Archive for the ‘Illegal Immigration’ Category

Obama’s program is a clear violation of U.S. immigration law

WASHINGTON TIMES: More than 1.7 million illegal immigrants could become eligible for tentative legal status Wednesday when President Obama’s non-deportation policy goes into effect, and after initial fears that the program would backfire, immigrant advocates are urging young immigrants to sign up.

Activists say the policy is the biggest change on immigration in decades, and it has roiled the political landscape, solidifying Mr. Obama’s support among Hispanics and leaving presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney struggling to say what he would do.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration laid out final details, including relaxed education standards that set a low bar.

Under the rules, illegal immigrants in job training or who have enrolled in a GED course are eligible — a lesser requirement than obtaining a high school diploma or equivalency certificate.

The government begins taking applications Wednesday, and immigrant rights groups and members of Congress from both parties have scheduled legal clinics across the country to help determine whether immigrants qualify and to aid them in filling out the forms.

“Our job is to make sure that everyone who’s eligible for this program knows about it and applies for it if they feel comfortable after weighing the risks and benefits,” said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. “So far, the benefits have kind of outweighed the risks, based on the hundreds and thousands of people coming forward.”

The policy halts deportations for illegal immigrants not above the age of 30 who were brought to the U.S. before age 16, who don’t have a major criminal record, and who can show they have been in the country studying or in job training.

Those eligible for the policy are known as Dreamers, after the Dream Act — legislation that failed to pass Congress but would have granted them a path to citizenship.

The Obama policy does not offer a path to citizenship but rather “deferred action,” a halt to potential deportations. Those who qualify also can obtain a permit to work in the U.S.

In certain states, that could be good enough to obtain a driver’s license or in-state tuition at state schools, advocates said.

Republicans said it will push hundreds of thousands of new legal workers into an already tough job market, where they will compete with Americans.

They also said the administration is not requiring in-person interviews for applicants and is accepting affidavits for some requirements, which they said is an invitation to fraud.

“While potentially millions of illegal immigrants will be permitted to compete with American workers for jobs, there seems to be little if any mechanism in place for vetting fraudulent applications,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and Sen. Chuck Grassley said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano.

The Homeland Security Department, which will process the applications, wouldn’t guess how many applications it will receive.

But the latest estimate from the Migration Policy Institute says that as many as 1.76 million illegal immigrants could be eligible. Homeland Security estimates about 11 million illegal immigrants reside in the U.S.

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JOHN MCCORMACK-WEEKLY STANDARD: During Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum all took shots at Rick Perry’s record on illegal immigration. Bachmann said that Texas’s law allowing in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants acted like a “magnet” for illegal immigrants. Perry’s response was forceful and personal. “I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry told his critics.

“If you say that we should not educate children who come into our state for no other reason than that they’ve been brought their through no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said. “We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society. I think that’s what Texans wanted to do. Out of 181 members of the Texas legislature when this issue came up [there were] only four dissenting votes. This was a state issue. Texas voted on it. And I still support it today.”

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MICKEY KAUS-DAILY CALLER: Rick Perry’s record on immigration isn’t as bad as I thought. It’s worse! … It’s not just that he doesn’t want to build the border fence. Many fence opponents argue (though I disagree) that it’s far more important to take away the “jobs magnet” that lures illegals to try to cross the border in the first place.

But Perry hasn’t supported the quickest, best way to take away the jobs magnet, which is to require all private employers to use the “E-Verify” electronic check of Social Security numbers. Perry wouldn’t even require his own state government to use E-Verify, let alone private employers, declaring “E-Verify would not make a hill of beans’ difference when it comes to what’s happening in America today.” ….

And the fence and E-Verify are the easy part of this issue. They are the “stripped down basic package” of enforcement provisions outlined by immigration-control advocate Mark Krikorian. The hard part is getting a candidate–especially a pro-business GOP candidate–to promise, in a binding way, that in the future he or she won’t, under pressure from business and Latino leaders, accept some sort of premature legalization (i.e., amnesty).

That’s tough enough with, say, Mitt Romney: He’s criticized “amnesty” in the past, but you know there will be Romney strategists pushing legalization as the key to capturing the fast-growing Hispanic vote.

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So this is the family that now running the USA!

