Category Archives: Illegal Immigration

The Billion Dollar Fleece of Taxpayers at DHS

Posted on by

There are defined dollars assigned to projects, when there is no enough money or the timeline for completion is missed, who says stop and inspects why? What have members of Congress been told, if anything? Who spends a billion dollars with no results? Sure, this Federal government. The same playbook applied to Obamacare and countless other government operations. Where is the outrage and will this too head to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for investigation?

It should be noted that the Ellis Island did this successfully as did Ancestry.com.

A decade into a project to digitize U.S. immigration forms, just 1 is online

WaPo: Heaving under mountains of paperwork, the government has spent more than $1 billion trying to replace its antiquated approach to managing immigration with a system of digitized records, online applications and a full suite of nearly 100 electronic forms.

A decade in, all that officials have to show for the effort is a single form that’s now available for online applications and a single type of fee that immigrants pay electronically. The 94 other forms can be filed only with paper.

This project, run by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was originally supposed to cost a half-billion dollars and be finished in 2013. Instead, it’s now projected to reach up to $3.1 billion and be done nearly four years from now, putting in jeopardy efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration policies, handle immigrants already seeking citizenship and detect national security threats, according to documents and interviews with former and current federal officials.

From the start, the initiative was mismanaged, the records and interviews show. Agency officials did not complete the basic plans for the computer system until nearly three years after the initial $500 million contract had been awarded to IBM, and the approach to adopting the technology was outdated before work on it began.

By 2012, officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which includes USCIS, were aware that the project was riddled with hundreds of critical software and other defects. But the agency nonetheless began to roll it out, in part because of pressure from Obama administration officials who considered it vital for their plans to overhaul the nation’s immigration policies, according to the internal documents and interviews.

Only three of the agency’s scores of immigration forms have been digitized — and two of these were taken offline after they debuted because nearly all of the software and hardware from the original system had to be junked.

The sole form now available for electronic filing is an application for renewing or replacing a lost “green card” — the document given to legal permanent residents. By putting this application online, the agency aimed to bypass the highly inefficient system in which millions of paper applications are processed and shuttled among offices. But government documents show that scores of immigrants who applied online waited up to a year or never received their new cards, disrupting their plans to work, attend school and travel.

“You’re going on 11 years into this project, they only have one form, and we’re still a paper-based agency,’’ said Kenneth Palinkas, former president of the union that represents employees at the immigration agency. “It’s a huge albatross around our necks.’’

DHS officials acknowledge the setbacks but say the government is well on the way to automating the immigration service, which processes about 8 million applications a year. The department has scrapped the earlier technology and development method and is now adopting a new approach relying in part on cloud computing.

“In 2012, we made some hard decisions to turn the Transformation Program around using the latest industry best practices and approaches, instead of simply scratching it and starting over,’’ said Shin Inouye, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services. “We took a fresh start — a fix that required an overhaul of the development process — from contracting to development methodology to technology.’’

“Since making these changes, we have been able to develop and deploy a new system that is able to process about 1.2 million benefit requests out of USCIS’s total annual work volume,” Inouye added. “Our goals remain to improve operations, increase efficiency, and prepare for any changes to our immigration laws. Based on our recent progress, we are confident we are moving in the right direction.”

Other DHS officials emphasized that if Congress passes immigration reform in the near future, they would have an electronic system that could accommodate any significant changes, including a surge in demand from immigrants seeking legal status.

Until then, immigrants and their lawyers say they will remain hugely frustrated by the government’s archaic, error-plagued system. Processing immigration applications now often involves shipping paper documents across the country, and delays are legend. A single missing or misplaced form can set back an approval by months.

“It’s shameful that they’ve been on this for a decade and haven’t been able to get a working system in place,’’ said Vic Goel, an immigration lawyer in Reston, Va., who has followed the computerization project as a liaison for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Online forms get pulled

When the electronic immigration system began in May 2012, it was hailed as “a significant milestone in our agency’s history” by the USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas, who is now the deputy secretary of homeland security.

