Category Archives: FBI

DoJ: Enforcing the Law is Discrimination

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Related reading: Report: U.S. Spent $1.87 Billion to Incarcerate Illegal-Immigrant Criminals in 2014 Read more at

Justice Dept.: Firing migrant workers with expired papers is discrimination

WashingtonExaminer: The Justice Department released a video this week encouraging companies not to terminate immigrants after their employment authorization expires, and indicated that doing so is a form of discrimination.

The video is shot in a dimly lit office, where two actors discuss whether their fictional company should let go of some Salvadoran employees who have failed to provide updated paperwork on their immigration status.

After a discussion about whether retaining the workers would violate the law, a woman says, “I think this is an exception to that rule,” and recommends that they contact the the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices before making any decisions.

“We want to follow the rules but we don’t want to lose these workers or discriminate against them,” she concludes. “They are too valuable.”

The video then tells viewers that the federal government has extended employment authorization by six months for people from El Salvador with Temporary Protected Status, a benefit designed to help foreign nationals who are considered unable to safely return to their home.

The Justice Department claims requesting additional work-authorization documents from these workers may violate a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) designed to protect individuals from excessive employer demands based on their nationality.

“The Justice Department is firmly committed to protecting the rights of all work-authorized immigrants and ensuring that employers do not engage in unlawful discrimination,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement upon the video’s release on Thursday.

Related reading: Read the report on Obama Executive Action Removals Executive Action-Removals-SCOMM

MigrationPolicy: While much of the attention to the Obama administration’s announcement of executive actions on immigration in November 2014 has focused on key deferred action programs, two changes that have not faced legal challenge are in the process of being implemented and may substantially affect the U.S. immigration enforcement system. These changes include the adoption by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of new policy guidance on which categories of unauthorized immigrants and other potentially removable noncitizens are priorities for enforcement, and the replacement of the controversial Secure Communities information-sharing program with a new, more tailored Priority Enforcement Program (PEP).

The new policy guidance, which builds on previous memoranda published by the Obama administration in 2010 and 2011, further targets enforcement to noncitizens who have been convicted of serious crimes, are threats to public safety, are recent illegal entrants, or have violated recent deportation orders. MPI estimates that about 13 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the United States would be considered enforcement priorities under these policies, compared to 27 percent under the 2010-11 enforcement guidelines. The net effect of this new guidance will likely be a reduction in deportations from within the interior of the United States as DHS detention and deportation resources are increasingly allocated to more explicitly defined priorities.

By comparing the new enforcement priorities to earlier DHS removal data, this report estimates that the 2014 policy guidance, if strictly adhered to, is likely to reduce deportations from within the United States by about 25,000 cases annually—bringing interior removals below the 100,000 mark. Removals at the U.S.-Mexico border remain a top priority under the 2014 guidelines, so falling interior removals may be offset to some extent by increases at the border.

Taking the enforcement focus off settled unauthorized immigrants who do not meet the November 2014 enforcement priorities would effectively offer a degree of protection to the vast majority—87 percent—of unauthorized immigrants now residing in the United States, thus affecting a substantially larger share of this population than the announced deferred action programs (9.6 million compared to as many as 5.2 million unauthorized immigrants).

This report analyzes how many unauthorized immigrants fall within each of the new priority categories and how implementation of these priorities could affect the number of deportations from the United States, as well as what the termination of Secure Communities and launch of PEP could mean for federal cooperation with state and local authorities on immigration.

Iran Evaded Sanctions with Venezuela’s Help

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New evidence Iran evaded sanctions, continued nuclear weapons development with Venezuela

ForeignNewsDesk: New evidence suggests Iran received help from Venezuela with its nuclear program despite a decade of U.N.-mandated sanctions aimed at curbing the rouge regime’s controversial nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

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A 2009 document obtained by Brazil’s leading weekly, Veja magazine, shows late dictator President Hugo Chavez signing off on the release of funds to help Iran with its nuclear ambitions.

Specifically, the document states the funds were to be designated for the import of equipment for a gunpowder factory and the development of production plants for nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, elements used in rocket propulsion for Iran’s government. There is also the suggestion that Chavez may have helped Iran produce rocket motors.

The document provides written proof that Iran successfully continued with its weapons-building program, circumventing what were perceived as ‘watertight’ sanctions.

