Category Archives: Gangs and Crimes

SCOTUS in the Blame for the Death of Kate Steinle

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The Supreme Court in July of 2001 rendered a decision that is a ghost haunting the halls of the Department of Justice today when it comes to immigration. When it comes to words, they matter and ‘may’ versus ‘shall’ has been exploited by the Obama administration.

God rest the souls of all those with Kate Steinle

There was a case titled Zadvydas v. Davis where the court ruled that forced the release of criminal aliens after 90 days under the guise of ‘indefinite detention’.

The Supreme Court did not agree with the government’s interpretation of the statute and felt that, as applied, the statute violated aliens’ constitutional rights to due process. The Court took issue with what it believed to be the “indefinite detention” of Zadvydas and Ma (despite the fact that the government continued to search for a place to deport the aliens during the post-90-day period). In a close 5-4 decision, the Court held that it could not find “any clear indication of congressional intent to grant the Attorney General the power to hold indefinitely in confinement an alien ordered removed.”8 The Court then decided to “construe the statute to contain an implicit ‘reasonable time’ limitation.”9 Clearly, on its face, the statute requires no such limitations. The Court explained their construction:

“The government points to the statute’s word, ‘may.’ But while ‘may’ suggests discretion, it does not necessarily suggest unlimited discretion. In that respect the word ‘may’ is ambiguous. Indeed, if Congress had meant to authorize long-term detention of unremovable aliens, it certainly could have spoken in clearer terms.”

How Zadvydas Puts Foreign Powers in Control of U.S. Immigration Policy. One of the arguments for the political branches’ plenary power over immigration involves a focus on foreign affairs. That issue was a factor in the Zadvydas decision. Under the Constitution, it is the executive and legislative branches that direct foreign policy matters. This ensures that the U.S. relations with other countries are consistent and reliable. As explained by the dissenting justices in Zadvydas: “judicial orders requiring release of removable aliens, even on a temporary basis, have the potential to undermine the obvious necessity that the Nation speak with one voice on immigration and foreign affairs matters.”23 The problem is that the majority effectively empowered foreign governments to control U.S. immigration policy. The dissenting justices in Zadvydas explained:

“The result of the Court’s rule is that, by refusing to accept repatriation of their own nationals, other countries can effect the release of these individuals back into the American community. If their own nationals are now at large in the United States, the nation of origin may ignore or disclaim responsibility to accept their return. The interference with sensitive foreign relations becomes even more acute where hostility or tension characterizes the relationship, for other countries can use the fact of judicially mandated release to their strategic advantage, refusing the return of their nationals to force dangerous aliens upon us.”

The Congress responded to the decision immediately after the attacks of 9/11 with 3 laws: The USA Patriot Act, The Real ID Act and Keep Our Communities Safe Act.

Released July 8, 2015 by the Senate Judiciary

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, was joined by Republican colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee in sending a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson regarding the dangerous new “Priority Enforcement Program,” which goes even further than the administrative amnesty memos in defining categories of illegal aliens that are immune from immigration enforcement. Upon releasing the letter, Sessions issued the following statement:

“Rather than working with state and local law enforcement to identify, detain, and deport dangerous criminal aliens, DHS officials have enabled ‘sanctuary cities’; dismantled effective cooperative-enforcement programs like 287g, Secure Communities, and Operation Streamline; and allowed repeat criminal offenders to be released onto American streets by the tens of thousands. Right now, there are nearly 170,000 convicted criminal aliens who have been ordered deported, but who remain at large in our country. This is a direct result of non-enforcement policies.

Now, the Administration has proposed a new ‘Priority Enforcement Program’ that actually directs officers not to enforce federal law. By defining its ‘priorities’ to exclude large categories of illegal immigrants, including those who have already been ordered deported or those who illegally reenter after having been deported, PEP ensures that countless more dangerous aliens will be released into U.S. communities—allowing otherwise entirely preventable crimes, including some of the most violent and egregious, to occur.  Immigration enforcement is not supposed to be a game of Russian roulette where we release habitual immigration violators into U.S. communities and hope and pray they don’t go on to commit additional criminal offenses.”

The letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson:

“Dear Secretary Johnson:

We write regarding the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), which requires immigration law officers and agents to ignore plain law and public safety, solely to the benefit of criminal aliens in the United States. This program, along with the so-called “enforcement priorities” outlined in your November 20, 2014, memorandum titled “Priorities for the Apprehension, Detention, and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants,” are contrary to law and pose direct threats to public safety.

Your Department has refused to confront so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions, endangering the public safety and leading to tragedies such as the recent killings of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco, California, and Angelica Martinez in Laredo, Texas. These deaths are the result of such sanctuary jurisdictions’ dangerous policies, and this Administration’s refusal to do anything to stop them. Yet, rather than enhance the successful Secure Communities program, confront sanctuary jurisdictions, defend federal law enforcement’s legitimate use of detainers, request additional resources, or ask Congress for a legislative solution, your Department has unilaterally designed a program that will endanger the American people.

As a preliminary matter, the “enforcement priorities” established in the aforementioned memorandum fail to include significant categories of criminal aliens defined by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), including, but not limited to:

  • Aliens convicted of nearly all offenses that constitute crimes involving moral turpitude,[1] which includes not only crimes such as theft, but all offenses that are “inherently base, vile, or depraved, contrary to the accepted rules of morality and the duties owed between persons or society in general”[2] ;and,
  • Aliens convicted of drug possession offenses,[3] including those who were initially charged with trafficking offenses but who were permitted to plead down to simple possession.

Your enforcement priorities also fail to include other criminal aliens, such as those who have been convicted of two or more misdemeanors that you deem not to be “significant.” They similarly fail to include aliens convicted of any misdemeanor offense who do not serve 90 days or more in prison—regardless of whether they received a suspended sentence that exceeded 90 days. Rather than take the common sense approach of defining as “enforcement priorities” all classes of criminal and dangerous aliens as defined by Congress in the INA, and adding others as a matter of policy, your Department has elected to acquiesce willfully to the presence of criminal aliens in the United States and ordered law enforcement officers and agents to look the other way except in extremely limited circumstances.

As though the disparity between these “enforcement priorities” and existing law were not bad enough, your Department has designed PEP in a manner that creates disparities between PEP and the “enforcement priorities” listed in your November 20, 2014, memo. Significantly, this includes priorities 1(b) (recent border crossers); 2(c) (aliens who enter the United States unlawfully or reenter after a previous removal or return); 2(d) (aliens who significantly abuse the terms of their visas); and 3 (aliens who have a final order of removal on or after January 1, 2014). 

It is also our understanding that, under PEP, your Department will only seek the transfer of an alien in the custody of state or local law enforcement if the criminal alien has a conviction for a limited number of criminal offenses, engaged intentionally in organized gang activities, or poses a danger to national security. However, even in many of these cases, DHS will simply request “notification” of the release date from state and local law enforcement, rather than issue a detainer. Additionally, the mere fact that an alien has been charged with or arrested for an offense is no longer acceptable, as your Department will only seek to assume custody of any criminal alien once that alien has an actual conviction.

In recent briefings to congressional staff, your Department has described PEP as though it is somehow necessary to reengage with sanctuary jurisdictions that failed to work with DHS under the Secure Communities program. At the same time, however, DHS representatives have confirmed at these briefings that PEP does not guarantee the cooperation of any sanctuary jurisdictions, and that such jurisdictions will have the ability to determine which parts of PEP they will comply with, if any. Thus, even here, the Administration has once again acquiesced to sanctuary jurisdictions.

Under PEP, countless criminal aliens who have managed to evade conviction will be released, endangering our communities. More crimes will be committed, and precious resources will be spent to re-apprehend these individuals, a process that significantly endangers the safety of your officers and agents. It would be much more effective and efficient to issue detainers and simply transfer these criminal aliens directly into your Department’s custody. We note that as recently as 2012, then-Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Morton, offered to pay localities any additional expenses of holding inmates until they can be picked up,[4] yet your Department has apparently abandoned even this reasonable proposal.