The first form that went live was intended for foreigners who were in the United States on certain types of visas who wanted to renew their non-immigrant status.

But only a fraction of applicants ever used that form before the agency took it offline, after officials decided to abandon the initial technology and development method and move toward a cloud-based system. Some officials inside DHS said the system should never have been launched at all because of reports that it was suffering from so many technical errors.

The second form, released in 2013, didn’t fare much better. It was designed to allow a certain group of foreigners — those wanting to immigrate to the United States and invest in a business — to apply electronically. Only about 80 people used the online form, DHS officials said. More than 10,000 others opted for old-fashioned paper. It was also pulled.

The third form, which debuted last year, is the one that would allow permanent residents to renew or replace their green cards online. In nearly 200 cases, applicants did not receive their cards or had to wait up to a year, despite multiple requests, according to a June report from the USCIS ombudsman.

The agency also hoped to make it possible for immigrants to pay fees online. There are more than 40 kinds of filing fees that immigrants pay to the government with their applications. As of now, however, only one can be paid online — by those who immigrate to the United States as lawful permanent residents. And even this limited electronic payment system has encountered major problems, such as resistance from immigrants who have trouble because they may not have computers or bank accounts.

A series of government reports has skewered the online immigration system, named ELIS after Ellis Island, even after the old technology was scrapped and officials were scrambling to move to the new cloud-based approach. These studies have found that it is slow, confusing and inefficient for immigrants and government employees alike.

A report last year from the DHS inspector general’s office said it sometimes took up to 150 clicks for employees to navigate the system’s various complex features and open documents — and that the system lacked functions as basic as a usable search engine. Internal DHS evaluations have warned of “critical engineering uncertainties” and other difficulties.

“It’s in­cred­ibly slow to use the few forms they put online,’’ said Goel, the immigration lawyer. “Most immigration lawyers have concluded the system is half-baked.’’

‘It wasn’t going to work’

Government watchdogs have repeatedly blamed the mammoth problems on poor management by DHS, and in particular by the immigration agency.

When the project began, DHS was only two years old, cobbled together after the Sept. 11 attacks from myriad other government agencies, and the department was still reeling. “There was virtually no oversight back then,’’ a former federal official said. “DHS was like the Wild West on big acquisitions.”

The Government Accountability Office has blasted the immigration service for shoddy planning, saying the agency awarded the IBM contract “prior to having a full understanding of requirements and resources needed to execute the program.” As a result, basic planning documents were incomplete or unreliable, including cost estimates and schedules. The basic requirements for the project, the report said, were not completed until 2011 — nearly three years after the IBM contract was awarded.

IBM had as many as 500 people at one time working on the project. But the company and agency clashed. Agency officials, for their part, held IBM responsible for much of the subsequent failure, documents show.

The company’s initial approach proved especially controversial. Known as “Waterfall,” this approach involved developing the system in relatively long, cascading phases, resulting in a years-long wait for a final product. Current and former federal officials acknowledged in interviews that this method of carrying out IT projects was considered outdated by 2008. “The Waterfall method has not been successful for 40 years,” said a current federal official involved in the project, who was not an authorized spokesperson and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

An IBM spokesman declined to address the criticisms, saying only that the company’s work on Transformation concluded in May.

By 2012, the system’s fundamental flaws — including frequent computer crashes and bad software code — were apparent to officials involved with the project and, according to one of them, and it was clear that “it wasn’t going to work.”

But killing the project wasn’t really an option, according to officials involved at the time. President Obama was running for reelection and was intent on pushing an ambitious immigration reform program in his second term. A workable electronic system would be vital.

“There was incredible pressure over immigration reform,” a second former official said. “No one wanted to hear the system wasn’t going to work. It was like, ‘We got some points on the board, we can go back and fix it.’”

Delays and lost papers

Immigration reform never made it out of Congress, but it could resurface after the presidential election next year. If it does, and if it involves possible citizenship or legal status for the 11.3 million immigrants who are in the country illegally, the policy would flood the government with millions of complicated new applications.

