vociferously howling UNCONSTITUIONAL!!! we damn well be well prepared to answer the specific assertions of the OLC.

Said with my lawyer's hat on-- so far I am not hearing a very good job of it. 

Yes it is fair to say that the exception here is swallowing the rule, yes we MAY have an valid point with the work papers being issued (and not necessarily-- I have see stuff, I forget where, asserting this can be done under the DACA) and we can point out that these people are not eligible for Obamacare and as such have a tremendous cost advantage now over Americans, whom per Obamacare employers must provide Obamacare, but none of this is really going to cut through the noise.  Decent political hay can be made with pointing out Baraq's 25 or so statements that he can't do this, but when push comes to shove the other side will point to the OLC opinion and we will have to answer these questions.

What we are seeing here is that the Reps are reaping the seeds of not articulating alternatives.   There needs to be an analog of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" here.

Some random thoughts:

a) Pass a bill with enough funding to fg deport all eleven million.  Specify that all 11M are to be deported, period.  If not, specify who not-- e.g. do we really want to deport someone who came here as a baby and has lived here essentially all his life and thinks of himself as an American?

b) Specify criteria to define if/when the border is secure.

c) Have a think tank do some serious work on drafting and alternative to birth babies bootstrapping their parents into America.

d) As a political matter and a human kindness matter I suspect there will be some people for whom amnesty is a fair call.  Newt Gingrich, tried making this point during the FL debates with his comments about not deporting Grandma after 20 years, but Romney mugged him from the right.  The point remains, at some point it will be a good call to apply some sort of statute of limitations concept.

e) keep alive the distinction between work papers and citizenship.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/us/white-house-tested-limits-of-powers-before-action-on-immigration.html?emc=edit_th_20141129&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193&_r=0

[ccp]

Well we should be making a better case how this is NOT about those from Latino countries.  It is about all peoples who come and stay here illegally from all over the world.  We already have multiple programs to help people come here and study and work etc.  We should make a case it does hurt people here though I recognize the MSM wave of talking points that somehow we all just do so much better by having millions more to compete with.

 Yes I know would it be better to compete with them overseas or here. No one in their right mind cannot see how the increased competition hurts those here more than it helps.  Most people I know agree with me except die hard liberals who while they would never admit it want more future Democrats.  And no one who is sane would think the Dems would be doing this if these people were going to be predominantly Rep voters.  Why cannot not this simple fact stand up for itself?       

"I need Gomer Pyle's accent to properly say:  Well surprise!  Surprise!  Surprise!"

One of the my favorite shows of all time.  I still remember the one when the Sarge's car gets smashed by a recking ball at the end.  It was one of those belly laughs that adds a year to your life.

[DougMacG]

ccp:  "we should be making a better case how this is NOT about those from Latino countries."

That's right.  But Democrats are winning 71% of the Asian American vote by keeping this issue on the front burner as well:  http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/poll-obama-won-71-of-asian-vote-85013.html

"the increased competition hurts those here more than it helps"

The increased supply of low skill, low wage workers lowers the wage and raises the unemployment for the existing workers, all other things held constant.  Working class whites get that.  Working class minorities should be persuadable on this point. 

A sane and logical immigration policy would bring in a manageable flow of workers with a balance of different skills and different places of origin.   America by design is a melting pot, E pluribus unum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum    America under Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Jarret and the gang is something entirely different, politically warring groups fighting to divide up the spoils of the all-powerful, crony, redistributive system.
--------------------------------------

I look forward to Crafty's legal answer as to why this executive order is different, why it is unconstitutional.  In the meantime, suffice it to say that Obama's actions are ANTI-constitutional, clearly designed to work against the intentions and written meanings of the constitution.  Crafty also has written about how people learn in different ways other than simple logic.  The SNL skit (already posted) reaches more persuadable voters than the technical points sought:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/23/snl-skit-suggests-obamas-immigration-executive-action-is-unconstitutional/

From the constitution:
"Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to “establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization ….”  And it is the president’s constitutional duty, under Article II, Section 3, to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed ….”
http://dailysignal.com/2014/11/19/obamas-unilateral-amnesty-really-will-unprecedented-unconstitutional/

   - If people see wiggle room in that, it is because they want to see wiggle room in that, not because the articles and laws were written unworkably ambiguous.

