Billion$ Leave the U.S. by Immigrants

Ah, but all those immigrants in our country today are here with families right? Not so much. Further, wide debates circle around re-patrioting U.S. currency stashed in foreign countries, but can that really happen or keep pace with what foreign nationals are sending out of the country? We are talking billions here. They are pointing to Mexicans, but there should be a real challenge, are they all really Mexicans? How much is terror money or narco-dollars?

Imagine if the Mexicans are doing this, then are the militant Islamic factions that support Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad doing the same thing? Combine these dollars with those that are own federal government is doing at the behest of the White House, the State Department, USAID and secret grants. The Palestinians are hostile to Israel and the United States but the Federal government sends them billions. The Obama administration supported militants in Gaza, not to mention Hezbollah.

If Mexico was not a failed state, then why the billions in just the cooperative agreement called the Merida Initiative?

Mexicans in U.S. sent home $5.7 billion in remittances in first 3 months of 2015

Mexican living in the United States sent $5.7 billion in remittances back home in the first three months of 2015 alone, the highest amount of money sent to the country by expats since 2008, Banco de Mexico reported.

The amount of money that Mexicans living abroad sent to their family and friends back home between January and March of 2015 is 5 percent higher than it was in the same period last year, with remittances in March increasing 7.6 percent to $2.26 billion.

This averages out to each Mexican family living in the U.S. sending around $312 back to Mexico in March – or around $9 more than in March of 2014. The only time this number was higher was in July 2012, when Mexican families sent home an average of $314 that month.

“We hope that the slight increase in remittances in 2015 gives a brighter indication for growth and employment in the U.S. perspective,” said Alberto Ramos, an economist at Goldman Sachs report, according to Univision.

Ramos added that “a weaker Mexican peso and low domestic inflation increase the real purchasing power in local currency remittance flows.”

Banco de Mexico reported that 97 percent of remittances to the country came from the United States, with the other 3 percent coming from Canada, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Spain. The U.S. states where the majority of remittances came from were California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Georgia and New York.

Some 11 million Mexicans live in the United States and many of them work in the construction sector. In this economic context, remittances are the main source of foreign exchange in Mexico, after oil and foreign direct investment, and also represent a vital income for millions of people.

 

Obama, Tattle-Tail Runs to UN on Law Enforcement

Obama and his previous and current U.S. Attorney General at the Department of Justice are on an alarming mission to destroy law enforcement across the United States, calling their work violations of human rights. Obama has chosen to whine about police departments in America to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Really? Is he asking for the United Nations to apply sanctions to our law enforcement?

The UN Security Council is and never has been a judge of Human Rights where countries like Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syria are omitted from his diatribe and are ignored by the UN as well.

Anyone remember Hamas using children as human shields during the last round of hostilities in Gaza?

Congress has stopped Barack Obama from transferring Guantanamo detainees and closing the facility while the White House has been sneaky and doing transfers and trades without advising Congress. Barack Obama is working to stop all death penalty sentences in America but he says little about sex trafficking, known slavery by other countries and worse he has no interest in protecting the slaughter of Jews and Christians in the Middle East.

Obama’s twisted logic is to report what he considers misguided adherence to law to the United Nations inviting other countries to participate our domestic debates. Simply stated, Barack Obama is deferring oversight of our justice and legal system to an international corrupt institution.

Remember that ‘red-line’ Obama declared on the use of chemical weapons in Syria? Crickets as Syria continues to use chlorine barrel bombs against citizens. Is there any doubt that Obama really does hate America? Shameful…

Obama Admin Apologizes to U.N. for American Cops

Promises to prosecute those who “wilfully use excessive force.”

The Obama administration apologized Monday to the United Nation’s Human Rights Council for American law enforcement personnel whom it described as “willfully us[ing] excessive force,” at times with racist motivation. In its defense of its handling of the issue, the administration touts prosecuting over 400 law-enforcement officials and committing itself to take down those found guilty in the future.

