Category Archives: Health Disease

Richards of Planned Parenthood, then a Hillary Hire

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A bill that would strip Planned Parenthood of federal funds was passed in the House of Representatives on Friday. The 241-187 vote was divided mostly along party lines.

“For the one-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, subject to subsection (b), no funds authorized or appropriated by Federal law may be made available for any purpose to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., or any affiliate or clinic of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., unless such entities certify that Planned Parenthood Federation of America affiliates and clinics will not perform, and will not provide any funds to any other entity that performs, an abortion during such period,” the bill reads.

The measure– HR 3134, also known as the Defund Planned Parenthood Act– would defund Planned Parenthood of federal funds for one year while investigations of the organization’s practices are conducted, in light of claims made by the Center for Medical Progress. More here.

Planned Parenthood President, Cecile Richards is scheduled to testify before Congress on Thursday, September 29th regarding the use of taxpayers funds ($500 million) that harvest fetal tissue for sale.

Hillary Clinton Hires Daughter of Planned Parenthood’s President

As Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton defends Planned Parenthood from the fallout over its baby part-selling scandal, the mainstream media conveniently ignores one very important detail: the Planned Parenthood president’s daughter is a top Hillary campaign operative.

Rommel Demano/Getty Images for the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival/AFP

Breitbart: Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has seen her abortion-providing organization come under fire after a series of videos caught top employees trying to trade aborted baby parts in callous fashion.

Hillary Clinton, who said that she has only seen excerpts from the videos, strongly defended Planned Parenthood in her appearance this past weekend on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Clinton called the videos “misleadingly edited” and “intentionally taken out of context” and condemned a Republican “attack on Planned Parenthood.”

Clinton, who counts Planned Parenthood as a past donor, has a more glaring but little-discussed conflict of interest in this case. Her Iowa communications director is Lily Adams, daughter of Planned Parenthood boss Cecile Richards.

Adams is also the granddaughter of former Democratic Texas governor Ann Richards, who lost her 1994 re-election bid to George W. Bush.

Lily Adams, who was tweeting from Iowa Tuesday as Clinton visited the state, previously worked in a deputy communications role for the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Adams garnered attention during her stint at the DNC by organizing a failed boycott against this reporter’s former publication, after this reporter wrote that men looking at attractive women on the sidewalk should probably not be considered a hate crime. Adams endured mockery for her efforts.

Israel Technology a Cure for U.S. Military PTSD?

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Until recently, there was no way to track post-traumatic stress disorder inside the brain in the earlier phases of PTSD.

However, Professors Talma Hendler and Nathan Intrator of Tel Aviv University are working to change that. They have developed groundbreaking tools that pair a commonplace electroencephalography and a more complex functional magnetic resonance imaging to track PTSD deep inside the brain. Their approach is to locate the traces of PTSD in the brain and monitor those areas over time to determine “stress vulnerability” inside the body of each patient, much earlier on than an MRI could. The two professors worked with a test group of IDF medics, who were examined before they started their military service and after their subsequent exposure to stressful events while deployed in combat units. The results of this study could significantly aid treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, by determining scientifically when soldiers have their breaking point earlier on. Presently, only expensive and less readily available MRI’s can study how post-traumatic stress disorder impacts the brain, and people usually only utilize MRI’s once the post-traumatic stress disorder has reached a very difficult level.

US Navy buys Israeli ‘brain zapper’ to treat vets

Brainsway’s Deep TMS therapy system helps treat PTSD, bipolar, depression and other conditions

The US Navy will be using an Israeli-developed transcranial magnetic stimulation system to treat patients with a range of psychological conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress, major depressive disorder, and others.

The Navy has ordered several Deep TMS therapy helmets made by Jerusalem-based Brainsway for use in several of its medical facilities to help treat sailors and their families, as part of a therapy plan that could include counseling, anti-depressives, and other therapies.

“Our validation as a supplier to the US Navy is an important stepping stone for our company into the US market,” said Brainsway CEO and president Guy Ezekiel. “The Navy provides health services to many service people and to their families at a large number of treatment centers, and we are proud to be a part of those services.”