“Oh, God help us,’’ said Harry Hopkins, a former immigration services official who worked on the Transformation project. “If there is immigration reform, they are going to be overwhelmed.’’

The project’s failures already have daily consequences for millions of immigrants who are in the country legally. Immigration lawyers say the current system leads to lost applications, months-long delays and errors that cause further delays. Immigrants miss deadlines for benefits, meaning they lose everything from jobs and mortgages to travel opportunities.

Luke Bellocchi, an immigration lawyer and former deputy ombudsman at Citizenship and Immigration Services, said he has handled at least 100 cases of lost applications in the past few years, mostly for green cards.

“No one knows where these applications are,” he said. “It’s an absolute nightmare.’’

Another concern is national security. DHS officials said they are confident that the current paper-based system is not putting the nation at risk. But others, like Palma Yanni, a D.C. immigration lawyer and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, are dubious.

“If there are some bad apples in there who should not get a green card, who are terrorists who want to do us harm, how on earth are they going to find these people if they’re sending mountains of paper immigration files all over the United States?’’ Yanni asked.

No Govt Agency Exempt from Fleecing Taxpayer Dollars

Posted on by

We don’t even know what we don’t know and further what we think we know, we don’t really know either.

There is not a government agency throughout the entire Federal system that is not teeming with waste, fraud or abuse of our taxpayer dollars. One would easily be in the constant state of shuttering when it comes to contemplating the billions that go unaccounted for.

The mission of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed previously by Darryl Issa and presently with Jason Chaffetz attempts in earnest to uncover and investigate and perhaps refer for prosecution those in government guilty of malfeasance, yet the co-chair of the committee, Elijah Cummings leads his side to obstruct the duty of the committee at every turn. In fact Cummings and his crowd never find any dereliction of duty, corruption or fraud.

Just consider, Fast and Furious, Secret Service prostitution scandal, Benghazi, Planned Parenthood, EPA, IRS and Operation Choke Point for some examples.

The job of accountability goes to a particular division at the Department of Justice where all the Inspector Generals are deployed to investigate and determine money success of programs. Inspector Generals also work outside the scope of the DoJ, with not much more comprehensive success.

The IG’s are the watchdogs and while most do stellar work, others not so much and still others are completely stonewalled when it comes to gaining access to receipts, contracts, agreements and so on.

DailyCaller:Federal watchdogs are urging Congress to make sure all inspectors general, not just those at Department of Justice, have unfettered access to all official documents their respective agencies produce.

The Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency fired off a letter to top members of Congress Thursday encouraging Congress to reiterate through new legislation that the 1978 Inspector General Act already entitles IGs to all agency records.

The letter comes two days after the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs asked Congress to pass legislation specifying that only the DOJ IG is entitled to all department records. Previously, the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel denied the department’s IG access to wiretapped communications or grand jury testimony.

But the proposed fix is too little, too late, for an IG community where other federal watchdogs are facing similar access problems.

As yet another example where dollars add up, most recently is a report on FEMA.

FEMA can’t account for up to $4.56M Sandy fuel funds

FNC: The Federal Emergency Management Agency can’t adequately account for more than 70 percent of the money spent on fuel for New York in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, a federal audit released on Friday found.

FEMA spent $6.37 million for 1.7 million gallons of fuel as a gasoline shortage crippled the New York City area after the October 2012 storm, according to the audit from the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security.

But the audit found “incomplete and questionable” documentation for $4.56 million of that spending. Additionally, $1.81 million worth of fuel went to recipients outside the scope of work that FEMA established for the crisis, the audit found. As a result, FEMA can’t be sure any of that fuel went to approved power restoration or emergency public transportation work in New York, the audit said.

Officials at FEMA agreed with all of the report’s recommendations, which include recovering lost funds and devising new procedures, according to the audit.

A spokeswoman for FEMA said: “FEMA concurred with all of the OIG recommendations for rectifying the issues identified in their recent report and improving mission assignment effectiveness going forward. FEMA takes seriously its duty to ensure fiscal responsibility during disaster relief operations, and has been reimbursed by New York for more than $2.1 million.”