"Worse than Nixon."  - George Will (before this action)
journalists did not ask the pertinent question: “Where does the Constitution confer upon presidents the ‘executive authority’ to ignore the separation of powers by revising laws?” The question could have elicited an Obama rarity: brevity. Because there is no such authority.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-obamas-unconstitutional-steps-worse-than-nixons/2013/08/14/e0bd6cb2-044a-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html

"a monarch decrees, dictates, and rules through fiat power"
    - Alexander Hamilton,  Federalist 69  http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fed_69.html

26 Violations of Law by the Obama Administration ( overlaps the issues of immigration and unconstitutional as well as failing to faithfully enforce the laws, such as the 2006 Security Fence Act):  This law requires that "at least two layers of reinforced fencing" be built along America's 650-mile border with Mexico. So far, just 40 miles of this fence have been built – most of it during the Bush Administration.  http://www.committeeforjustice.org/content/25-violations-law-president-obama-and-his-administration   - Anyone, please point out the wiggle room in that Congressional Act.

President Obama's Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/12/23/president-obamas-top-10-constitutional-violations-of-2013/
We are SHOUTING this because it keeps happening!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crafty:  Some random thoughts, (not in his order)

"c) Have a think tank do some serious work on drafting and alternative to birth babies bootstrapping their parents into America."

   - Hard to believe this isn't done and ready to go.  One example below, I see that Harry Reid proposed exactly that in 1993!  http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2010/aug/12/1993-flip-flop-senreid-introduced-bill-clarifying-/   https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/103/s1351/text
TITLE X--CITIZENSHIP
SEC. 1001. BASIS OF CITIZENSHIP CLARIFIED.
In the exercise of its powers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Congress has determined and hereby declares that any person born after the date of enactment of this title to a mother who is neither a citizen of the United States nor admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident, and which person is a national or citizen of another country of which either of his or her natural parents is a national or citizen, or is entitled upon application to become a national or citizen of such country, shall be considered as born subject to the jurisdiction of that foreign country and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States within the meaning of section 1 of such Article and shall therefore not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of physical presence within the United States at the moment of birth.

"b) Specify criteria to define if/when the border is secure."

   - Yes, and then require something like a 3 year delay to follow compliance, ensuring the criteria is truly and permanently met, before changing any of the legal status sought for millions.

"d) As a political matter and a human kindness matter I suspect there will be some people for whom amnesty is a fair call.  Newt Gingrich, tried making this point during the FL debates with his comments about not deporting Grandma after 20 years, but Romney mugged him from the right.  The point remains, at some point it will be a good call to apply some sort of statute of limitations concept."

   - Yes, there needs to be some concession on this from Republicans, with a delay after the other requirements are met.  (BTW, this is a reason to not take Romney fully at his word.  His positions are politically strategic more than principled.  This is one too many flip flops for my taste, and still needs to make one more on government mandated healthcare insurance.)

"e) keep alive the distinction between work papers and citizenship."

   - This is part of the trap that is set.  Dems are deeming legalization without citizenship, while they compare legal and not eligible to vote - with slavery.  The only distinction being that I think it was Democrats who supported slavery!

"a) Pass a bill with enough funding to fg deport all eleven million.  Specify that all 11M are to be deported, period.  If not, specify who not-- e.g. do we really want to deport someone who came here as a baby and has lived here essentially all his life and thinks of himself as an American?"

   - This is more of the trap set for Republicans by the Dems.  If you don't do this, then his action is justified, it is argued.  If you do, then you lose the votes of Hispanics, Asian Americans, etc. forever.

Ask Marco Rubio, you don't just step forward honestly and negotiate in good faith with these people.  Instead, you set your own traps along the way for them.  Call votes that put them on the spot, such as fixing birthright misinterpretation, funding the fence, setting up employment verification, etc.  How about holding hearings on the economic effect on low age Americans of having all these people entering?  And reach these people on other issues at the same time.

