Category Archives: Drug Cartels

How About that Immigration Slush Fund?

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How about using $1.3 BILLION to fix just one home country first?

First, you need some background on the Department of Homeland Security and how they not only publish crap but how they justify it and then ask for their annual budgetary requirements with glowing accomplishments. So to help you out, click this link and head on over to the Janet Napolitano DHS operations on page 121 and read on if you can stomach the task.

Now, let us move on to the slush fund shall we?

Hat tip to Senator Jeff Sessions, he held a subcommittee meeting in March and discovered a $1.3 billion dollar slush fund and lots of nefarious actions with that money. I watch this stuff on C-Span and report:

“USCIS has been hoarding fees paid by legal immigrants to subsidize the planned new executive amnesty for an estimated five million illegal aliens and failing to screen applicants adequately to prevent criminal aliens from obtaining benefits. In addition, the agency has created a pathway to citizenship for many of these illegal aliens.”

There is more.

“USCIS has accumulated a “reserve fund” of unexpended revenues that now totals $1.2 billion (with a “B”). The agency has a policy to maintain a reserve balance of $600 million to help it manage in the event of revenue fluctuations, but USCIS is using these funds to launch the new executive amnesty programs (without any statutory authorization). One cannot help but wonder how this reserve fund got so big over the years, because by law USCIS is supposed to charge fees that reflect the exact cost of processing the benefits. Did they overcharge millions of legal applicants or cut corners on the processing of benefits? Both?

Sen. Tom Tillis (R-N.C.) asked why USCIS has not used its huge cash reserves to reduce the processing backlogs for legal applicants instead of setting up unconstitutional work permit programs for illegal aliens.

USCIS had already spent $11 million getting ready for the new executive amnesty until it was blocked by a federal judge in mid-February. About $7 million was spent to lease office space in Crystal City, Va., and those rent payments still need to be made whether the program goes forward or not. The total cost of the processing facility alone is estimated to be $26.2 million.

Before the program was stopped, USCIS had hired “one or two” people to work on the program and had made job offers to 360 others, which are now on hold. The plan is for the amnesty applications to be adjudicated by 700-800 brand-new employees, with no experience in evaluating immigration applications.”

You can actually get a few more details here.

Yippee for Senator Cruz, he has introduced  A BILL

To eliminate the offsetting accounts that are currently available

for use by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

This is great in action but gaining real traction is slim to none. This is why you need to apply pressure to your respective lawmakers.

Now, USCIS has a website, where a full welcoming and kindly layout encourages anyone into the United States and helps them find a way to do it.

Okay, so remember now that was $1.8 BILLION and that is not including the budget at DHS for 2015. You see, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employs more than 13,000 people and in 2012, there were 72,000 refugee applications and 29,000 asylum applications. Add that to the unknown quantity coming across the border and we have no clue what language we will be required to speak to keep our job.

On page 133 of this latest document:

USCIS ensures that information and decisions on citizenship and immigration benefits are provided to customers in a timely, accurate, consistent, courteous, and professional manner, while also working to safeguard our national security. More than 50 different types of citizenship and immigration benefit applications
are processed by USCIS. Every case is unique and requires specialized attention from experienced USCIS immigration officers. USCIS is also responsible for enhancing the integrity of our country’s legal immigration system by deterring, detecting, and pursuing immigration-related fraud, combating the unauthorized practice of immigration law, and helping to combat unauthorized employment in the workplace.
Each day, USCIS employees work to fulfill the USCIS mission of enhancing both national security and the integrity of the legal immigration system by: (1) identifying threats to national security and public safety posed by those seeking immigration benefits; (2) deterring, detecting, and pursuing, immigration benefit fraud; (3) identifying and removing systemic vulnerabilities in the legal immigration system; and (4) promoting information sharing and collaboration with other governmental agencies.
In addition, USCIS extends humanitarian protection to refugees, both within and outside of the United States, in accordance with U.S. law and international obligations.

There are these 2 samples of how DHS states their accomplishments:

  • Collaborated in the effort to respond to the April 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings including the establishment of Task Force 1 as a centralized hub for fielding requests from interagency partners.
    • Interviewed and performed security checks for approximately 72,000 refugee applicants in more than 66 countries to support the admission of 69,930 refugees to the United States; interviewed, performed security checks, and completed more than 29,000 affirmative asylum applications; and performed more than 43,000 asylum screenings for reasonable and credible fear.