Accordingly, please respond to the following questions by July 21, 2015:

1. How many aliens present in the United States today have ever been arrested for a criminal offense?

2. How many aliens present in the United States today have ever been convicted of a criminal offense?

3. How many aliens with final orders of removal remain in the United States today?

A. Of those, please specify how many have ever been arrested for any criminal offense.
B. Of those, please specify how many have ever been convicted of any criminal offense.

4. From fiscal year 2009 through the present, how many detainers has your Department issued? Of those, how many were honored?

5. Does DHS have any projections as to how PEP will affect the number of detainers it issues each year? If so, please provide them.

6. Does DHS have any projections as to how the new enforcement priorities will affect the number of removals it can effectuate each year? If so, please provide them.

7. Does DHS have any projections as to how PEP will affect the number of removals it can effectuate each year? If so, please provide them.

8. Does DHS have any projections as to how many criminal aliens with any record of a criminal arrest or conviction will be permitted to stay in the United States after full implementation of PEP? If so, please provide them.

9. Does DHS have any projections as to how many sanctuary jurisdictions will comply with PEP? If so, please provide them.

10. DHS has publicly touted its engagement with Los Angeles County regarding PEP.[5] However, DHS has not actually secured any commitments from Los Angeles County as to how it will cooperate with PEP. Do you have any guarantees that Los Angeles County, or any other sanctuary jurisdiction, will fully comply with PEP?

11. How many jurisdictions that had previously refused to honor detainers or otherwise cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement have committed to comply with PEP in its entirety?

12. Under PEP, will DHS issue a request for a notification of release or a detainer for all aliens who are subject to mandatory custody under section 236(c) of the INA? If not, please explain why not.

13. In light of the tragic murders of Kathryn Steinle and Angelica Martinez last week, is it still the Administration’s position that federal immigration detainers should not be mandatory?

­­Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Jeff Sessions, Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest

David Vitter, Deputy Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest

Chuck Grassley, U.S. Senator

David Perdue, U.S. Senator

John Cornyn, U.S. Senator

Mike Lee, U.S. Senator

Ted Cruz, U.S. Senator

Thom Tillis, U.S. Senator

Orrin Hatch, U.S. Senator”

 

 

Judge Hanen Orders Top DHS Brass to Texas

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U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen is NOT pleased with the Department of Homeland Security over lies, non-compliance and obstruction.

For some background:

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kathleen Hartnett could not explain why multiple DOJ lawyers — herself included — told the court multiple times over two and a half months that DHS would not be accepting requests for deferred action under the challenged order until mid February. She implausibly claimed that the legal team thought the injunction request did not apply to the expansion of DACA under the president’s November order — despite the clear words of the states’ initial filings and explicit statements made in court. It seems clear what Hanen thinks happened:

“When I asked you what would happen and you said nothing, I took it to heart. I was made to look like an idiot,” Hanen told Hartnett. “I believed your word that nothing would happen. . . . Like an idiot, I believed that.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415795/did-doj-lie-judge-hanen-editors

Dated July 7, 2015:

Judge Hanen has ordered Secretary Jeh Johnson; Gil Kerlikowske, the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Kevin McAleenan, Deputy Chief of U.S. Border Patrol, Sarah Saldana, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Leon Rodriguez, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to his courtroom to answer for their non-response to his order.

Reading the order issued by Judge Hanen, it proves his tolerance has been exploited by all the agencies above. Hat tip to Josh Blackman.