You cannot have a real solution while the Gruberized President is in charge of the enforcement apparatus.  JMHO

[DougMacG]

Eastman answers Crafty's challenge:

"...would give lawful status to the millions of people who are  beneficiaries of the new policy, and afford to them work authorization and other benefits that are specifically prohibited by U.S. law."

"there are few areas of constitutional authority that are more clearly vested in the Congress than determinations of immigration and naturalization policy.  The Supreme Court has routinely described Congress’s power in this area as “plenary,” that is, an unqualified and absolute power."

"...lawfully authorized workers displaced by those to whom Obama has unlawfully extended work authorization have the kind of particularized injury that would give them legal standing to challenge the new policy.  Workers compensation insurance carriers, too, might be able to challenge the policy, which forces them to extend coverage to those not legally able to work. "


Funny(?) that the previous action applies to CHILDREN up to the age of 35!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/225412-congress-has-options-to-answer-obamas-dishonest-executive

Congress has options to answer Obama’s dishonest executive amnesty
By John C. Eastman

The president’s statement on November 20, 2014 contained several outright falsehoods.  More significantly, masked behind the discussion over prosecutorial discretion is a flagrant violation of the Constitution’s core separation of powers principle that Congress, not the president, makes the law. 

First the lies, damn lies, and statistics.  President Obama said that deportations are up over 80 percent.  Truth be told, his administration has manipulated the definition of “deportation” in order to make that claim.  Those caught and turned away at the border are now included in the total, whereas before they were not.  Comparing apples to apples, the Los Angeles Times reported last April that deportations are down by more than 40 percent since Obama first took office, and the New York Times reported that there was a 26 percent drop in deportations in fiscal year 2013 alone.

Obama also claimed that “The actions I’m taking are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every single Democratic President for the past half century.”  False again. 
Presidents routinely exercise prosecutorial discretion in individual cases because they seldom have the resources to enforce every minor violation of the law.  But rarely has a President engaged in such a wholesale, categorical non-enforcement of the law as Obama did two years ago with the so-called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program (which was available to anyone up to the age of 35!), and now the massively expanded program announced on November 20. 

The president’s largest whopper was this:  “Now, let’s be clear about what [the new program] isn’t. . . . It does not grant citizenship, or the right to stay here permanently, or offer the same benefits that citizens receive—only Congress can do that. All we’re saying is we’re not going to deport you.”

Not true by a long shot.  Non-deportation alone would be an exercise of prosecutorial discretion, even if wholesale, categorical non-enforcement pushes the limits of that doctrine beyond the breaking point.  But Obama’s new directive (which was not even issued as an executive order, but merely a “memo” from the Secretary of Homeland Security) would give lawful status to the millions of people who are  beneficiaries of the new policy, and afford to them work authorization and other benefits that are specifically prohibited by U.S. law.   

As the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service announced with respect to the predecessor DACA program, “An individual who has received deferred action is authorized by DHS to be present in the United States, and is therefore considered by DHS to be lawfully present during the period of deferred action is in effect.”  That’s why hundreds of thousands of DACA applicants were deemed to have “legal status,” obtain work authorization, and also obtain driver’s licenses (which were then used to open the door to a host of other benefits available only to citizens and those with lawful permanent residence).  The new program will expand that number to millions, perhaps tens of millions.

Obama was right about one thing:  “Only Congress can do that.”  Indeed, there are few areas of constitutional authority that are more clearly vested in the Congress than determinations of immigration and naturalization policy.  The Supreme Court has routinely described Congress’s power in this area as “plenary,” that is, an unqualified and absolute power. 

But Obama went ahead and did it anyway.  Contradicting even his own express statements over the past four years that he did not have the constitutional authority to do this.

Congress is not without constitutional checks on a president who abuses the powers of his office.  It has the power of the purse, and it can use that power to prohibit the expenditure of funds for carrying out the president’s dictate to extend work authorization to those not lawfully authorized to work. 

And there may be litigation strategies that can be employed, as well.  For example, lawfully authorized workers displaced by those to whom Obama has unlawfully extended work authorization have the kind of particularized injury that would give them legal standing to challenge the new policy.  Workers compensation insurance carriers, too, might be able to challenge the policy, which forces them to extend coverage to those not legally able to work. 