Sheesh….How many questions need to be asked now? The first one is how is this fleecing of the American taxpayer a benefit and what is the threat matrix to our national security?

 

 

What Now For Cuba

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Cuba’s economic freedom score is 29.6, making its economy one of the world’s least free. Its overall score is 0.9 point higher than last year, with a slight deterioration in monetary freedom outweighed by improvements in three of the 10 economic freedoms, including trade freedom, fiscal freedom, and freedom from corruption. Cuba is ranked least free of 29 countries in the South and Central America/Caribbean region, and its overall score is significantly lower than the regional average.

In recent years, the government has made measured concessions to encourage more entrepreneurship and private-sector growth. Communist Party–endorsed reforms to cut government payrolls and expand approved professions have not been broad enough to ensure any meaningful advancement in overall economic freedom. The state continues to interfere in most economic activity. Price controls are pervasive, and the two-tiered exchange rate regime continues to distort prices.

Despite membership in the World Trade Organization, the economy remains relatively cut off from the international marketplace. Only state enterprises are allowed to engage in international trade and investment. The state uses an oppressive regulatory environment to suppress entrepreneurial activity and controls most means of production. Shallow credit markets impede access to credit for business activities.

Cuba is demanding the return of Guantanamo Base, stating it is illegally occupied. The military base goes far beyond being a detention center since 1907. It should be noted that many Cubans not only work at Base Guantanamo but live there as well, under the American flag.

U.S. Cuba Policy: Where Things Stand Now

WSJ:

President Barack Obama announced in December that the U.S. was moving to normalize relations with Cuba after over 50 years of Cold War enmity. That moment was both symbolic and practical, as he took steps to begin removing restrictions on travel and trade. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama announced that the U.S. will formally restore diplomatic ties and reopen its embassy in Havana.

What exactly has changed since December and where are we now? The Wall Street Journal explains:

Can I travel to Cuba now?

That depends. Traveling to Cuba from the U.S. as a tourist is still illegal. But 12 categories of people, including close relatives of Cubans, academics, journalists, people participating in educational programs, and people on humanitarian or religious missions can go to the island provided they say their trip falls within one of those categories. Airlines can fly to Cuba without obtaining special licenses, but flights to Cuba are charters—not yet commercial flights. Several U.S. ferry companies have received licenses to operate routes between ports in Florida and Cuba, but the proposed ferry services must receive Havana’s approval.

Can U.S. companies do business there?

Mr. Obama also took steps to loosen financial restrictions, but most trade remains illegal and will require congressional action before changing. Mr. Obama eased some rules to permit increased exports of U.S. telecommunications and other technological goods to the island, as well as building materials. Mr. Obama also made it easier for exports of agricultural and medical supplies and goods to Cuba’s nascent private sector.

U.S. banks are allowed to establish correspondent accounts in Cuba, and U.S. citizens now can use credit and debit cards there. But activity under Mr. Obama’s measures are slow-going, in part due to a lack of clarity about the regulations. U.S. officials have said they’re likely to be updated as more people try to use them.

What have been the big milestones so far?

The first big moments, of course, were the announcements by Mr. Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro in December that the former Cold War foes would renew relations, the culmination of 18 months of secret talks.

Then, in January, loosened travel and trade regulations went into effect, and the U.S. and Cuba began negotiating reopening embassies and restoring diplomatic ties.

In April, Messrs. Obama and Castro met at the Summit of the Americas, the first substantive discussion between U.S. and Cuban presidents since 1956.

In May, the Obama administration lifted Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. That was a critical step toward restoring diplomatic relations, but didn’t have much practical effect, as Congressional sanctions still ban Cuba from arms exports and sales, from receiving U.S. economic assistance and from conducting most trade.

Wednesday’s announcement that the two countries are formally restoring diplomatic ties was another big step.

The next milestones will be reopening ceremonies for embassies in both countries. Cuba announced it would host its event in Washington on July 20 and its delegation will be led by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. The U.S. hasn’t set a date for its flag raising, but said Secretary of State John Kerry will be there to do the honors.

Now what?