The Associated Press reports that the U.N. human rights council—which includes dozens of countries with deplorable human rights records—voiced “widespread concern” about unjust practices by American police. The Obama administration responded by vowing to “rededicate” itself to ensuring that “our civil-rights laws live up to their promise” and touting its punishment of out-of-control personnel:

“We must rededicate ourselves to ensuring that our civil-rights laws live up to their promise,” Justice Department official James Cadogan told delegates, adding that that is particularly important in the area of police practices and pointing to recent high-profile cases of officers killing unarmed black residents.

“These events challenge us to do better and to work harder for progress through both dialogue and action,” he said at the session’s opening. He added that the government has the authority to prosecute officials who “willfully use excessive force,” and that criminal charges have been brought against more than 400 law-enforcement officials in the past six years.

The council presented calls for changes to other U.S. policies, including abolishing the death penalty, curbing NSA surveillance programs, and closing Guantanamo Bay.

Administration officials responded with the standard non-answers. On execution, Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Bitkower explained that the “controversy” over executions in America was an ongoing “extensive debate.” As for U.S intelligence gathering, Bitkower vaguely defended the programs by saying they are “subject to stringent and multilayered oversight mechanisms.”

As for the call to close Gitmo, Brig. Gen. Richard Gross said President Obama has called shutting down Gitmo a “national imperative” and remains committed to the cause despite being thwarted by Congress. The remaining inmates after Obama’s transfer of many in recent years, the administration maintained, were all there legally.

The U.S. human rights review was part of the “Universal Periodic Reviews” of U.N. members. The reviews occur every four years. This is the second such review for the U.S, the last occurring in 2010.

Senator McCaskill Leads Charge to Federalize Police

Due to the countless unrest and destruction in American cities in recent months, police departments across the country have been challenged to restore order. The ‘Occupier’ movement still exists today as well as concocted riots in towns like Ferguson, Seattle and Baltimore. Yet one component is missing from the growing threat conditions and must not be overlooked and that is ‘soft-targets’ as we have seen at the Boston bombing, Garland, Texas and even Moore, Oklahoma. Those locations experienced aggressions and death at the hands of militant Islamists and more are expected as told by James Comey, Director of the FBI.

Law enforcement and the FBI as well as the Department of Homeland Security do not broadcast their work and investigations into cases they have pending while we know without dispute militant terrorists currently in the country are plotting attacks including more destructive bombings which was the case with John Booker in Kansas.

So why would Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduce legislation that further weakens police and first responders to threats that include IED’s, trucks with laden explosives or soft targets that could be rigged with ambush conditions? Sure, there may be extreme cases where providing law enforcement with military gear may be over the top, previous cases often prove their value. Former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell spoke this week on the never-ending threat of enemies such as al Qaeda still have the objective and ability to blow planes out of the sky or just as they land at a domestic airport.

WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service)The Fraternal Order of Police, the world’s largest organization of law enforcement officers, is objecting to parts of Sen. Claire McCaskill’s bill coordinating federal programs on the use of surplus military equipment and other aid to local police departments.

McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced her bill last week as an answer to police “militarization” claims made in the response to unrest in Ferguson last summer after the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Read more here.

The bill also would bar small police departments those with fewer than 10 sworn officers from purchasing more than one military tactical vehicle. Departments with fewer than 35 officers would not able to obtain federal funding for SWAT equipment unless they teamed up with other agencies to form regional SWAT teams. Hotlines would be set up to receive reports from the public on the misuse of funds and equipment, and police departments would have to publish their requests for grant funding for certain equipment, such as tactical vehicles, camouflage, flash bang grenades and weapons over a certain caliber.

Money would be set aside to fund body cameras, dashboard cameras, gun cameras, and to cover the costs of maintenance and storage of footage. And local law enforcement agencies would have to meet additional requirements for training and data collection in order to qualify for federal grants and equipment.