Whatever path is pursued, it is critical that this constitutional crisis not go unanswered; the rule of law itself is at stake.

Eastman is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law, the director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and the chairman of the Federalist Society’s Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group.

[DougMacG]

This is an excellent exchange between a Republican congressman and the Obama Secretary who issued the new rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjG65YFnsR0

[Crafty_Dog]

Conservatives Should Accept Boehner Immigration Plan
By DICK MORRIS

Published on DickMorris.com on December 4, 2014

Speaker John Boehner's plan to fund the government operations for a year, but excepting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from the bill is a great deal that conservatives should accept and celebrate.  If Boehner can get the Democratic Senate -- while it lasts -- to agree to his proposed formula for avoiding a government shutdown, it will be a massive victory for Republicans and pose big problems ahead for President Obama.
     
Republicans have always sought to use government funding as a kind of surgical strike aimed at programs they dislike.  In the October, 2013 government shutdown, conservatives wanted to fund the entire government except for those that were to implement ObamaCare.  But Senate Democrats and the White House held the rest of the government hostage saying that the House Republicans had either to fund the entire government or shut it all down.  Even Republican attempts to exempt military pay and Social Security processing were rejected or received with a jaundiced eye.
 
Now, however, Boehner is trying to set the stage for just such a surgical operation when the Republicans take over the Senate next year.  By funding the entire government for a year but appropriating only a few months of money for the ICE, Boehner makes it possible for a fully Republican Congress to defund the ICE without closing down the entire government.
     
President Obama is relying on the finding of House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) that much of the ICE processing is funded by administrative levies which are not dependent on government appropriations.  But this is not the whole story.  Much of ICE funding is, indeed, dependent on government appropriations and a creative conservative majority can use its power to craft a spending bill that would have real teeth.
     
But it needs a majority of the Senate.  We don't have one now and won't until next year.
         
Conservatives should seize on a victory when Boehner hands it to them.  Go along with keeping the government open but stop Obama's ability to force a general shutdown next year if Republicans withhold ICE appropriations.  It's a very good deal.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/us/homeland-security-chief-opens-largest-immigration-detention-center-in-us.html?emc=edit_th_20141216&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/21/obama-oversees-steep-drop-in-deportations-of-illeg/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://pamelageller.com/2015/01/obama-imported-300000-muslims-into-the-us-in-2013.html/ 

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/12/jeff-sessions-defines-republican-position-on-immigration-in-25-page-roadmap-document/?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+January+13%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20150113_m123972284_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+January+13%2C+2014&utm_term=More

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/19/republicans-have-an-immigration-plan-and-its-a-little-different-from-obamas/ 

[G M]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/01/19/republicans-have-an-immigration-plan-and-its-a-little-different-from-obamas/ 

Better than nothing.

[Crafty_Dog]

Obama’s Immigration Trap
Republicans fell into it months ago. Here’s how they can get out.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Jan. 22, 2015 6:50 p.m. ET
WSJ

President Obama hardly mentioned immigration in his State of the Union address. And why should he have? He’d already watched Republicans march into his carefully laid immigration trap, where they’ve been flailing ever since.

The president’s bombshell immigration order—delivered directly after the midterm—was a calculated political document. It was never aimed at helping immigrants. It was, rather, designed to divide Republicans, setting them up to lose a very public battle with the White House, themselves and the voters. It worked beautifully.

The GOP held it together (barely) in the weeks following the order, responding by funding the Department of Homeland Security only through February. The idea was that Republicans would use the deadline for a showdown over the president’s unconstitutional legalization of five million undocumented immigrants.

They might have won that battle, at least in the messaging realm. House Republicans could have unanimously passed a simple resolution condemning the order as unconstitutional. Red-state Democrats who criticized the president’s order would have felt pressure to vote with Republicans. This, and a spotlight on the lawsuit now joined by 24 states against the order, would have focused voters on the president’s lawbreaking, after which Republicans could have moved to outmaneuver Mr. Obama with their own proposals for immigration reform.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. The party’s hard-line immigration caucus instead demanded the House bill overturn Obama immigration actions stretching back to 2011—including his order deferring action against undocumented kids. This expansiveness not only gave every Democrat a perfect excuse to vote against the bill, it caused dozens of Republicans to object to specific provisions, and 10 to peel off in final passage. The headlines, as a result, were all about Republican infighting, and how the party was hellbent on breaking up immigrant families.