The U.S. and Cuba will begin lots of bilateral talks and efforts to cooperate in areas including law enforcement, development, human rights, counterterrorism and antinarcotics. Talks will also begin on property claims and the Cuban government’s claims against the U.S. The U.S. has also said Cuba has agreed to talks about extraditing fugitives, though it’s unclear what will happen with some of the higher-profile ones, including JoAnne Chesimard, now known as Assata Shakur, who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list for killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. Cuba granted her asylum after she escaped from prison in 1979.

The spotlight moves to Congress now, where lawmakers must act to lift bans on travel and trade. Church groups, agricultural groups, business groups and others are supportive of lifting the ban. The White House is counting on these independent stakeholders to pressure Congress to act. It’s likely to be a long battle, with supporters of normalization taking a piecemeal approach to chipping away at the embargo.

The White House backs that strategy, and a move to lift the travel ban is likely to be the first step in the process.

 

The Truth About a Mexican Border Town

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In April of 2015, Mexican authorities arrested the head of the Juarez Cartel, one of Mexico’s leader of the dark underworld of the country. Jesus Salas Aquayo was on the DEA most wanted list.

 Jesus Salas

Now for the Great Trial and perhaps some truth about Mexico, right at our southern border.

Juarez’s Missing Girls Were Sex Slaves—And Everyone Knew It

From the Daily Beast:

Hundreds of women have been murdered or simply disappeared in the city in the last five years. This case is about only 11 of them, but it’s a beginning.
In the Juárez media, it is being called the Great Trial, the first in 20 years to tackle the issue of femicides—a term for the hundreds of unsolved murders and forcible disappearances of women in the city that sits just across the Rio Grande from El Paso.

 

The news magazine Proceso reports 727 such disappearances between 2010 and 2014, and many more such crimes date at least as far back as the early 1990s.

Altogether 158 witnesses have testified in this case so far. Only six men are in the dock, accused of sex trafficking and the kidnapping and murder of 11 young women in Ciudad Juárez, but the institutions of Mexican law and order are on trial as well.

“The hypothesis of corruption and collusion, the complicity of police, is sustained by witnesses,” Santiago González, a lawyer with the Women’s Roundtable of Juárez, which represents the families of three of the victims, told The Daily Beast. “Organized crime always has to operate with the collusion or participation of the authorities.”

The tendency in hundreds of prior cases was for investigators to treat the disappearances as isolated instances, rather than the work of organized crime. Then in January 2012 the remains of 21 young women between the ages of 15 and 21 were found discarded in a dry stream bed called Arroyo del Navajo, 80 miles southeast of the city in the Juárez Valley.

The site where the remains were found is so rugged the detectives had to use all-terrain vehicles to reach it. DNA analysis showed a match with genetic material from the mothers of 11 of the young women who had disappeared in downtown Juárez in 2009 and 2010.

The six defendants on trial are being identified as members of Los Aztecas, a street gang linked to the Juárez cartel. Numerous witnesses have testified the defendants operated a kidnapping ring in plain sight in downtown Juárez from 2008 to at least 2011. They are accused of terrorizing girls between the ages of 15 and 21 born to humble families, coercing them into prostitution, and disposing of them as they pleased.

Implicit in the trial proceedings, which began in April, is the question of how organized crime could operate so brazenly for years in the busiest part of the city. The question looms even more starkly when one considers the period in question was when some 6,800 Mexican soldiers and 2,300 Federal Police were deployed to the area to combat organized crime as part of the “Joint Operation Chihuahua” decreed by then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

On June 1, a protected witness who is an admitted member of Los Aztecas testified he was responsible for paying the police to turn a blind eye to the group’s business of kidnapping and forced prostitution. The protected witness, identified by the initials LJRL, told the court that the Federal Police and Mexican Army occasionally accepted sex with the underage prostitutes in lieu of cash (some soldiers in the Army, for example, “asked to keep the girls a day or two for pleasure.”)

“Sometimes it was my job to pay the city, state, and federal police,” he continued, “besides that we were always in radio contact with them and they would tell us what was going on, how ‘hot’ things were in The Valley, what the ‘doubles’ [nickname for the Artist Assassins, an enemy gang] were up to, what they were doing, because we had to stay on our toes and be ready for when things got hot.”