There is some reasonable debate that law enforcement has already been militarized by virtue of Federal money supporting police across the country. Money has power and dictates rules of engagement. On top of that, mayors and governors have the ability through their own executive orders to order up the National Guard to patrol streets in towns where riots and destruction such as Baltimore.

At issue as well is just what does the Department of Defense do with surplus equipment no longer of use in a war theater? If there is no will to have ground operations in locations across the globe to defeat enemies such as al Nusra, Islamic State, Boko Haram or al Qaeda and air power is the tactic of choice then where do MRAP’s go?

In cases beyond domestic terror conditions, what about an earthquake in Texas that may require dynamic use of some of this equipment, or an attack on a power plant that happened a couple of years ago in California? Minneapolis is a hotbed of Somalis that are inspired by Boko Haram and Islamic State, is the Mall of America the next Nairobi mall target that killed 68 people in 2013?

Islamic State has effectively recruited and inspired an unknown quantity of soldiers in America, do you know their future targets? Is law enforcement prepared for those threats? Are you prepared?

How DID Obama Corrupt ICE Procedures?

‘Immigration and Naturalization Services has/had been in effect since the 1950’s using a program called Secure Communities. (But not anymore)

Secure Communities is a simple and common sense way to carry out ICE’s priorities. It uses an already-existing federal information-sharing partnership between ICE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that helps to identify criminal aliens without imposing new or additional requirements on state and local law enforcement. For decades, local jurisdictions have shared the fingerprints of individuals who are arrested or booked into custody with the FBI to see if they have a criminal record. Under Secure Communities, the FBI automatically sends the fingerprints to DHS to check against its immigration databases. If these checks reveal that an individual is unlawfully present in the United States or otherwise removable due to a criminal conviction, ICE takes enforcement action – prioritizing the removal of individuals who present the most significant threats to public safety as determined by the severity of their crime, their criminal history, and other factors – as well as those who have repeatedly violated immigration laws.

‘The Obama Administration’s announcement on November 20, 2014, that it is replacing the Secure Communities program with a new Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) may moot certain questions, since detainers are to be used differently with PEP than with Secure Communities.’

With little fanfare or media reporting, this termination of one program for the sake of another has proven to be a major threat to national security as directed by the Department of Homeland Security where detainers are solely at the discretion of conditions that no one understands including judges hearing cases. In short however, those being detained by ICE are the worst of the worst and time is against ICE due in part of a 48 hour detention limitation where all background investigation evidence must be attached. Sounds simple, but it is hardly simple or easy at all. Felons, not families, criminals not children, gangs not traffickers of narcotics. Even Secretary of DHS, Jeh Johnson signed a memo that this new White House operation failed.

Then there is a major question of which agency has custody of those detained. What? Does it really matter? Just the facts……

Some have also suggested that a federal regulation—which provides that law enforcement agencies receiving immigration detainers “shall maintain custody of the alien for a period [generally] not to exceed 48 hours”—means that states and localities are required to hold aliens for ICE. Prior versions of Form I-247 may also have been construed as requiring compliance with detainers. However, in its recent decision in Galarza v. Szalczyk, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the

Third Circuit rejected this view. Instead, it adopted the same interpretation of the regulation that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has advanced, construing it as prescribing the maximum period of any detention pursuant to a detainer, rather than mandating detention.

In addition, questions have been raised about who has custody of aliens subject to detainers, and whether the detainer practices of state, local, and/or federal governments impinge upon aliens’ constitutional rights. Answers to these questions may depend upon the facts and circumstances of particular cases. For example, courts have found that the filing of a detainer, in itself, does not result in an alien being in federal custody, although aliens could be found to be in federal custody if they are subject to final orders of removal. Similarly, holding an alien pursuant to a detainer when there is not probable cause to believe the alien is removable could be distinguished from holding an alien when there is probable cause, or when the alien is subject to a removal order.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) emphasized that it prioritized “criminal aliens,” those who posed a threat to public safety, and repeat immigration violators for removal through Secure Communities,6and the former Director of ICE further instructed that, among “criminal aliens,” the focus was to be upon those convicted of “aggravated felonies,” as defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA); those convicted of other felonies; and those convicted of three or more misdemeanors.