The bill is meanwhile dead-before-arrival in the Senate. Not a single Democrat has felt compelled to endorse it, and even Republicans are critical. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell will now fail to get the 60 votes needed to even start on the bill, thanks to joint Democratic-Republican opposition. And that’s if he’s lucky. If Democrats are crafty, they will vote to proceed, and use the amendment process to further expose Republican rifts before killing the bill. And no, Democrats will not be accused—as Republicans would be, were the situation reversed—of filibustering. The press will portray them as valiantly protecting immigrant families. This is Washington.

The best course here would be a quick—if painful—cut and run. Instead, party hard-liners are demanding that Republicans drag this out, escalate, and use their funding “leverage” to “force” Mr. Obama and Democrats to capitulate. If this sounds like the funky echo of last year’s shutdown, it is.

The question then and now is: What leverage? The White House can’t wait for the Republican Party—currently lambasting the president on terrorism—to shut down Homeland Security in the face of Islamic State threats and Ebola. It would love even more the following headline: “GOP Responds to Illegal Immigration by Unmanning Border.”

This isn’t a question, as some conservative radio hosts might suggest, of Republicans having principles or showing resolve. This is a question of Republicans taking a pool noodle to a gunfight.

And it gets better. Some Republicans are now arguing that since Mr. Obama is only making the immigration system worse, it is up to them to fix it. This is a smart approach. Then again, their “fix” is to go all-in on yet another border-security bill. House Republicans last week introduced “The Secure Our Borders First Act,” with its full complement of double-fencing, drones, surveillance flights, towers, radar, maritime assets and forward-operating bases.

While this looks tough, even advocates of greater border security are pointing out that the House bill does nothing to tackle the real source of undocumented immigrants—those who overstay visas. And there is zero sign that Republicans intend to build on border security with bills that address a lack of legal pathways, a shortage of high-tech visas, etc.

What the bill does do is send the message that Republicans are in favor of walling off the country, and—let’s not forget—deporting small children.

Obviously, this isn’t a fair assessment. The immigration problem is real, and a majority of GOP lawmakers truly want to solve it. Yet by allowing Mr. Obama to stoke the flames and divisions on this heated subject, and giving the absolutists the lead, it’s the message the press will run with and the voters will hear. Mitt Romney ’s 27% of the Hispanic vote might prove a high-water mark.

This isn’t irrecoverable. The way for Republicans to outflank Mr. Obama on immigration is to send him a series of bills that do fix the problems, that are done on their own pro-growth terms, and that supersede his executive orders. Dare him to say no, and blame him for obstruction if he does. But before it can do that, the GOP first has to decide if it’s tired of walking into traps.

[ccp]

"The way for Republicans to outflank Mr. Obama on immigration is to send him a series of bills that do fix the problems, that are done on their own pro-growth terms, and that supersede his executive orders. Dare him to say no, and blame him for obstruction if he does. "

I wish he would have elaborated more.   

[Crafty_Dog]

Actually the author is a woman.  KS has been writing quality stuff for the WSJ for several years now.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/30/illegal-immigrants-released-custody-committed-1000/

[G M]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/30/illegal-immigrants-released-custody-committed-1000/

Illegal aliens committing crimes?GTFO! 

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.gopusa.com/news/2015/02/02/doj-dilemma-so-many-illegal-aliens-the-courts-cant-handle-them/

[DougMacG]

This is not amnesty, but a penalty and payment proposal for converting people from illegal to legal status.

1)  Secure the borders first.  Must be proven over time.  No new inflow.  No overstaying visas.  No hesitation by the government to deport any new entrants.