LJRL, who for reasons of security testified in a separate room adjoining the court, said two high-ranking leaders of Los Aztecas ran the gang’s sex-trafficking operation from inside the walls of two prisons in Juárez. The gang leaders in question—Jesús Damián Pérez Ortega (alias El Patachú), and Pedro Payán Gloria (alias El Pifas)—were free to enter and exit the state prison “to cool off when things got hot.”

He said “El Pifas” was also the gang’s intermediary with Mexican soldiers stationed beyond the city limits:

Q. To clarify, why did this man you call El Pifas, why was he in communication with soldiers?

A. Because it was another point where women were kidnapped from, sometimes they asked to keep them a day or two for pleasure, if you will, or to hold the girls, it was also a point where the women were held en route to being transported to the United States or wherever it was they were being taken to.

The homicide rate in Juárez from 2008 to 2010 rose to be among the very highest in the world. Overlooked at times amid the all-encompassing violence were the unexplained disappearances of hundreds of young women, and it’s now obvious that the sex-trafficking operation brought to light at trial was hidden in plain sight. The 11 victims whose remains were identified had been kidnapped in broad daylight in the busy market area in downtown, a block or two from the Spanish cathedral in the main square.

Perla Ivonne Aguirre Gonzalez, 15, was abducted not long after the end of her shift at a fast-food restaurant downtown. Deysí Ramírez Muñoz, 16, was dismissed from her factory job without warning at 8 a.m. Her family suspects she was kidnapped on her return home, while changing buses downtown. Jazmín Salazar Ponce, 17, went to ask for a job at a shoe store downtown and disappeared.

State prosecutor Jorge González said some of the defendants were passing themselves off as small-business owners in the busy area of Reforma Market downtown. Witnesses described a grocery store with no merchandise, a shoe store with no customers, a modeling agency with no furniture. They were business fronts set up so the criminal could talk to the young women and ask questions to see if they had a network of support in place.

A protected witness identified in court by the initials KDM was a female employee of the grocery store. She said while she was employed there she frequently saw municipal and federal police enter through a side entrance.

“On public transportation, in jails, hotels, businesses—how could this be happening downtown and not be seen?” asked Imelda Marrufo, a lawyer and the director of the Women’s Roundtable of Ciudad Juárez, in an interview with The Daily Beast.

Referring to the overwhelming presence of Federal Police and Mexican soldiers in Juárez at the time, she said “Military checkpoints were part of the fabric of the city. With so much vigilance they must have seen the girls being transported around the city, and out of the city. The mothers want answers for why nothing was done to stop it.”

What’s more, according to numerous witnesses at trial, many of the young women who were murdered had been prostituted at a brothel no more than a few blocks from a police precinct headquarters. The brothel, called the Hotel Verde, is also near the Santa Fe International Bridge that links Juárez to El Paso, Texas. The Hotel Verde was a three-story headquarters for Los Aztecas, with prostitution on the first and second floors, and a drug warehouse on the third.

Two Federal Police officers were murdered at the Hotel Verde under unexplained circumstances in 2010.

LJRL testified that after the women were kidnapped downtown, they were transported to a neighborhood close by, and held at a safe house located eight blocks from a municipal police station. The safe house functioned as a hub for shuttling the kidnap victims to one of several locations in the city, and some out of state.

The sex trafficking was widespread enough that brothel owners advertised to sex traffickers like Los Aztecas in the classified section of the newspaper PM.

“What [LJRL] is saying is not an exclusive,” said the lawyer Santiago González. “He is only corroborating what many other witnesses have said.”

Asked why no police or soldiers had been indicted as part of the proceedings against Los Aztecas, González said the evidence is only being heard for the first time.

“It’s up to the authorities what they’re going to do with that information,” he said.

“The case won’t be closed. It is a very important step, but only the first step.”

This is the first case of sex trafficking prosecuted by the office of the state’s special counsel for crimes against women, which was formed back in 2012. At this one trial, some 300 witness eventually are expected to testify.

Prisoners Have a Super PAC

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Political Action Committee that is…

There are over 1.5 million people in U.S. prisons today and with that all those people not only cost big dollars, they don’t and anything to the economic or financial engine. There is chatter at the Department of Justice to re-tool criminal sentencing and perhaps that is a good debate. Yet, discussions should also include the foreign nationals in our prisons that need to be incarcerated in home countries.

Meanwhile, when it comes to second chances, each case and individual is different for sure, so can a political action committee be the solution?