Brainsway’s device is based on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive technique used to apply brief magnetic pulses to the brain. The pulses are administered by passing high currents through an electromagnetic coil (the H Coil) placed adjacent to a patient’s scalp. The pulses cause small electrical currents that stimulate nerve cells in the targeted brain region, with the intention of alleviating depression by modulating cortical excitability.

Studies have shown TMS to be effective in a number of neurological, psychiatric and medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, autism, Asperger’s disorder, substance addictions, alcoholism, tinnitus, bipolar depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, migraine, cognitive deficits, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain and schizophrenia.

Other than therapy, TMS is the only physically noninvasive treatment for these and other conditions. Patients wear the Brainsway device — in the form of a helmet – for about 20 minutes, with the H Coil placed on the specific spot on the head where the brain cells that a therapist wants to manipulate are located.

The effectiveness of the “dose” — how intense the TMS pulses need to be – is determined by the results of EMG recording electrodes that are connected to the hand muscle, measured in the hand movements and gauged by the electrodes. According to the company, the treatment has no side effects, with “the most prominent sensation felt by the patient during treatment a small vibration of the coil elements over the head.”

The Brainsway system in January 2013 received FDA approval for the treatment of depression in patients who have failed to respond to antidepressant medications, and since then has been installed in numerous hospitals in the US and Europe. A year later, Brainsway got its first US deal when the technology was made available for tens of millions of customers of United Health Technologies (via its Optum Health Services Platform) for treatment of Major Depressive Disorder. Since then it has been adopted by a number of organizations, including Harvard University’s McLean Hospital, one of the world’s top psychiatric hospitals.

The system is also being used at 15 sites around the world to treat smokers who have not responded to other methods to get them to quit, and is being tested as a treatment for additional conditions, including schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The H Coil, the heart of the Brainsway system was developed by Avraham Zangen, an Israeli scientist and Bar-Ilan University alumnus, while doing brain research at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the late 1990s, along with Israeli physicist Yiftach Roth. Brainsway was established in 2003 as the marketing and research platform for the patented H-coil Deep TMS system, with Brainsway the exclusive licensee of the the patent owned by the NIH. Initial development of the Brainsway device, were done in Israel at Brainsway’s Jerusalem headquarters, with trials done at Tel Aviv University.

Brainsway has been working over the past year to commercialize its technology, and recently appointed a new VP of sales in the US. “The company is in the midst of a large expansion in the US market,” said Ezekiel. “We are concentrating our efforts on expanding our strategic presence in the US and increasing sales there.”

Obama Failed Redline, U.S. Military, Chemical Weapons Suits

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US military ordering troops in Iraq to dust off chemical weapon suits

FNC: The U.S. military has ordered its nearly 3,500 troops stationed in Iraq to reacquaint themselves with their chemical weapons suits due to evidence that the Islamic State has obtained chemical weapons and used them on multiple occasions.

“It is a precautionary measure,” a defense official told Fox News, acknowledging the order.

During a briefing Thursday, the Pentagon would not publicly confirm the order but reassured reporters that the military is prepared to handle a chemical attack by ISIS.

“The commanders in the field are making sure their troops are adequately prepared for the threats they may face,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said when asked about the new preparations.

Defense officials recently confirmed that a “mustard agent” was used by ISIS against Kurdish Peshmerga forces in a mortar attack on Aug. 11 in the northern Iraqi city of Makhmur, located southwest of Erbil.

“[We] were able to take the fragments from some of those mortar rounds and do a field test, a presumptive field test on those fragments and they showed the presence of HD, or what is known as sulfur mustard. That is a class one chemical agent,” said Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Killea, chief of staff, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, in a Pentagon video-teleconference with reporters from his base in southwest Asia  late last month.

In the past few days, more evidence has surfaced of chemical weapons attacks by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

On Monday, a rocket suspected of carrying chemical weapons was fired by ISIS at Kurdish Peshmerga forces guarding the Mosul Dam, the Kurdish media news agency Rudaw reported.