2)  The plea bargain, penalty settlement should look something like this:  Pay your share of our accumulated debt before you share in our privileges.  That would be roughly 18 trillion divided by 330+ million people, or $55,000 for every man, woman and child who wants to live here and be a voting, American citizen, 220k for a family of four.  Come on in!  (That is not unreasonable, about what a private college charges for one person over 4 years.)  There is an incentive to come out of the shadows and agree quickly before national debt goes up more!  Then, before they vote, the new citizens will have a stake in the ownership and sensitivity to the high cost of government and entitlement programs.  Deportation only for those who do not agree to a schedule or do not keep up with their payments.  

[Crafty_Dog]

ACLU Searching Mexico for 200,000 Illegal Aliens to Import (Not a Joke)
March 8, 2015 By Stephen Frank 2 Comments
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    Last year Barack the First imported about 70,000 illegal aliens from Central America. As of the beginning of January, 2015, 93% of those who had hearings failed to show up and disappeared—as expected. Over the past few years 200,000 illegal aliens have been caught at the border, signed voluntary deportation papers and were shipped back to Mexico. This is a good thing.

    But, the ACLU claimed the illegal aliens did not know their “rights”, signed the papers without benefit of attorneys and should be given a second chance to break our laws. A court agreed, and now the ACLU is searching Mexico for 200,000 illegal aliens to illegally bring into this country

    The worse news is that YOU the taxpayer are going to pay for their transportation back to this country, their housing, food, attorneys and maybe even given jobs! Think any of them will go to their deportation hearing? The world has gone crazy—and we get to pay for the corruption of the government and courts.

    ICE-Immigration-Agents

ACLU Searches For Deportees Denied Immigration Hearing

By Jean Guerrero,KPBS, 3/7/15

The American Civil Liberties Union has started searching for deportees in Mexico who may be eligible to return to the United States as part of a class-action lawsuit against the federal government.

The campaign was launched after U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt gave the ACLU a green light to broaden its class of plaintiffs.

Isidora Lopez-Venegas, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the federal government, discusses why she signed the voluntary return form that resulted in her expulsion from the U.S., March 6, 2015.

Eleven plaintiffs and three Southern California immigrant-rights groups accused the federal government of coercing the plaintiffs, all Mexican immigrants, into signing voluntary return forms. By signing the forms, the plaintiffs forfeited their rights to an immigration hearing and, in some cases, were subject to a 10-year prohibition of legal re-entry.

The lawsuit was brought against the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration Customs and Enforcement in 2013.

The lawsuit was settled last year, allowing plaintiffs like Isidora Lopez-Venegas to return to the U.S. A single mother and elementary school teacher, Lopez-Venegas spent three years exiled in Mexico with her U.S.-citizen son.

“I felt paralyzed,” she said in an interview.

Lopez-Venegas said she signed a voluntary return form because immigration officials threatened to take away her son if she didn’t.

Jean Guerrero

The American Civil Liberties Union held a meeting to distribute information about a class action lawsuit against the federal government in search of deportees who may be eligible to return to the U.S., March 4, 2015.

“I became afraid. I became so nervous,” said Lopez-Venegas, who now lives in San Diego. “They were intimidating me, threatening me, and that’s why I got scared and said, ‘OK, I’ll sign it.’”

Deportees qualify to join the ACLU’s class-action lawsuit if they signed the voluntary return form between June 1, 2009, and August 28, 2014. They must have been deported to Mexico from the San Diego or Los Angeles field offices, and they had to have reasonable claims to reside in the U.S. at the time of signing.

Reasonable claims include having qualified for the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or having paperwork in process for an immigration status change. They could additionally claim that they had a citizen spouse, that they they had lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years or had family members with citizenship or green cards.

“We are working with a lot of different organizations across California and throughout Mexico in order to diffuse this information as widely as possible,” said Gabriela Rivera, a staff attorney for ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties.

As part of the 2014 settlement, the federal government agreed to provide immigrants with detailed information about the consequences of signing a voluntary return form in the future. Immigration officials will also allow ACLU attorneys to monitor their compliance with the settlement for a period of three years.

The ACLU has four months to find possible additional plaintiffs for its class-action lawsuit. It will then file applications on their behalf through Dec. 22.