*** So all this begs new questions yet to be addressed. Exactly where did those crime occur and who has that information with regard to those immigrants now in the U.S. illegally? How bad were those crimes? What names were used or have since been changed? Syria, Iraq, China, Pakistan…do any of these countries have historical records on people that they are providing to ICE, Border Patrol, the FBI or the State Department? Facts say no. How many Mohammad’s are now Jose?

Just this past November, the Barack Obama attached his name to a FACT SHEET for accountability Executive Action. Here is the ‘eye-roll’.

The President’s Immigration Accountability Executive Actions will help secure the border, hold nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants accountable, and ensure that everyone plays by the same rules.  Acting within his legal authority, the President is taking an important step to fix our broken immigration system.

These executive actions crack down on illegal immigration at the border, prioritize deporting felons not families, and require certain undocumented immigrants to pass a criminal background check and pay their fair share of taxes as they register to temporarily stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation.

These are common sense steps, but only Congress can finish the job. As the President acts, he’ll continue to work with Congress on a comprehensive, bipartisan bill—like the one passed by the Senate more than a year ago—that can replace these actions and fix the whole system.

Three critical elements of the President’s executive actions are:

Cracking Down on Illegal Immigration at the Border:  The President’s actions increase the chances that anyone attempting to cross the border illegally will be caught and sent back. Continuing the surge of resources that effectively reduced the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border illegally this summer, the President’s actions will also centralize border security command-and-control to continue to crack down on illegal immigration.
Deporting Felons, Not Families: The President’s actions focus on the deportation of people who threaten national security and public safety. He has directed immigration enforcement to place anyone suspected of terrorism, violent criminals, gang members, and recent border crossers at the top of the deportation priority list.
Accountability – Criminal Background Checks and Taxes: The President is also acting to hold accountable those undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for more than five years and are parents of U.S. citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents.  By registering and passing criminal and national security background checks, millions of undocumented immigrants will start paying their fair share of taxes and temporarily stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation for three years at a time.
The President’s actions will also streamline legal immigration to boost our economy and will promote naturalization for those who qualify. Read the full fact sheet here.

 

 

 

Is Jimmy Carter Still Relevant? Yes, for Iran

Hamas was placed on the U.S. terror list in 1997. Since 2009, Jimmy Carter has been calling for Hamas to be removed. The European Union from Hamas from their terror list in late December of 2014. Does anyone remember the dead U.S. Marines?

Seems that this past March, Obama forced ODNI Chief James Clapper to either fully remove Hamas from the U.S. list of terror organizations or to re-classify them to some other status. Clapper presented an annual report titled the “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community’. This also includes Hezbollah.

The  2015 report only mentions Hezbollah once, and it’s in passing.

Still, we should note that the 2015 report hardly lets Iran off the hook. The report accuses Iran of:

• “Preserving (the) nuclear weapons option,”

Remaining “an ongoing threat to US national interests because of its support to the Asad regime in Syria, promulgation of anti-Israeli policies, development of advanced military capabilities, and pursuit of its nuclear program,”

• “Pursuing policies with negative secondary consequences for regional stability and potentially for Iran,”

• And pursuing actions to protect and empower Shia communities that “are fueling growing fears and sectarian responses.”

Administration officials cautioned against over-reading the choices made in Clapper’s written report.

“There is no change in the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of the threat posed by Iran or Hezbollah,” said Brian P. Hale, the director of public affairs in the office of the director of national intelligence. The report, Hale said, “was written to be an overview of top threats. … There were a lot of topics to consider this year — ISIL, cyber, Ukraine-Russia, etc. Iran was included, too.”