The attack produced “yellow smoke,” according to the report.  There were no significant injuries reported.

On Wednesday, Rudaw also reported that ISIS allegedly used chemical weapons again, this time in Syria against Kurdish fighters of the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) in Hasaka province.

Where Did ISIS Get Its Chemical Weapons?

DailyBeast: The terror group is suspected of using mustard gas in a series of recent attacks, and a notorious Dutch jihadi says it’s from Assad’s stockpile. But U.S. officials beg to differ.
An infamous Dutch soldier turned ISIS fighter says the group has acquired chemical weapons once belonging to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, resurrecting fears that what was supposed to be the regime’s destroyed program has instead fallen into jihadi hands.

“The regime uses chemical warfare on a regular basis these days, and nobody bats an eye—yet when [ISIS] captures it from them and uses it against them it’s all of a sudden a huge problem?” ISIS fighter Omar Yilmaz, 27, said in a Tumblr post. “Fight them the way they fight you.”

The post marks the first time a public ISIS figure has declared that the group obtained chemical weapons from the Assad regime. And it comes just days after the first series of suspected ISIS mustard gas attacks in northern Iraq and Syria.

On Tuesday, Kurdish forces said ISIS fired a homemade rocket filled with chemical weapons at peshmerga forces. In a suspected Aug. 21 attack in the northern Syrian city of Marea, at least 25 people were contaminated. And on Aug. 13, Kurdish officials in Iraq said 60 peshmerga were exposed to mustard gas in the northern Iraqi city of Makhmour.

Pentagon officials believe there is credible evidence that mustard gas could indeed have been used in the two August strikes.

Yilmaz’s Aug. 31 post renews questions of ISIS’s source for several suspected chemical weapons attacks it orchestrated in northern Iraq and Syria. Did the Assad regime fail to fully destroy its chemical weapons arsenal? If Yilmaz’s claims are true, that would refute Pentagon claims that the group has developed its own rudimentary weapon.

Defense and intelligence officials told The Daily Beast on Wednesday that despite Yilmaz’s claims, they are still skeptical the weapons under ISIS control came from the Assad regime.

These officials noted that the recent attacks did not have the kind of impact they would expect to see from a state-sponsored chemicals weapons program. Attacks from such programs have the potential to kill thousands, as they did two years ago in the Damascus suburbs. These recent attacks instead injured scores.

Officials said they believe the weapons ISIS used are homegrown, noting the attacks have been rudimentary and that such weapons could be created by anyone with the right basic supplies. That is, the type of attacks believed to be carried out by ISIS did not require state-acquired weapons.

But critics note that the impact of the attacks could speak to how much state-acquired weapons have degraded. Others said ISIS could have state-created chemical weapons but not the munitions to disperse them effectively, weakening their impact. At the time Assad agreed to destroy his weapons, he did not control all the territory or facilities that held such weapons, still others asserted.

The most cynical of critics suggested that Assad could have purposely supplied ISIS with such weapons to perpetuate the narrative that he is confronting a far more ruthless foe than his regime.

Defense officials are dubious. Such weapons, if they still exist in Syria, “Assad is keeping for himself, in case he wants to use” them, one defense official retorted.

Either way, Yilmaz’s claims elevate the level of terror the group has sown in the region and the prospects that sophisticated chemical weapons are now part of its arsenal.

“I think [ISIS] is trying to convey several things. Its propaganda has been geared at intimidating enemies. This serves that purpose,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “And it wants to show its capability to would-be allies, to attract fighters.”

Yilmaz, as he is known, is a Dutch citizen of Turkish descent who first attracted attention roughly two years ago when photos emerged of the jihadist fighter wearing a Dutch military uniform. At the time, he was a facilitator for several other jihadist groups. His Instagram account depicting fighting in Syria, his prolific online presence, and his willingness to communicate with the West made him one of Europe’s highest-profile jihadists. Yilmaz reportedly first traveled to Syria after he was turned down for the Dutch’s military’s elite special forces.