The revelation comes as Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is currently touring South America visiting Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador Nicaragua and Venezuela, in what Iranian officials have billed as a “new chapter” in strengthening political and economic ties between Iran and South American countries.

“In my line of work, I can’t believe in coincidences. I can’t believe that $400 million was given to Iran in cash and now Zarif is running through Latin America. The Iranian regime understands that in Latin America corruption can be used to their advantage,” said Joseph M. Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, who points to the long-standing relationship between Venezuela and Hezbollah, Iran’s terror proxy.

Humire is also the co-editor of Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America.

“Latin America is Hezbollah’s biggest cash cow. It would make sense that this is a very strategic visit by Zarif to continue some of Iran’s previous activities which were challenged because of sanctions,” Humire said, adding that Hezbollah has been deeply involved in drug trafficking in Latin America to offset any financial hardship brought about by the sanctions.

As a member state of the United Nations, Venezuela was obliged to cooperate with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747 that unanimously called for a ban on arm sales to the Islamic republic.

But uncertainties were already high in 2009 when Turkey intercepted a suspicious shipment from Iran to Venezuela containing 22 containers of lab equipment capable of producing explosives but was labelled as “tractor parts.”

Humire, who has long analyzed Iran’s involvement in Latin America has studied twenty different transactions between the two countries in several areas, finding that even those dealings considered legal, were problematic due to the “dual use” that they could present.

“Iran’s secretive military programs go far beyond violating sanctions. It has to do with providing military and industrial support in these countries,” Humire said.

“At the far end of that, you can begin to speculate they are beginning to develop military assets.”

In a 2011 hearing at the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, then head of U.S. Southern command General Douglas Fraser told the committee that the U.S. was concerned about weekly flights between Venezuela and Iran dubbed the “Axis of Evil Express,” that could potentially be used to transport terrorists and weapons.

“My concern, as I look at it, is the fact that there are flights between Iran and Venezuela on a weekly basis, and visas are not required for entrance into Venezuela or Bolivia or Nicaragua,” Fraser told the hearing.

Another discrepancy in Iran’s investments in Venezuela, according to Humire, is considering that if the Iranian regime was after economic growth, they would go to “viable countries like Brazil, Colombia, not the ones that are broke, particularly with the heavy instability in Venezuela.”

Congress knows:

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FBI is Holding Internet Class, Who Will Be There?

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Related reading: Child Predators The Online Threat Continues to Grow

Take the Safe Online Surfing Internet Challenge

Available Soon for 2016-2017 School Year

What do more than 870,000 students across the nation have in common?

Since 2012, they have all completed the FBI’s Safe Online Surfing (SOS) Internet Challenge. Available through a free website at https://sos.fbi.gov, this initiative promotes cyber citizenship by teaching students in third through eighth grades how to recognize and respond to online dangers through a series of fun, interactive activities.

Anyone can visit the website and learn all about cyber safety, but teachers must sign up their school to enable their students to take the exam and participate in the national competition. Once enrolled, teachers are given access to a secure webpage to enroll their students (anonymously, by numeric test keys) and request their test scores. E-mail customer support is also provided. Top-scoring schools each month are recognized by their local FBI field office when possible. All public, private, and home schools with at least five students are welcome to participate.

Now entering its fifth season, the FBI-SOS program has seen increased participation each year. From September 2015 through May 2016, nearly a half-million students nationwide finished the activities and took the exam. We look forward to even more young people completing the program in the school year ahead. The challenge begins September 1.

Kids Gathered around laptop for Safe Online Surfing Challenge.

The FBI’s Safe Online Surfing (SOS) Internet Challenge for students in third through eighth grades is available at https://sos.fbi.gov.

 

ChicagoTribune: The smartphone is the teen’s conduit to the digital world. But it’s a conduit that runs both directions. Smartphones give bad people unfiltered access to good kids. Sexual predators, pornographers, cyberbullies and scammers can reach out to children without fear of parent intervention, because teens rarely tell their parents who they are talking to or what they are doing online.

But parents are no longer helpless to defend against these digital dangers. Over one million parents have turned to TeenSafe to help them monitor their child’s cell phone activity – without their child even knowing it. Now you can know if your child has been contacted by a sexual predator or has been duped into sexting. Here are five ways that TeenSafe can help you protect your children from digital dangers.