BOSTON HERALD: President Obama’s accused drunken-driving uncle — who was busted after a near collision with a Framingham cop — has had a valid Social Security number for at least 19 years, despite being an illegal immigrant ordered to be deported back to Kenya, the Herald has learned.

The president’s 67-year-old uncle, Obama Onyango, has had a valid Massachusetts driver’s license and Social Security number since at least 1992, said Registry of Motor Vehicles spokesman Michael Verseckes.

Onyango, whose sister, Zeituni Onyango, made headlines when it was revealed she was an illegal immigrant living in public housing in South Boston, was wobbly legged, “slurring” and had “red and glassy eyes” when he was pulled over at 7 p.m. Wednesday on Waverly Street in Framingham.

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Says he’ll focus only deporting criminals.

WASHINGTON TIMES: Bowing to pressure from immigrant rights activists, the Obama administration said Thursday that it will halt deportation proceedings on a case-by-case basis against illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria, such as attending school, having family in the military or having primary responsible for other family members’ care.

The move marks a major step for President Obama, who for months has said he does not have broad categorical authority to halt deportations and said he must follow the laws as Congress has written them.

But in letters to Congress on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she does have discretion to focus on “priorities” and that her department and the Justice Department will review all ongoing cases to see who meets the new criteria.

“This case-by-case approach will enhance public safety,” she said. “Immigration judges will be able to more swiftly adjudicate high-priority cases, such as those involving convicted felons.”

The move won immediate praise from Hispanic activists and Democrats who had strenuously argued with the administration that it did have authority to take these actions, and said as long as Congress is deadlocked on the issue, it was up to Mr. Obama to act.

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CNN: America’s immigration system is broken, but only a bipartisan political movement can fix it, President Barack Obama said Monday.

“The idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, I promise you, not just on immigration reform. But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions,” Obama told the National Council of La Raza.

Speaking at the organization’s annual conference in Washington, Obama said passing immigration reform measures will require support from both sides of the aisle in Congress.

“Let’s be honest, I need a dance partner here, and the floor is empty,” he said.

Audience members greeted Obama with a standing ovation, and responded to his discussion of immigration reform by chanting, “Yes you can, yes you can.”

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TARA SEVATIUS-AMERICAN THINKER: By now, the word is probably spreading like wildfire on the country’s Spanish language radio stations that cater to illegal immigrants. Get pregnant, or conceive a child with your spouse or significant other, and you likely won’t be deported.

Already have a child? Bring them here to America illegally. If you can prove you are the guardian of a minor, the government will likely take deportation off the table.

It’s all part of what appears to be a new Obama Administration plan to incentivize illegal immigrants not just to come to America, but to stay, have and expand families, and put down roots that will hold them here.

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CNS: Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) said in a congressional hearing Tuesday that a young person who is an illegal alien in the United States today may someday become president.

“When I look around this room, I see America’s future, our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, our engineers, our scientists, our soldiers, our congressmen, our senators, and maybe our president,” Durbin said immediately after having asked all young persons in the room to stand if they were currently undocumented aliens who would be eligible to become citizens if the DREAM Act were passed.

“When I look around this room, I see America’s future, our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, our engineers, our scientists, our soldiers, our congressmen, our senators, and maybe our president,” Durbin said immediately after having asked all young persons in the room to stand if they were currently undocumented aliens who would be eligible to become citizens if the DREAM Act were passed.

As a videotape of the hearing shows, a large portion of the audience in the room rose at Durbin’s request. Durbin also said in his introductory remarks that there were “hundreds” of young people in the room eligible to become beneficiaries of the DREAM Act.

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CNS: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, denounced Republicans last week for believing illegal immigration “should in fact be a crime.”

“I think the president was clearly articulating that his position–the Democratic position–is that we need comprehensive immigration reform,” said Wasserman Schultz at a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast on May 26.

“We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country that are part of the backbone of our economy and this is not only a reality but a necessity,” she said. “And that it would be harmful–the Republican solution that I’ve seen in the last three years is that we should just pack them all up and ship them back to their own countries and that in fact it should be a crime and we should arrested them all.”

“I think the president was clearly articulating that his position–the Democratic position–is that we need comprehensive immigration reform,” said Wasserman Schultz at a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast on May 26.

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