§

ORDER
This Court held a hearing on June 23, 2015, at which time both parties indicated that they are making progress toward a resolution of discovery requests made by the Plaintiffs with regard to the Government’s belated revelation that it had implemented portions of the November 20, 2014DHS Memorandum prior to the February 18, 2015 start date provided to Plaintiffs and the Court by defense counsel. Given the fact that counsel for both sides indicated that progress has been made and have requested more time to reach an agreement, this Court granted the parties additional timeto seek a resolution of these pending issues. The parties are to file a status report with the Courtdescribing any agreement reached on Plaintiffs’ discovery requests and any resolution with regard to the approximately 108,800 individuals who were granted benefits pursuant to the 2014 DHSMemorandum between the date of that Memorandum and this Court’s injunction. The parties haveuntil July 31, 2015, to file that status report. The Court will resolve any and all questions regardingfuture discovery and/or sanctions once it reviews the parties’ report.This, however, does not resolve the issue as to the approximately 2,000 individuals that weregiven various benefits in violation of this Court’s order after the injunction was issued. The Courtwas first apprised by the Government of the violations of its injunction on May 7, 2015. It admitted that it violated this Court’s injunction on at least 2,000 occasions—violations which have not yet been fixed. This Court has expressed its willingness to believe that these actions were accidentaland not done purposefully to violate this Court’s order. Nevertheless, it is shocked and surprised at the cavalier attitude the Government has taken with regard to its “efforts” to rectify this situation. The Government promised this Court on May 7, 2015, that “immediate steps” were being taken toremedy the violations of the injunction. [
See
Doc. No. 247]. Yet, as of June 23, 2015—some sixweeks after making that representation—the situation had not been rectified. With that in mind, theCourt hereby sets a hearing for August 19, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. Each individual Defendant mustattend and be prepared to show why he or she should not be held in contempt of Court. In additionto the individual Defendants, the Government shall bring all relevant witnesses on this topic as theCourt will not continue this matter to a later date. The Government has conceded that it has directlyviolated this Court’s Order in its May 7, 2015 Advisory, yet, as of today, two months have passed since the Advisory and it has not remediated its own violative behavior. That is unacceptable and,as far as the Government’s attorneys are concerned, completely unprofessional. To be clear, thisCourt expects the Government to be in full compliance with this Court’s injunction. Complianceas to just those aliens living in the Plaintiff States is not full compliance.If the Government remedies this situation and comes into compliance with this Court’sinjunction by July 31, 2015, it shall include a summary of that situation in the July 31, 2015 reportto the Court. If the Court is satisfied with the Government’s representations, it will cancel theAugust 19, 2015 hearing. Otherwise, the Court intends to utilize all available powers to compel compliance.
2  
This Court began its last hearing by explaining its reluctance to sanction any party or attorney. If nothing else, sanctions bog both the parties and the Court down on side issues thatdetract their attention from the real focus: the merits and resolution of the case. Nevertheless, noreasonable person could possibly consider a direct violation of an injunction a side issue. Furthermore, at some point, when a non-compliant party refuses to bring its conduct intocompliance, one must conclude that the conduct is not accidental, but deliberate. If these violationshave not been corrected by the end of this month, absent very compelling evidence, which this Courtwill be glad to consider, the only logical conclusion is that the Government needs a stronger motivation to comply with lawful court orders. Neither side should interpret this Court’s personal preference to not sanction lawyers or parties as an indication that it will merely acquiesce to a party’s unlawful conduct.Signed this 7th  day of July, 2015. ________________________________ Andrew S. HanenUnited States District Judge
3
 

 

Sanctuary Cities, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

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Let’s get real, this is a funded ‘shut up’ program.

We often refer to them as illegal immigrants and are slammed for using the word illegal, but the Department of Justice itself uses the term ‘criminal’ when referring to foreign nationals in America unlawfully.

Imagine a system that complies with the 9/11 Commission recommendations that every lawmaker in Washington signed on to such that ICE or Border Patrol would follow the law and confusion and collusion would not permeate across governments that invite deadly disasters.

The most recent deadly event of an illegal foreign national in America occurred in San Francisco, a sanctuary city, one of hundreds in America.  The man, now arrested gave his confession and reason for being in the United States and killing the woman. Barack Obama himself advised the California governor to advance and approved the Trust Act. It essentially eliminates the ‘hold requests in jails.

In 2012, Barack Obama changed the rules for immigration causing confusion, legal warfare and fast but hidden changes in enforcing law.

Last year there was the largest insurgency of illegals coming across our southern border in many years and that cause a chain reaction across several government agencies including the Center for Disease Control.

From Judicial Watch there were emails obtained.

CDC Official Calls Obama Worst President, Amateur, Marxist After Influx of Illegal Alien Minors

JULY 02, 2015

Following the influx of illegal immigrant minors from Central America, an official at the federal agency charged with protecting public health describes Barack Obama as “the worst pres we have ever had,” an “amateur” and “Marxist,” according to internal emails obtained by Judicial Watch.