  1. Monitor their text messages – even deleted messages. TeenSafe allows you to read all sent, received and deleted SMS and iMessages without touching your teen’s phone. Just log into your TeenSafe account to access your child’s data.
  2. Track their incoming and outgoing calls. Your TeenSafe subscription gives you access to your teen’s call logs, including contact name, number, date and duration of the call.
  3. Monitor their social media. View your teen’s Instagram posts, read comments and see who’s following your teen with TeenSafe. You can also view their activity on Whatsapp, Kik and Tinder.
  4. Review their browser history. TeenSafe makes it easy for you to see what sites your teen has visited, which ones they’ve bookmarked and who their contacts are.
  5. Follow their phone. TeenSafe can help you monitor your teen in the real world as well as the digital world. You can see the cell phone’s current location on a map, as well as a history of the phone’s location.

USA Today is an advocate of TeenSafe, reporting that “TeenSafe has kept teens out of dangerous situations.” The Memphis affiliate of NBC calls TeenSafe “the ultimate app for preventing cyberbullying.” The TeenSafe app can be downloaded directly to your phone, and is free with your subscription.

Short of taking away your teen’s smartphone, TeenSafe is the best way for parents to protect their children from a growing number of digital dangers.

Report: Terror in Canada and Ease of Access to America

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See the 32 page report here.

TORONTO — Canada’s “principal terrorist threat” comes from those inspired by extremist ideologies to conduct attacks, the government said Thursday in its latest update on the security challenges facing the country.

Released by Pubic Safety Minister Ralph Goodale just over two weeks after a failed ISIL-inspired suicide bombing in Ontario, the report said ISIL and its sibling al-Qaida “continue to appeal to certain individuals in Canada.”

Some promote violence online, radicalize their peers, recruit and fundraise, it said. “Others may consider travelling abroad to join a terrorist group or conducting terrorist attacks themselves,” said the 2016 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada.

As of the end of 2015, about 180 “individuals with a nexus to Canada” were suspected of participating in terrorist activities overseas, up from 130 the previous year, it said. More than half were thought to be in Turkey, Iraq or Syria.

About 20 per cent of Canada’s extremist travellers were women, the report said, adding that in Syria the women were not only serving as brides but were also training and fighting in some cases. Some have brought their children with them.

The report again raised questions about how authorities are dealing with the dozens of returnees — those who are back in Canada after taking part in overseas terrorism. The government was aware of about 60 such people.

It said they could use their “skills, experience and relationships” to recruit or plan attacks in Canada, noting that the recent terror killings in Paris and Brussels were carried out by former ISIL fighters who had returned to Europe.

But while the report said returnees could cause “serious security concerns for their home countries,” none of those who have come back to Canada from Syria and Iraq have been charged with terrorism offences. One who returned to Canada after being injured went back to fight with ISIL once he had healed in Windsor, Ont.

“Canadians can be assured that the RCMP is carefully monitoring these individuals who have returned to Canada as it is a top priority,” said Scott Bardsley, Goodale’s press secretary. He said the government was using “a number of tools,” including passport revocations.

The Canadian government has been struggling to deal with ex-foreign fighters since the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980s and ’90s, said Larry Brooks, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service counter-terrorism official.

The central problem is proving to the satisfaction of a Canadian judge that someone had engaged in terrorism in a foreign country, particularly the lawless ones where terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIL are based, he said.

“It’s tremendously difficult to collect credible evidence that would satisfy a Canadian court for prosecution,” said Brooks, who was the operational manager of the CSIS investigation of the Toronto 18. “The challenges are significant.”

He said Crown attorneys were also reluctant to prosecute. “Nobody likes to lose a case but federal prosecutors seem to be loath to do anything but an open and shut, iron case.” But he also said prosecution might not be the best option for some returnees.

Canada is fundamentally a safe and peaceful nation, but we are not naive about the security issues that dominate the world’s attention

Twenty people have been convicted of terrorism offences since 2002, the report said. Another 21 have been charged and are either awaiting trial or are wanted on outstanding warrants. Several of those wanted are believed to be dead.

Militant video via AP

Militant video via APFoued Mohammed-Aggad, a Frenchman who was among the Islamic State fighters to attack Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, appears in an undated propaganda video. He had been among a group of 10 men from Strasbourg who joined the extremists in 2013, most of them acknowledging they knew little about Islamic Shariah law.

The annual public update on terrorist threats was launched by the previous Conservatives but no report was issued last year, and this was the first under the Trudeau government. Goodale has been under pressure to reassure Canadians on his government’s response to terrorism since the Aug. 10 police killing of an ISIL supporter in Strathroy, Ont.