[Crafty_Dog]

Judge Blocking Plan for Immigrants Is Praised as Fair in Texas

By JULIA PRESTONMARCH 10, 2015
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Judge Andrew S. Hanen, left, at a 2005 ceremony at the federal courthouse in Brownsville, Tex. Judge Hanen has been on the bench for almost 13 years. Credit Brad Doherty/Brownsville Herald, via Associated Press


BROWNSVILLE, Tex. — From his bench in a federal courthouse barely a mile from the Rio Grande, Judge Andrew S. Hanen looked over a procession of small-time drug dealers and thieves, each representing a lapse of border enforcement.

In a familiar routine for the judge, he handed out sentences at a hearing last week to convicted criminals who had been deported to Mexico and then sneaked back into the United States. For returning illegally, he sent them to prison for a year or so, and most likely to another deportation. Judge Hanen warned them that their time behind bars would be even longer if they ever came back again.

“I want to be sure you understand that,” he said, looking each man in the eye.

Judge Hanen is now in the middle of a much bigger legal fight, after his Feb. 16 ruling that temporarily halted President Obama’s executive actions to shield millions of unauthorized immigrants from deportation. Among officials from the 26 states bringing the lawsuit, the decision was hailed as a triumph of law over a reckless president. Mr. Obama said he was confident that the administration would eventually prevail.


Judge Hanen came to the Federal District Court here almost 13 years ago from a strait-laced law practice in Houston. His 123-page injunction against the executive actions was informed by a starkly negative view of the Obama administration’s border security efforts. He began to express that perspective after seeing the traffic through his courtroom in this borderland city, where migrants illegally cross every day despite a buildup of fences and agents, while bloody feuds rage among Mexican drug cartels just across the river.

“The court finds that the government’s failure to secure the border has exacerbated illegal immigration into this country,” Judge Hanen said in the February ruling. The states’ coffers were “being drained by the constant influx of illegal immigrants,” he wrote.

Advocates for immigrants who want to see the president’s initiatives go forward have portrayed Judge Hanen, 61, as a right-wing crank. But in Texas he is known as a conservative but fair-minded jurist with keen analytical intelligence — and a jovial sense of humor, even when he is in black robes.

“He is the complete package,” said David Kent, a lawyer in Dallas who was with Judge Hanen in Baylor University’s law school class of 1978; Judge Hanen graduated first in the class. “Absolutely as sharp as could be,” said Mr. Kent, who also clerked at the Texas Supreme Court with him, “and on the personal side so funny, so good-hearted.”

The Obama administration is seeking an emergency stay of Judge Hanen’s injunction. The judge on Monday declined to rule yet on that request, and administration officials said they would probably move their motion to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans this week. Judge Hanen still has to rule on the larger constitutional questions in the states’ challenge. He declined to be interviewed for this article.
Continue reading the main story

Judge Hanen’s decisions gained new importance to Republicans in Congress who are determined to stop the president’s actions, after they failed last week to eliminate funding for the initiatives in the Homeland Security spending bill. Republicans are now looking to the courts to keep Mr. Obama’s programs from taking effect.

Before moving to Brownsville in 2002, Judge Hanen had a comfortable law practice, serving at one time as president of the bar association in Houston. But friends said his upbringing was modest. John Eddie Williams Jr., a high-profile trial lawyer in Houston and another Baylor classmate, said Mr. Hanen had been raised in a bare-bones household in Waco by a single mother.


“In law school, he would wear jeans with holes at the knees, and not because it was fashionable,” Mr. Williams said.

He recalled that the two of them had been in a study group with a classmate named Priscilla Owen. Mr. Hanen was always looking to lighten the studious mood with jokes. Without telling Ms. Owen, he once enrolled her in a Cotton Queen beauty pageant, Mr. Williams said. She was startled to receive several mailings asking for information about her physical endowments, before Mr. Hanen disclosed his prank.

Today Ms. Owen is a federal appeals judge for the Fifth Circuit, the court that will hear the administration’s appeals of Judge Hanen’s decisions in the states’ lawsuit.

Mr. Williams said he differed with Judge Hanen on immigration, supporting Mr. Obama “100 percent.” But he said, “I would disagree with anyone who would say Andy Hanen has any prejudice. His decisions will always be based on sound legal grounds.”