From the Center for Public Integrity:

Super PACs have been formed by journalists. By space nerds. Even comedian Stephen Colbert.

Now, for the first time, a super PAC is being masterminded from behind bars.

Adam Savader this week formed Second Chance PAC — it may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections — even though Savader himself can’t vote. That’s because Savader is serving a 30-month sentence in federal prison for cyberstalking and extortion after pleading guilty in November 2013 to the crimes.

A budding political activist who attended The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Savader had previously volunteered for the 2012 presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

Around the same time, Savader was hacking into women’s email accounts, stealing nude photos of them and threatening to publish the pictures unless they sent more, according to court filings.

Several campaign finance lawyers, normally a tough bunch to surprise, said this appears to be the first super PAC set up by a jailbird.

“That’s a new one,” Brett Kappel, a campaign finance lawyer at law firm Akerman LLP, told the Center for Public Integrity. “I’ve seen former convicted people come out of prison and run for Congress again, but never saw someone set up a committee while in prison.”

“This is a first,” said Michael Toner, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who’s now a lawyer at Wiley Rein. “I haven’t recalled this. It really does show you how omnipresent super PACs are today.”

Paperwork for Second Chance PAC lists Savader as the group’s treasurer, custodian of records and “founder / director.” It also notes the PAC doesn’t have a bank account and hasn’t yet raised money.

Second Chance PAC uses the address of a post office box in Great Neck, N.Y., which is also the address used by a municipal credit analysis company called Savader Asset Advisors, LLC.

Perry Leardi, the company’s representative of sales, confirmed the company’s chief executive officer, Mitchell Savader, is Adam Savader’s father. But Leardi said he knew nothing about Adam Savader’s super PAC.

Mitchell Savader did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Update, 8:05 p.m. Tuesday, June 30, 2015: Mitchell Savader explained by phone Tuesday evening that he helped his son set up the super PAC.

“My son has a deep belief that people who have done something wrong” should have “a true second chance,” Mitchell Savader said.

He said the point of the super PAC is to help influence legislation that would support people who have spent time in prison and are trying to start over.

The paperwork was filed just to establish the group and allow it to secure its name and email address, Mitchell Savader said. He said the group won’t engage in fundraising until after his son is released.

At that point, he said, his son plans to finish college and will work on the super PAC as a side project.)

The super PAC’s paperwork arrived at the Federal Election Commission in an envelope return addressed to Adam Savader at “Federal Correctional Institution” in New Jersey.

The Bureau of Prison’s inmate search lists Adam Savader as an inmate in Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institute, a low-security prison in New Jersey.

“We have people who set up super PACs going to prison over it, but this guy is getting out in front of it,” said Kenneth Gross, the head of the political law practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

It isn’t clear whether prison rules specifically address inmates forming political committees, and the Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to questions.

Forming a super PAC isn’t inherently difficult. Fill out and submit several pages of paperwork, mail them to the FEC, and voilá, you’re on your way.

Operating a successful super PAC is another matter: Only a small fraction of the roughly 1,000 federally registered super PACs that today exist have raised significant amounts of money, and many haven’t raised any money at all.

Savader doesn’t indicate in his super PAC paperwork what candidates or causes the committee intends to support. The FEC doesn’t require such detail, either.

Michael Soshnick, Savader’s defense attorney at the time of his guilty plea, could not immediately be reached for comment by the Center for Public Integrity.

The judge overseeing the case acknowledged Savader had mental health issues, but that they weren’t excuses for his crimes.

According to a Politico story about Savader’s sentencing, the judge agreed that working on Gingrich’s campaign was his “breaking point.”

Savader’s scheduled release date is July 27, 2016 — the week after Republicans are slated to formally nominate a presidential candidate.

This story was co-published with the Daily Beast.

Forget the Confederate Flag, Alert on Immigration!

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From the Washington Times:

The Obama administration still hasn’t fully rescinded the 2,000 three-year amnesties it wrongly issued four months ago in violation of a court order, government lawyers recently admitted in court, spurring a stern response from the judge who said the matter must be cleaned up by the end of July — or else.

It’s the latest black eye for President Obama’s amnesty policy and the immigration agency charged with carrying it out. The agency bungled the rollout, issuing three-year amnesties even while assuring the judge it had stopped all action hours after a Feb. 16 injunction.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for overseeing the amnesty, said it’s trying to round up all of the permits, sending out two-year amnesties and pleading with the illegal immigrants to return the three-year cards.