Hale added that Clapper fleshed out the national-security concerns about Iran and Hezbollah during testimony at the Senate hearing. Responding to a question from Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., Clapper cited several entities linked to Iran, including Hezbollah, as methods for Iran to use as “a physical manifestation of their spreading their influence in the region.”

And Nick Rasmussen — director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the principal adviser to Clapper’s office on intelligence operations and counterterrorism analysis — testified on Feb. 12 that “beyond their role in Syria and Iraq, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah remain committed to conducting terrorist activities worldwide, and we are concerned their activities could either endanger or target U.S. and other Western interests.”

Iran is asking and graciously receiving gifts at the hands of the White House and from John Kerry, Secretary of State. The Iran talks over their nuclear program is producing nothing for the West but everything for Iran.

Former US President Jimmy Carter calls post-war situation in the Gaza Strip ‘intolerable’

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says eight months after a bloody war in the Gaza Strip that the situation there is “intolerable.”

Carter’s delegation called off a planned visit to Gaza earlier this week, giving no explanation. Speaking Saturday, Carter says he is still determined to work for a Palestinian state. But he lamented that “not one destroyed house has been rebuilt” in Gaza since the war.

Carter, 90, visited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas but was shunned by Israeli leaders who long have considered him hostile to the Jewish state.

Although he brokered the first Israeli-Arab peace treaty during his presidency, Carter outraged many Israelis with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” He’s also repeatedly reached out to Gaza’s Islamic Hamas leaders, considered terrorists by much of the West.

Jimmy Carter and Abbas Call for Fatah-Hamas Elections

Pro-Hamas ex-president calls for joint Hamas-Fatah elections in Ramallah after canceling Gaza stop, in bid to save floundering ‘unity.’

Jimmy Carter on Saturday urged Palestinian Arabs to hold elections to end the rapidly growing fierce enmity between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in Judea and Samaria.

He was speaking at a joint news conference with PA president Mahmoud Abbas in the PA’s governmental seat of Ramallah in Samaria, after cancelling his stop in Gaza where he was supposed to meet top Hamas terrorists such as Ismail Haniyeh.

“We hope that sometime we’ll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank,” said Carter, a member of the independent Elders Group of global leaders.

His reference to eastern Jerusalem comes despite the fact the area is part of Israel, having been annexed after the Jewish state liberated the eastern part of the ancient Jewish capital during the 1967 Six Day War.

No Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections have been held in over a decade, even though Abbas’s term in office expired in January 2009.

In 2006, a year after Abbas was elected, Hamas overwhelmingly won the most recent PLC elections. A year afterwards, Hamas violently ousted Abbas’s Fatah faction from Gaza and seized control.

Despite the rivals signing a reconciliation agreement a year ago, Hamas is reluctant to hand over power in Gaza to an independent PA unity government the two formed.

As noted Carter had also planned to go to Gaza, but the visit was cancelled at the last moment.

He said it would be “very important” for “full implementation of the agreement reached between Hamas and Fatah.”

Carter was accompanied by Norway’s former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

She said that despite not being able to visit the Hamas terrorist stronghold of Gaza, “we have had a chance to discuss with people who know the issues in Gaza.”

The Elders Group said ahead of the trip by Carter and Brundtland that they were visiting “in a renewed push to promote the two-state solution and to address the root causes of the conflict.”

Ahead of Carter’s three-day visit, both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin said they will refuse to meet him due to his blatant anti-Israel and pro-Hamas stance.

During Operation Protective Edge last summer, a counter-terror operation undertaken after Hamas launched a terror war with thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilian centers and attacks via terror tunnels, Carter urged the US to remove Hamas from its terror list.

He said at the time there is “no justification in the world for what Israel is doing,” castigating the IDF for its defensive efforts while not offering any condemnation of Hamas’s countless terrorist attacks on civilian populations launched from civilian centers.

Hamas is currently rebuilding its capabilities to attack Israel, digging attack tunnels around the clock and developing new rockets, even as Israel ships in massive amounts of building materials being used to reconstruct the tunnels.