JW got the records as part of an investigation into the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) activation of an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to deal with the barrage of illegal alien minors last summer. Tens of thousands of Central Americans came into the United States through the Mexican border and contagious diseases—many considered to be eradicated in the U.S.—became a tremendous concern. The CDC, which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), responded by opening an emergency facility designed to monitor and coordinate response activities to eminent public health threats.

Yet, when it comes to destinations of illegals, they head to sanctuary cities and while some locations are overflowing, new locations are added, creating a country within a country, all paid for by the Department of Justice.

The program is in fact called STATE CRIMINAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM and what is even more terrifying up to 850 U.S. cities received grant money for the program, far beyond the number of cities officials will admit to. In 2010, $400 million dollars in grants was provided under this program.

If you dare, click here for the volume of grant money dispersed by the DoJ when it comes to ‘criminal’ alien assistance.

The real costs of SCAAP is not adequate to support state and local governments resulting in several cities working to get out of the program due to the financial burdens.

As a sample year, a 2010 report is here for how cities get grant money for subsidies.

While the blame game is now underway to point fingers at mayors, or sheriffs or ICE, the real blame goes directly to the Department of Justice, contrary to what the White House reveals as republicans are at fault for not passing immigration reform.

Directly from the Department of Justice:

State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP)

Private Powerbrokers Bankrolled Iran Diplomacy

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Thomas Pickering, an anti-Israel steward of progressive bent was designated by Hillary Clinton to head up the task of the Accountability Review Board report to investigate the Benghazi deadly attack.

Being a powerbroker with lots of money, an agenda and the quest to create expanded business opportunity with the enemy is what the Iran Project is about.

Iran has been an rogue country for decades and a state sponsor of terror, yet to some that does not matter even when American have been killed. Shameful.

The deal being negotiated with Iran by the P5+1 comes down to lifting sanctions, funding and missiles. Through this the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is about to being even richer than the $8 billion in their control now. Does that even sound remotely acceptable?

Click here for the Iran Project summary and review the signatories.

Cunning Diplomacy Bubbles to the Surface

How Freelance Diplomacy Bankrolled by Rockefellers Has Paved the Way for an Iran Deal

Bloomberg:

Cutting a nuclear deal with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be the easy part for President Obama, who must then persuade both houses of Congress to sign off on the pact. Republicans and many Democrats abhor the idea of lifting sanctions and readmitting oil-rich Iran to the global economy until it disavows all nuclear research and stops meddling through proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.

Advocating for an Iran truce is a loose coalition of peace groups, think tanks, and former high-ranking U.S. diplomats bound together by millions of dollars given by the Rockefeller family through its $870 million Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The philanthropy, which is run by a board split between family members and outsiders, has spent $4.3 million since 2003 promoting a nuclear pact with Iran, chiefly through the New York-based Iran Project, a nonprofit led by former U.S. diplomats. For more than a decade they’ve conducted a dialogue with well-placed Iranians, including Mohammad Javad Zarif, now Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator. The Americans routinely briefed officials in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, including William Burns, Obama’s former deputy secretary of state. Burns hammered out much of an interim nuclear agreement in secret 2013 talks with his Iranian counterparts that paved the way for the current summit in Vienna, where Secretary of State John Kerry leads the U.S. delegation.

The Rockefellers’ Iran foray began in late 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks. Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, convened a board retreat at the Rockefellers’ Pocantico Center in Westchester, just north of New York City, to consider new approaches to the Islamic world at a time when the U.S. was focused on the threat from al-Qaeda. One invited speaker was Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Iranian-American professor at George Washington University. “He got me thinking more and more about Iran, its geostrategic importance and its relationship to the Sunni world,” says Heintz.