In the last year he reportedly joined ISIS.

Last year, the mother of his one-time supposed 19-year-old bride, a Dutch woman raised Catholic before converting to Islam, retrieved her daughter from the Turkish-Syrian border. According to several postings online attributed to him shortly after she fled, he has since remarried.

In an October 2014 CBS News interview, Yilmaz said he felt that Syria was his homeland.

“We want Islamic law. We want our own rules,” he said in the interview from Syria, adding: “This fight never ends. This is our religion.”

The international push to rid Syria of chemical weapons began in the summer of 2013 after more than 300 people were killed in a chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, a rebel-controlled suburb of Damascus. The West believed Assad carried out the attacks while the Syrian leader blamed opposition forces. President Obama had called the use of chemical weapons by the regime a red line, and the images of children convulsing after being exposed to chemical weapons created an international outcry. The U.S. appeared to be poised to launch strikes on Syria in response when the regime agreed to rid its nation of chemical weapons under a U.S.- and Russia-brokered agreement.

In August 2014, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it had verified that Syria had destroyed 1,040 tons of its Category 1 chemical weapons or munitions filled with chemicals that have no peaceful purpose.

But in May, OPCW reported its inspectors found traces of traces of sarin and VX nerve agent at a Syrian military research facility, suggesting the regime lied about destroying its arsenal or the extent of his stockpile.

So Long to the Oreo Cookie

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A piece of Americana has taken the route south, Mexico. May we suggest the Hydrox cookie of yester-year?

Maybe at issue is the corporate tax structure. Maybe it is the increase in the misguided minimum wage. Maybe it is the diving work ethic. Maybe it is Michelle Obama’s attack on food. Maybe those liberal mayors like New York’s former mayor Bloomberg all regulating free choice of food. Maybe it is all that re-tooling of nutritional food labels. Maybe it is all of those.

How US Sugar Policies Just Helped America Lose 600 Jobs

The manufacturer of Oreo cookies recently announced plans to move production of Oreos from Chicago to Mexico, resulting in a loss of 600 U.S. jobs.

This should be a wake-up call to defenders of the U.S. sugar program and other job-destroying trade barriers.

The leading ingredient in Oreos is sugar, and U.S. trade barriers currently require Americans to pay twice the average world prices for sugar.

Sugar-using industries now have a big incentive to relocate from the United States to countries where access to their primary ingredient is not restricted.

If the government wants people making Oreo cookies and similar products to keep their jobs, a logical starting point would be to eliminate the U.S. sugar program, including barriers to imported sugar.

This obvious connection between the lost jobs and sugar quotas was missed by many observers. According to one online commenter: “This is why tariff[s] on products coming to U.S must be raised.”

That’s backwards. When protectionist policies like the U.S. sugar program lead to offshoring, the response shouldn’t be to pass new laws to discourage such offshoring or to raise tariffs even higher. The response should be to eliminate government policies that encourage offshoring in the first place.

The loss of Oreo cookie jobs should reinforce a lesson on the job-destroying aspect of protectionist trade policies.

According to a 2006 report from the government’s International Trade Administration: “Chicago, one of the largest U.S. cities for confectionery manufacturing, has lost nearly one-third of its SCP manufacturing jobs over the last 13 years. These losses are attributed, in part, to high U.S. sugar prices.”

That lesson appears to be lost on unions that are supposed to represent the workers losing their jobs in Chicago.

For example, The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union consistently has opposed free trade agreements with sugar-producing countries like Australia, Brazil, and Mexico—the kind of trade deals that just might protect their members’ jobs.

So that’s how the cookie crumbles.

2014….the Comeback

The Oreo-buster is back.

Hydrox cookies, those Oreo-like chocolate sandwich cookies, could reappear on store shelves as early as September, says Ellia Kassoff, CEO of Leaf Brands, which recently acquired the rights to the unused Hydrox trademark.