Judge Hanen is one of the few judges ever to be nominated twice to the same court by two presidents: by the first President George Bush in 1992, a nomination never voted on by the Senate, and by President George W. Bush in 2002.

During his years in Brownsville, Judge Hanen has sent a corrupt judge to prison and slogged through dozens of lawsuits over the federal government’s seizure of land to build border fences, leaving his courtroom to visit the boundary so he could see the disputed properties for himself.

But in recent years, Judge Hanen has raised increasingly vivid alarms about what he sees as a porous border and lax enforcement. In December 2013, after sentencing a migrant smuggler, he issued a broadside when he learned that the authorities had delivered a child, the smuggler’s cargo, to the child’s mother, an unauthorized immigrant in Virginia. Judge Hanen accused the administration of “successfully completing the mission of the criminal conspiracy.”
Photo
Performers in Brownsville's Charro Days festival, which celebrates the unity of cultures straddling the border. Credit Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

In August, he held forth when a gang member from El Salvador whom he had previously sent to prison turned up in California after deportation and was granted a form of asylum. The administration, he said, “has pulled the pin on a hand grenade and lobbed it into the streets of Los Angeles, with the faint hope it will not go off.”

Judge Hanen supplemented that opinion with charts of the leadership of Mexican drug cartels. “Rewarding gang or cartel members for their own antisocial activities endangers everyone in the United States,” he wrote.

Mr. Obama has suggested that officials in Texas, which is leading the states’ lawsuit, shopped for a sympathetic judge before filing in the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville. In this court, there is no one other than Judge Hanen in a position to hear the case.

Speaking at a town-hall-style meeting in Miami last month, Mr. Obama said he was not surprised by the injunction. “We saw the judge who was rendering the opinion,” the president said.

Michael A. Olivas, a law professor at the University of Houston, said the move by Texas officials was fair play. But he said Judge Hanen was often out of line with his rebukes of Mr. Obama’s policies. “He goes further than he needs to, with intemperate, nonjudicious and nongermane elaborations,” he said.

In South Texas, some leaders said the judge was just responding to the conditions around him.

“That gentleman is constantly hearing the prosecution of drug cartel violence in his courtroom,” said State Representative Eddie Lucio III, a Mexican-American Democrat who lives in Brownsville. “When he says we need to have proper border enforcement, it’s because he sees the worst of it.”

But Brownsville’s mayor, Tony Martinez, also a Democrat, said Judge Hanen had overlooked another side of immigration. It was on full display last month, the mayor said, just around the corner from the courthouse, as the city held its annual festival known as Charro Days, celebrating the unity of cultures straddling the border. Mr. Martinez and Mr. Lucio joined the parade down the main street, dressed in their Mexican cowboy finest.

Mr. Martinez filed papers to the court supporting Mr. Obama’s actions, saying they would improve enforcement by focusing agents on deporting criminals, not peaceable workers.

“We may be two countries,” the mayor said, “but on the border we’re one family.”

[ccp]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2013/02/map_illegal_immigrant_population_by_state.html

[DougMacG]

Of course they are comparing them with the lowest level of male workforce participation in our history.  For women, the opposite is true.  Our social spending complex is working to break up these families next.
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http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/03/28/hold-think-tank-illegal-immigrant-males-more-likely-to-be-in-workforce-than-legal-immigrants-us-born-men/

PEW RESEARCHER: RATE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT MALES IN WORKFORCE 12 PERCENT HIGHER THAN U.S.-BORN MALES
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Meanwhile Democrats are working hard to get fewer of these people to work and more of them to vote.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/13/immigration-chief-sanctuary-cities-influx-kids/

[ccp]

It is amazing how people use statistics in a way that distorts reality to conform with whatever their agenda is.   Take this news item today obviously being used as evidence of the great benefits of illegals to all of us:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/study-finds-illegal-immigrants-pay-221800279.html

Then go here and one can easily erase these supposed benefits to the legal residents of America.   The revolving doors of OB wards are spinning as fast as illegals can walk through them with anchor babies.  Who pays for this?    What about them going to our schools?  I suppose sales taxes is covering this?

http://www.nysenate.gov/report/what-benefits-can-illegal-aliens-receive