The Rockefeller fund decided to create the Iran Project in cooperation with the United Nations Association of the U.S., a nonprofit that promotes the UN’s work then headed by William Luers, a career diplomat who served as ambassador to Venezuela and Czechoslovakia. Luers made contact with Zarif through Iran’s mission to the UN in New York. He also recruited career diplomats Thomas Pickering, who served as Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Israel and George H.W. Bush’s ambassador to the UN, and Frank G. Wisner, who served as Reagan’s ambassador to Egypt and whose father was a high-ranking officer in the Office of Strategic Services and then in the CIA. “Each of us came from a special place on the compass,” Wisner says.

With encouragement from the Bush administration, says Heintz, the trio developed a relationship with Zarif, who was stationed in New York representing Iran at the UN. In early 2002, the Iran Project set up a meeting with Iranians affiliated with the Institute for Political and International Studies in Tehran, a think tank with close government ties. It was hosted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute at a small hotel outside Stockholm. The Iranians came armed with talking points, Heintz says, and the meetings were stiff and unproductive. The initial goal of developing a road map to restoring relations between Washington and Tehran, along the lines of Nixon’s 1972 Shanghai Communique preceding U.S.-China relations, proved elusive, according to Pickering. After every meeting, Heintz says, Iran Project leaders would brief staffers at the State Department or White House, including Stephen Hadley, Bush’s national security adviser, and Condoleezza Rice, his secretary of state. “As we had no contacts at all with Iran at the time, their insights were very valuable,” says R. Nicholas Burns, who served as under secretary of state for political affairs under Bush.

The secret meetings in European capitals were suspended after Mahmoud Ahmedinejad won Iran’s presidency in 2005. But the group’s relationship with Zarif proved key in helping to jump-start negotiations after he was made foreign minister in 2013 by Rouhani, the newly elected president. A State Department official says the administration welcomes back-channel efforts like the Iran Project’s because “it proves useful both to have knowledgeable former officials and country experts engaging with their counterparts and in reinforcing our own messages when possible.”

The Iran Project kept an eye on public opinion from the start. Among those invited to its events in New York was Robert Silvers, editor of the New York Review of Books, who found them “helpful in framing ideas for a workable nuclear treaty,” he says. The ideas floated at the meetings included letting the Iranians keep a limited capacity for enriching uranium to save face. “But everyone knew that a huge amount depended on how far the Iranians would go.” Silvers published multiple essays detailing the proposals by Pickering and Jessica Mathews, another Iran Project participant who preceded William Burns as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Iran Project’s briefing papers have provided a counterweight to criticism from pro-Israel groups, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, opposed to a deal.

For Wisner, breaking bread with Iranians exorcised a few ghosts. He was on Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s senior staff during the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis in 1979 and knew diplomats held at the embassy. “I lived that,” he says. He also remembers listening to his dad planning the military coup that removed Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, from power in 1953 and replaced him with the U.S.-backed shah, Reza Pahlavi. “They don’t trust us, and we don’t trust them,” says Wisner. He says his father’s role in the Mosaddegh coup didn’t come up in any of the Iran Project meetings. “The Iranians, like us, have made a major political decision to engage,” he says.

The Rockefeller fund has given about $3.3 million to the Ploughshares Fund, a San Francisco-based disarmament group that has spent $4 million since 2010 to promote a deal with Iran and shepherded the peace groups and think tanks it supports to back Obama. “We’re trying to leverage our investments to play on our strengths,” says Joseph Cirincione, its president.

On June 23, when the New York Times ran an op-ed, “The Iran Deal’s Fatal Flaw,” Ploughshares coordinated its grantees’ responses to the claim that the deal would leave Iran capable of producing a nuclear weapon within three months. The Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan group established in 1971, published a rebuttal on its daily blog, which other Ploughshares-affiliated groups sent to their contacts in Congress. “The pro-deal side has done a very good job systematically co-opting what used to be the arms control community and transforming it into an absolutist, antiwar movement,” says Omri Ceren, senior adviser for strategy for the Israel Project, a nonprofit that opposes a deal. “Sometimes, if your goal is stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, you have to make the hard decision to take military action, or at least signal you’re willing to.” Cirincione says that mistakes the rationale behind the Iran Project. “Iran is the boulder in the road,” he says. “You have to resolve this issue to get to the rest of the nonproliferation agenda. That’s why we’re doing this.”

 

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?