New York state collected the $1.8 million, plus interest, from the retail gas stations that were the wrongful recipients of the fuel and reimbursed FEMA, the Dept. of Homeland Security said. Sandy, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, knocked out power to gas stations, caused widespread flooding and cut gasoline-supply lines from ports.

Gasoline shortages emerged as one of the biggest problems for the region after the storm passed. At the time, the federal government estimated that only one-third of gas stations in the metropolitan area had fuel for sale, based on a survey that found more than half were shut down.

FEMA stepped up to provide fuel for urgent power restoration and transportation needs.

The unaccounted fuel deliveries occurred because FEMA didn’t comply with federal regulations requiring the agency provide proper documentation accounting for its work, the audit found.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal

 

Illegals Just Released Their Bill of Rights/Demands

Posted on by

Illegal immigrants release ‘Bill of Rights’
Demand citizenship, birth certificates, medical care

The team of people behind this is found here.
WashingtonTimes: An immigrant-rights group proposed a “Bill of Rights” for illegal immigrants Thursday, demanding that Americans recognize there are millions already in the country who deserve health care, in-state tuition rates for college and a guarantee of citizenship in the long term.

Undocumented Americans’ Bill of Rights 2015.jpg

The purpose of this document is to awaken and instill courage and cooperation among our leaders, to grow public awareness and to create a crisis of conscience where Americans have to do more than talk about us; they have to talk with us. They must approach this discussion with respect for our determination to add our story to the nation’s proud immigrant anthology.

We’re already here and have been for years. We work hard, take care of our families and have deep roots in our communities. More time is something we don’t have. Our children are getting older without access to equal educational opportunities. Our working adults are unable to reach any kind of wage parity and advance in their professions. We live with no sense of security that our lives won’t be disrupted, our families torn apart.  And we’re constantly berated and stereotyped as a monolithic group to be condemned and ostracized. Being discouraged is one thing; losing all hope of working our way toward legal acceptance is something we can’t abide and the nation can’t afford – morally or economically. Read more from their own website here.

The list of demands runs 10 items long — the same as the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights — and also calls for an end to arrests and deportations for “all law-abiding undocumented Americans.”  The document was circulated by United We Stay, which is a group of illegal immigrants, first generation Americans and human rights activists pushing for changes to immigration law.
“We know we have human rights, even though our very presence is deemed illegal and our existence alien. Now we have our own Bill of Rights and we want it to be the framework for every immigration decision going forward from the local to the national level,” the group said in a statement announcing their demands.

The 10 points include a demand that they be accorded respect; calls for citizenship rights and an immediate deferment of deportations; in-state tuition at public colleges; “wage equality”; medical care; and protection against deportation if illegal immigrants report a crime as a witness.

The list also includes a specific demand for “compelled authorization of birth certificates for our U.S.-born children.” That appears to be pushback against the state of Texas, where officials have ruled that parents must present valid ID to get children’s birth certificates — and have deemed the Mexican government’s Matricula Consular ID card not to be acceptable as primary identification.

A federal court has allowed that Texas policy to go into effect, ruling that there are questions about the reliability of the Mexican cards and that state officials have an interest in making sure only authorized relatives are able to get birth certificates.

The list of rights begins with a protest against the terms “illegal” and “alien.” Immigrant-rights advocates say both terms are dehumanizing, and have offered “undocumented workers” or, in the case of United We Stand, “Undocumented Americans,” as their preferred term.

The document is meant to serve as a goalpost for the ongoing immigration debate. Immigrant-rights groups had been gaining ground in recent years, with polls suggesting Americans were increasingly open to legalization.

A legalization bill even passed the Senate in 2013 — but Democrats, who controlled the chamber, never sent it to the GOP-run House for action.

The issue then stalled last year after President Obama took unilateral action to grant a deportation amnesty to as many as 5 million of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Federal courts have put that amnesty on hold, but Mr. Obama’s other policies stopping deportations for most illegal immigrants remain in place, which has effectively checked off one of the list of rights’ demands.