But they are having trouble getting some of the lucky recipients to send them back.

“USCIS is carefully tracking the returns of the three-year EAD cards, and many have been returned within weeks,” the agency said in a statement to The Washington Times. “USCIS continues to take steps to collect the remaining three-year EAD cards.”

The agency didn’t answer specific questions about how many remain outstanding, nor about what methods will be used to claw back the ones that folks refuse to return.

The three-year deportation amnesty was part of Mr. Obama’s November 2014 announcement when he proposed granting a three-year tentative deportation amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. It was to be a massive expansion, in both eligibility and duration, of his 2012 amnesty, which granted two-year amnesty to so-called Dreamers.

Judge Andrew S. Hanen blocked the expansion in February, issuing an injunction that remains in place even as the administration appeals it to a higher court. The next hearing on that appeal is due July 10.

But Judge Hanen was shocked to learn that USCIS issued the 2,000 three-year amnesties even after he’d issued his injunction.

“I expect you to resolve the 2,000; I’m shocked that you haven’t,” Judge Hanen told the Justice Department at a hearing last week, according to the San Antonio Express-News. “If they’re not resolved by July 31, I’m going to have to figure out what action to take.”

Homeland Security says it’s changed the duration of the work permits from three years to two years in its computer systems, but getting the cards returned from the illegal immigrants themselves is tougher.

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the lawsuit challenging the amnesty and who won the February injunction against the policy, didn’t respond to a request for comment on the outstanding permits.

Josh Blackman, an assistant professor at the South Texas College of Law, who has filed briefs in the case opposing the Obama administration’s claims, said he believes the administration is trying to comply in good faith with Judge Hanen’s order, but USCIS’s difficulties show how difficult managing the full amnesty would be.

“The entire nature of this case was that agents were given a free rein to approve as many applications as possible. DHS can’t keep track of its own agents and who’s being approved for deferrals and work authorization,” he said.

Mr. Obama announced the policy in order to circumvent Congress, which is moving the other direction away from legalization and toward a crackdown on most illegal immigrants. Read much more here if you dare.

Don’t go away mad just yet….sure there is more and Jeh Johnson is quietly very busy.

Obama administration goes for integration over deportation for illegal immigrants

Washington Post:

The Obama administration has begun a profound shift in its enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, aiming to hasten the integration of long-term illegal immigrants into society rather than targeting them for deportation, according to documents and federal officials.

In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps to ensure that the majority of America’s 11.3 million undocumented immigrants can stay in this country, with agents narrowing enforcement efforts to three groups of illegal migrants: convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border.

While public attention has been focused on the court fight over President Obama’s highly publicized executive action on immigration, DHS has with little fanfare been training thousands of immigration agents nationwide to carry out new policies on everyday enforcement.

The legal battle centers on the constitutionality of a program that would officially shield up to 5 million eligible illegal immigrants from deportation, mainly parents of children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. A federal judge put the program, known by the acronym DAPA, on hold in February after 26 states sued.
The new policies direct agents to focus on the three priority groups and leave virtually everyone else alone. Demographic data shows that the typical undocumented immigrant has lived in the United States for a decade or more and has established strong community ties.

While the new measures do not grant illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, their day-to-day lives could be changed in countless ways. Now, for instance, undocumented migrants say they are so afraid to interact with police, for fear of being deported, that they won’t report crimes and often limit their driving to avoid possible traffic stops. The new policies, if carried out on the ground, could dispel such fears, advocates for immigrants say.


Deportations, for example, are dropping. The Obama administration is on pace to remove 229,000 people from the country this year, a 27 percent fall from last year and nearly 50 percent less than the all-time high in 2012.

Fewer people are also in the pipeline for deportation. The number of occupied beds at immigration detention facilities, which house people arrested for immigration violations, have dropped nearly 20 percent this year.

And on Johnson’s orders, officials are reviewing the entire immigrant detainee population — and each of the 400,000 cases in the nation’s clogged immigration courts — to weed out those who don’t meet the new priorities. About 3,000 people have been released from custody or had their immigration cases dropped, DHS officials said. There is more found here.

Now you can channel your anger where it needs to go, the White House, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.

Don’t shoot the messenger. ;~)