Although he was the subject of a terrorism peace bond, Aaron Driver built a homemade bomb and recorded a martyrdom video saying his planned attack was a response to ISIL’s call for “jihadi in the lands of the crusaders.”

The FBI notified the RCMP about the video and Driver was quickly put under surveillance. Confronted by a police tactical team after he got into a taxi outside his house, the 24-year-old tried to detonate a bomb in his backpack and was shot dead.

“Canada is fundamentally a safe and peaceful nation, but we are not naive about the security issues that dominate the world’s attention,” Goodale said in a foreword to the report. Canada’s threat level is at medium, meaning an attack “could occur.”

Aside from ISIL and al-Qaida, the report singled out Hezbollah as a particular threat to Canadian interests and noted the Lebanese terror group was “supported by” Iran and “remains one of the world’s most capable terrorist groups.”

“Hezbollah has networks around the world, including in Canada, and uses the networks for recruitment, fundraising and procurement. Hezbollah terrorist operations abroad represent a threat to Canadian interests.”

Report: How Obama Took Apart Immigration Enforcement

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President Obama’s Record of Dismantling Immigration Enforcement

FAIR:

The Obama administration’s strategy is to count on the fact that the public and the media will not take notice of each individual and incremental step they are taking to undermine immigration enforcement and grant de facto amnesty to as many illegal aliens as possible. This report exposes the strategy and the policy objectives behind it.

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This report details how the Obama administration has carried out a policy of de facto amnesty for millions of illegal aliens through executive policy decisions. Since 2009, the Obama administration has systematically gutted effective immigration enforcement policies, moved aggressively against State and local governments that attempt to enforce immigration laws, and stretched the concept of “prosecutorial discretion” to a point where it has rendered many immigration laws meaningless. Remarkably, the administration has succeeded in doing all this without much protest from Congress.

Thus, despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution grants Congress plenary authority over immigration policy, the Executive Branch is now making immigration policy unconstrained by constitutional checks and balances.

This report chronologically highlights the process that has unfolded over Obama’s presidency. A review of the Obama administration’s record shows:

• The administration’s conscious effort to end policies that effectively enforce and deter illegal immigration. This includes the cessation of meaningful worksite enforcement against employers who hire illegal aliens and the removal of the illegal workers. It also includes ending effective partnership programs with state and local governments, such as the 287(g) program, that provide a structure through which state and local agencies may enforce immigration laws.

• The administration’s intimidation of State and local governments determined to enforce federal immigration laws. President Obama has turned the Department of Justice into the administration’s attack dog, filing lawsuits against states that pass their own immigration enforcement laws. When lawsuits fail, the Department’s Civil Rights division launches meritless investigations designed to harass local governments and officials who attempt to enforce the law.

The administration’s brazen efforts to grant amnesty to illegal aliens through executive fiat. First, ahead of his 2012 reelection bid, President Obama created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an amnesty program for so-called DREAMers that granted deferral from deportation and work authorization.

Then, after winning reelection, President Obama teamed up with the Gang of Eight to ram a mass amnesty guest worker bill through Congress despite the overwhelming objections from the American people. After that effort failed, President Obama claimed he had even more executive power—despite saying 22 times he did not—and expanded DACA and created the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), an executive amnesty program for the illegal alien parents of citizen children.

• The administration’s dependence on illegal alien advocates to make U.S. immigration policy for the Executive Branch. President Obama has placed strident amnesty advocates in key positions throughout his administration. These appointees have worked openly with advocacy groups to shape a series of policies that amount to backdoor amnesty.

• Outright deception on the part of the administration designed to convince the American public that immigration laws are being vigorously enforced. The Obama administration repeatedly engages in efforts to inflate its record of deporting illegal aliens. These deceptive practices include the release of data that is later exposed to be inaccurate. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security carefully select data to claim that our “borders are more secure than ever,” even as violence along the southern border escalates to alarming proportions.

Continue here where the timeline begins in full summary. This 98 page report is comprehensive and is a stellar job by FAIR, The Federal for American Immigration Reform.

Explore the Videos  in this Series, by Topic
UAM BORDER SURGE
SUING THE STATES
FAILURE TO SECURE THE BORDER
DECLINE IN WORKSITE ENFORCEMENT
EXECUTIVE AMNESTY
DEPORTATION DECEPTION