Senator Cruz Lights the Fuse Against Terrorism

Posted on by

Cruz joins fight to label Muslim B’hood ‘terrorist organization’

Sen. Ted Cruz and several House Republicans are leading a new legislative effort aimed at compelling the U.S. government to label Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood a “foreign terrorist organization.”

“This bill recognizes the simple fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is a radical Islamic terrorist group,” Cruz said upon the introduction of his Senate version of the bill. “A number of our Muslim allies have taken this common sense step, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the [United Arab Emirates].”

“The group supports and stands behind numerous terrorist organizations that are responsible for acts of violence and aggression,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., the lead House sponsor. “It is time for Congress and the Department of State to recognize and sanction them as they deserve, as a foreign terrorist organization.”

The bill, the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, asks Secretary of State John Kerry to label the organization a foreign terrorist organization within 60 days, or to present a report to Congress detailing why he opted against doing so. Much more here. To read the proposed Senate legislation titled:   To require the Secretary of State to submit a report to Congress on the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, and for other purposes.

 

Nearly 200 U.S. troops have been killed and nearly 1,000 injured by Iranian-made explosives in Iraq, according to new disclosures from a partially declassified report conducted by U.S. Central Command and described by sources to the Washington Free Beacon.

The number of U.S. deaths resulting from Iranian terrorism were revealed for the first time on Wednesday by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) during a hearing focusing on the Obama administration’s failure to prosecute terrorists directly responsible for the deaths of Americans.

At least 196 U.S. service members fighting in Iraq were killed directly as a result of Iranian-made explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, according to Cruz and congressional sources familiar with Centcom’s mostly classified report.

The deaths took place between 2003 and 2011. The Iranian explosive devices wounded another 861 U.S. soldiers, and a total of 1,534 attacks were carried out on U.S. military members over this period, according to sources familiar with the report, which was provided to Cruz’s office.

The explosive devices are a “hallmark weapon” of Iran’s Quds force, a paramilitary group that operates outside of Iran’s borders, according to sources familiar with the report. It has been determined that only Iranian-backed operatives use these weapons in Iraq.

U.S. military leaders disclosed in testimony before the Senate that Iranian terror activities have claimed the lives of around 500 U.S. soldiers, which accounts for at least 14 percent of all American casualties in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.

“That blood is on Iran’s hands,” Cruz said Wednesday afternoon during a hearing on the Obama administration’s decision to not prosecute terrorists who have murdered American citizens and troops abroad.

“Iran has been and still is at war with the U.S.,” Cruz said. “Yet despite the slaughter and maiming of an untold number of America citizens … the U.S. government has rather shockingly failed time and time again to fulfill its sovereign duty to obtain justice for its citizens. Our government has failed terror victims in a number of ways.”

Palestinian terrorists, many of them supported by Iran, have killed more than 53 Americans. The Department of Justice has not prosecuted a single person, Cruz said.

Those testifying at the hearing said they were alarmed by the government’s hesitation to prosecute terror cases.

“The greatest pain that victims and their families have is watching another incident take place, watching another death,” said Aegis Industries CEO Kenneth Stethem, whose brother, Robert, was killed during the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight by Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists.

“I would like to know if the administration has asked Iran if they’re still at jihad,” Stethem said, adding that separating Iran from terrorism is “like separating light from a flame and heat from a fire.”

“Is it sound policy to give money to a terrorist nation that is at war with us?” Stethem asked, referring to the more than $150 billion in cash assets that will be released to Iran as a result of the recent nuclear accord.

Stethem also said he was concerned by the Obama administration’s failure to hold Iran accountable for recent violations of the accord, which include the testing of ballistic missiles.

“I’d just like to see some accountability,” he said. “And Congress must do it because the administration isn’t.”

Daniel Miller, a victim of Hamas terrorism, recalled how suicide bombers destroyed the Jerusalem café that he and his friends were dining at.