“The cosmic difference between Hydrox and Oreo is that Hydrox is a little more crispy; a little less sugary and stands up better in milk,” says Kassoff, who will make the official announcement later this month at the Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago on May 20.

Even in a new world of nutritional consciousness, there is little evidence that America’s sweet tooth is fading. Sales of packaged cookies and baked goods are expected to top $17 billion by 2017 — up from $13 billion in 2012, reports Packaged Facts. While the return of Hydrox is expected to be a hit with Baby Boomers who may fondly remember the brand — formerly owned by Kellogg’s, Keebler and Millennials who are not very familiar with the cookie brand, which hasn’t been regularly sold on store shelves in almost a decade.

“We’ll use social media to reach out to Millennials,” says Kassoff. The 46-year-old CEO says that he likes to acquire old brands or trademarks that still have fans. “We recycle brands that get left on the side of the road.”

But the Hydrox brand has special meaning to him. As a young kid raised by parents who were Orthodox Jews, he was only permitted to eat Hydrox — not Oreos — because, he says, at the time, Oreos were not kosher but Hydrox were. Today, both are kosher.

The move by Leaf Brands — which also owns trademarks to Astro Pops, Wacky Wafers and Farts Candy — comes just two years after giant Oreo celebrated its 100th birthday. Little-known, however, is that Hydrox was the original creme-filled chocolate sandwich cookie when it debuted in 1908 — followed four years later by Oreo.

But executives at Mondelez, which owns the Oreo brand, are hardly showing any signs of concern. “Oreo is America’s favorite cookie,” says Laurie Guzzinati, a company spokeswoman. She declined to comment specifically on the return of Hydrox. Oreo sales, which exceed $2 billion globally and $1 billion in North America, have grown double-digits in the U.S. for the past two years.

Its been years since Oreo had a genuine rival on the shelf. Kellogg stopped making Hydrox in 2002. Then, in 2008, when Hydrox turned 100, Kellogg briefly resumed distribution, but only for a limited time.

Hydrox still has an online fan page, and a few months ago, Bill Burnett, of Salina, Okla., posted this wishful note about Hydrox: “My brother and I loved them. I never got a taste for the inferior “Oreo,” which was far less tasty as the wonderful Hydrox. I think I’ve only bought one package of them in 50 years! Bring Hydrox back again!”

In fact, says Kassoff, it’s fans like Burnett who convinced him to bring back the brand. “I hear from all of them,” he says. “I know millions of people are waiting for the product.”

But unlike the cookies giants, which typically must sell at least $100 million worth of a brand for it to be an even modest success, Burnett says he can sell a fraction of that and do just fine.

The pricing will be roughly where Hydrox was for years: less expensive than Oreos but more expensive than store brands. If a 14-ounce package of Oreos retails for about $4; Hydrox will be $3 and store brand sandwich cremes often cost about $2, he says.

But success won’t come simply. At least one brand guru says Hydrox has lots of work to do. “Oreo conveys round and is fun to say and hear. Hydrox sounds scientific and medicinal … not appetizing at all,” says Steven Addis, CEO of Addis. “Oreo has become part of the fabric of America. Like Coke. This makes it somewhat unassailable, even from a superior product.”

 

 

UN is Whining About Immigration Crimes, So Blame Obama

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The United Nations published a dispatch on the sexual crimes of illegal immigrants while in detention. So….rather than whine about Donald Trump, hey UN, go knock on the doors of the White House and that of Jeh Johnson’s office.

At least Donald Trump deserves real praise for raising the verbal flags on the issue of immigration.

Sheesh, get a load of this.

Violence Against Women is the Dark Underbelly of The USA’s Migrant Detention System

Donald Trump is fond of ascribing violence in American cities to immigrants. He has even gone so far as to propose a Constitutional amendment that would erase the bedrock law of giving citizenship to any baby born on American shores.

But what about violence inflicted on migrants once they crossed the border?  The fact is,  many who come to the USA fleeing violence–particularly women–are subject to abuse upon arrival.