Miller said that he and other victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism attempted to sue the Islamic Republic. After winning more than $70 million in damages, the U.S. government stepped in to argue on Iran’s behalf.

“I expected a battle from Iran” to get the money legally owed, Miller said. “What I didn’t expect was the battle we faced from my own government.”

Lawyers from the Department of Justice filed a brief during one legal processing to protect Iran from having to pay the victims.

“On one side [of the courtroom] was my legal team representing victims of terrorism, and on the other side was the U.S. sitting with its newfound ally Iran,” Miller said.

He also said Obama administration “cares more about protecting Iranian assets than protecting its own terror victims.”

Cruz called the story “disgusting,” “shameful,” and “unacceptable.”

Others at the hearing criticized the Obama administration for interceding in a legal case in which American victims of Palestinian terrorists were awarded billions of dollars in damages. The administration argued in an unprecedented briefing to the court earlier this year that this money should not be paid out to the victims because it would financially cripple the Palestinian government.

 

DEA Joins FBI Against WH on Ferguson Effect

Posted on by

Last month, this website wrote that FBI Director James Comey has determined the real cause of the low morale by the nation’s law enforcement. The White House has continued to push back hard on Comey but now the Drug Enforcement Agency is standing with the FBI on this very issue. Border Patrol also joined with the DEA and FBI.

DEA chief: Comey ‘spot on’ linking Ferguson impact to crime surge

USAToday – WASHINGTON — The nation’s top drug enforcement official said Wednesday that FBI Director James Comey was “spot on” when he recently offered the controversial assessment that violent crime surges in some cities may be linked to police officers’ reluctance to engage suspects.

“I think there is something to it,” Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg told reporters, referring to the so-called “Ferguson-effect” in which police have been reportedly hesitant to act for fear of prompting the kind of civil unrest that engulfed Ferguson, Mo., last year. “I think (Comey) was spot on.”

Comey’s remarks during appearances last month in Chicago put the FBI director at odds with some in law enforcement and the White House, which indicated that existing evidence did not support such a claim.

“I will say that the available evidence at this point does not support the notion that law enforcement officers around the country are shying away from fulfilling their responsibilities,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week. “On the contrary, I think you’ve seen a lot of local law enforcement leaders indicate that police officers and sheriffs and other local law enforcement officials are actually dedicated public servants who on a daily basis are putting their lives on the line to serve and protect the communities that they’re assigned to.”

The FBI director has acknowledged that data is lacking to support a definitive conclusion, yet he said that he maintained a “strong sense” of a connection based on reports from local law enforcement officials.

Rosenberg, who served as Comey’s chief of staff before his May appointment as acting DEA administrator, said he has heard similar concerns from local law enforcement officials.

“I’ve heard the same things,” Rosenberg said. “I think it’s worth talking about. I don’t know if it will turn out to be right or wrong. That’s why Comey called for better data. The data that we have is limited. It just is.”

Of the disagreement voiced by the White House, Rosenberg said: “The White House is a building, so I’m not sure what the White House thinks,” Rosenberg said, adding that he believed Comey’s remarks were “thoughtful and measured.”

“When you get criticized from the right and the left, you probably hit it just about perfectly,” he said.

For months, law enforcement officials have been grappling with the possible causes of recent spikes in violent crime plaguing some major cities — Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Louis among them — even as crime in much of the country has been in a sustained decline.

Last month, Attorney General Loretta Lynch hosted a meeting to address the issue where representatives of at least 20 cities cited poverty, heroin addiction and easy access to firearms as likely triggers. Others also voiced frustration that an erosion of public support for officers was having an effect on the way communities were being policed.

“We also cannot avert our gaze from the fact that police in cities feel like they are not being supported by the federal government,” Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said and referred to a recent federal focus on the operations of more than 20 police agencies in recent years prompted by allegations of officer misconduct. “Right now, officers feel like they are being defined by everything they are working against.”

“Every incident, regardless of where it happens, they are made to feel they must answer for,” the chief said. “It’s hurting them. National policing policy is being driven by random YouTube videos.”