Central American women, detained in Texas last year, alleged sexual abuse in detention. Many were asylum-seekers. Some had suffered sexual violence back home. But the nightmare was not over. Guards took them from their cells for sex, women said. They groped mothers in front of their children. Playing on detainees’ desperation, guards told women they would help them once released – but in exchange for sex.

The horror stories hardly stop there. Transgendered women especially are at risk. Despite identifying as female, they are often placed in all-male units. Nicoll Hernández-Polanco, one transgendered woman detained in Arizona, fled Guatemala seeking asylum from persecution based on gender identity. In six months in all-male detention, she alleged that male guards constantly groped and insulted her. Another male detainee sexually assaulted her. When she protested these conditions, she was put in solitary confinement, she said.

These are only a few of many more sexual abuse allegations. The Government Accountability Officeinvestigated over 200 such complaints filed from 2009 to 2013. Yet even this number is an underestimate. Detainees often avoid reporting incidents, fearing retaliation or re-traumatization.

The sexual abuse of migrants in detention centers is the dirty underbelly of the USA’s migrant detention system. It’s a problem that has been known to authorities for years, yet there has not been sufficient effort to clamp down on these kinds of criminal activities that prey on deeply vulnerable women.

So what can be done to stop the abuse?

For starters, freeing certain detainees would probably help. Last month, a federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to release mothers and children detained together. (The Texas women who alleged sexual abuse had been in such a family-detention center.) While a welcome change, this one step is far from a solution. Thousands of women are still detained. They are still potential victims of abuse.

There are broader, systemwide changes that might also push the needle in the right direction.

For one, the DHS does not follow guidelines set by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). These rules include more checks, training, and restrictions on guards. A first step is to improve compliance with PREA. Yet even that would only go so far. Detainees, like prisoners, are inherently vulnerable to abuse.

Also, many detainees are simply waiting to go to court. They have been convicted of no crime and pose no security threat. Detention is a drastic method just to ensure court attendance. Detainees might stay locked up for months. Each day they spend in detention, they remain at risk of abuse.

Finally, alternatives to detention already exist in many countries. In the USA, effective methods include social services and legal representation. Asylum-seekers are very likely to pursue their cases, even with no supervision.  With a better chance in court, people are more likely to show up for hearings. They need not be locked up beforehand.

Changes will be slow. The detention system is entrenched. To comply with Congressional budget directives, DHS must detain at least 34,000 people a day. Politicians must change this mandate to make detention reform possible.

The United Nations can play a role. It has already urged US compliance with PREA in detention centers. It can make more Americans aware of the abuses in detention centers and the alternatives to detention. Many voters know little about immigration detention, which happens in remote sites.  Alternatives to detention may be hard to imagine. The UN can help US advocates see how other countries have successfully used alternatives. With this knowledge, advocates can press for reforms to detention.

No immigration system should allow abuses in detention. Women fleeing violence must not suffer again. Asylum-seekers to the US must truly find refuge there.

*** Hold on…while this is a self inflicted wound at the hands of the Obama doctrine on immigration and while Jeh Johnson is his corrupt soldier…there is more they are hiding and with purpose.

STONEWALLED: Feds Hide Fiscal Details About Vast Operation To Resettle Illegal Alien Minors

Illegal aliens who show up at the border have been resettled all across United States of America instead of being detained and deported, as Donald Trump recently called for in his new immigration plan.

Breitbart: According to data from the Justice Department obtained by Breitbart News, 96 percent of Central Americans caught illegally crossing into the country last summer are still in the United States. Now Breitbart News has learned exclusively that a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from a pro-security group about the cost of this operation is being stonewalled.

In January of 2015, the Immigration Reform Law Institute, on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), filed a FOIA request to discover the cost of accommodating the tens of thousands of illegal unaccompanied minors who came across the border encouraged by President Obama’s 2012 executive amnesty for illegal youths.

The FOIA letter made five requests of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency: that the federal agency detail (1) the costs of building of family detention centers; (2) the costs of apprehending, processing and detaining unaccompanied minors; (3) the costs transporting, transferring, removing and repatriating unaccompanied minors; (4) the costs related to ICE’s representation of government in removal procedures involving unaccompanied minors; and (5) the number of instances where objections to the return of unaccompanied minors were raised by the governments of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The federal agency, however, refused to answer many of these questions– instead only partially answering two of the five requests. The agency provided only the costs of transporting, transferring and removing illegal minors, as well as the costs of the man-hours such tasks required. Those costs totaled $58.2 million—quadrupling ICE’s costs of $15.6 million in the year previous.

FAIR told Breitbart News that the agency did not provide clear documentation nor explanation as to how it arrived at this estimation.

FAIR asserts that, “The failure to provide most of the cost information related to the surge of [unaccompanied minors] indicates that the government has either failed to properly document those costs, or is refusing to reveal them.”

Because this FOIA request only inquired into the fiscal impact on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency– it does not at all take into account the cost incurred by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) nor the public education system. Because most of the unaccompanied minors were turned over to HHS following their apprehension, FAIR notes that HHS’ costs “for providing shelter, food, education, health care and other services, likely vastly exceed additional costs incurred by ICE.”

The flood of minors has also placed fiscal strains on our public education system. FAIR notes that, “68,541 [unaccompanied minors] were apprehended entering the U.S. Virtually all of them have been allowed to remain in the U.S., at least temporarily.”

Because federal law dictates that all children are entitled to an education regardless of their immigration status, the fiscal burden of educating these students has fallen onto our public education system.

As FAIR notes, educating 68,541 illegal immigrant children at “an average annual cost of $12,401 per child enrolled in K-12 education, the annual cost to local schools is at least $850 million. However, since virtually all of the [unaccompanied minors] are non-English proficient, the actual costs are likely substantially greater.”

The increased costs and difficulties associated with educating illegal minors from poor and developing countries has been well-documented. As Fox News Latino reported in June of this year, the border surge has left many “schools struggling with influx of unaccompanied minors.” While the federal government’s policy of releasing illegal minors into American communities imposes burdens all across our nation’s education system, it will perhaps hurt minority American students most profoundly, by straining the educational resources needed in their communities.

For instance, New York’s Hempstead School District, which is a 96 percent black and Hispanic district, had about 6,700 students dispersed amongst its 10 schools and usually receives an average of a couple hundred new students every year. “However, last summer’s enrollment skyrocketed to about 1,500 new kids – most of them undocumented immigrants.” Fox News Latino writes, “The crush of new enrollees left the district scrambling, forcing it to dip into its emergency reserves to shell out more than $6 million to hire more English as a Second Language teachers and additional staff to alleviate overcrowded classrooms. Still, it has not been enough. The average classroom in the district now has about 40 to 50 children and [as one teacher explained is] posing a safety issue… ‘You have to understand,’ [one teacher said], ‘many of the children are not even proficient in their native language, Spanish, and now we have to teach them how to speak English. That can be very difficult.’”

Deporting instead of resettling illegal immigrants would save taxpayer dollars in two ways.

First, by deterring future border crossings, it would reduce the amount of illegal immigration in the future. As FAIR explains, refusing to implement immigration law has only encouraged more illegal immigrants to unlawfully enter the United States: “In July 2015, the Government Accountability Office confirmed that President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals [DACA] program played a substantial role in triggering the surge of [unaccompanied minors] in 2014.”

Second, deporting rather than resettling illegal immigrants would save the costs of feeding, clothing, housing, educating, hospitalizing, and caring for illegal immigrants and their relatives. A previous study conducted by FAIR documented that illegal immigrants cost U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion every year. After FAIR explains that by comparison, “The estimated cost of deporting an illegal alien is $8,318. Using just the partial enumerated $58.2 million costs to ICE and the conservative $850 million estimate for education of [unaccompanied minors] resettled in the U.S., the amount of taxpayer money spent on dealing with unaccompanied minors would have paid for the removal of an additional 109,000 illegal aliens.”