Category Archives: ISIS ISIL Islamic State Caliphate

Money Approved in 2016 to Counter Russian Disinformation

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Government does move slowly, in some cases if at all at tackling specific issues. With the cheap but effective disinformation campaign launched by Russia via the Internet Research Agency during the U.S. election season, the Mueller operation continues including the indictment of several Russian operatives.

A little factoid which has not been covered by media, much less how the visa got approved is curious, but a former IRA supervisor from Russia has moved to Bellevue, Washington. She is running a blog…ah what? This suspected ex-troll factory manager talked of filing for a Social Security Number (SSN). Burdonova declined to comment to TV Rain about her reasons for the move to the U.S. and denied having worked for the Internet Research Agency. The IRA, since at least 2014, worked to “interfere with the U.S political system” in part by supporting Donald Trump and “disparaging” Hillary Clinton.

The organization used social media advertising to spread misinformation and even staged political rallies in the U.S., the indictment alleged. Officials from Facebook, Twitter and Google have admitted their platforms were abused. More here from Newsweek.

Image result for global engagement center state department rex tillerson photo

So, between the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon, $40 million has been allocated to the Global Engagement Center to counter the Russian disinformation operation and China or other rogue nations are not exempt from the soon to be American response.

The State Department describes it this way:

The work of the GEC is focused around four core areas: science and technology, interagency engagement, partner engagement, and content production.

  • Science & Technology: The GEC’s Science & Technology team is charged with enabling the U.S. government and its partners to increase the reach and effectiveness of their communications. The team conducts research on target audiences and utilizes data science techniques to measure the effectiveness of our efforts. Among other techniques, the Science & Technology team performs A/B testing and multivariate analysis to measure the effectiveness of our content distribution. The GEC utilizes hypothesis-driven experimentation and applies a “create-measure-learn” approach to its activities to maximize effectiveness.
  • Interagency Engagement: The GEC liaises regularly across the interagency and coordinates closely with the relevant national security departments and agencies to identify efficiencies and opportunities in the messaging and partnership space. The GEC’s staff includes detailees from throughout the interagency, including the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, United States Agency for International Development, and Broadcasting Board of Governors.
  • Partner Engagement: One of the GEC’s overarching strategies is to identify, cultivate, and expand a global network of partners whose voices resonate with individuals most vulnerable to harmful propaganda. These partners work tirelessly to drive a wedge between susceptible audiences and those nations, groups, and terrorists seeking to influence them. The GEC conducts on-the-ground training sessions to enable these partners to develop their own content and disseminate it through their distribution networks. The GEC also leverages rigorous research and data science to improve tactics and techniques and inspire innovation.
  • Content Production: The GEC and its partners have established programming across multiple platforms, including social media, satellite television, radio, film, and print. This programming is conducted in various languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Somali, and French. These platforms allow the U.S. government and its partners to inject factual content about terrorist organizations into the information space to counter recruitment and radicalization to violence. They also allow us to develop and disseminate messaging on effective themes, such as exposing ISIS’s financial and governance failures; its violence against women, children, and religious minorities; and its ongoing territorial losses.

The GEC is currently led by Acting Coordinator Daniel Kimmage.

Congress had mandated the initiative to counter propaganda and disinformation after Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US election. Lawmakers and career foreign service officers were deeply critical when Tillerson didn’t move to use any of the funding, and cited his inaction as another example of the agency’s dysfunction.

A similar operation was allegedly applied to counter Islamic State Islamic propaganda and sophisticated media messaging. Measuring effectiveness is still in question.

 

Who Granted him Permission to Enter the United States?

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He entered on a non-immigrant visa and became a pilot? Nonimmigrant visas are issued to foreign nationals seeking to enter the United States on a temporary basis for tourism, business, medical treatment and certain types of temporary work. The type of nonimmigrant visa needed is defined by immigration law, and related to the purpose of the travel.

A video still of Al Farooq, Al Qaeda’s most notorious training camp, in June 2001. It was destroyed in the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. A Saudi man living in Oklahoma has been arrested after his fingerprints were found on an application to join the camp that he filled out in 2000. via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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The Al Farouq training camp, also known as “the airport camp”,[1] and Jihad Wel al-Farouq, was an alleged Al-Qaeda training camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Camp attendees received small-arms training, map-reading, orientation, explosives training, and other training.

The United States attacked the area with cruise missiles on August 20, 1998, in retaliation for the 1998 embassy bombings.[2][3] It continued to operate until August 2001, when it was shut down by its trainers.[4] The camp was bombed again on October 10, 2001.[5]

According to American intelligence analysts, the director of the Al Farouq camp was a Saudi named Abdul Quduz, who was later one of the commanders at the battle of Tora Bora.[6][7][8]

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Abu Hammam training at al-Farouq camp n Afghanistan. Usama Bin Laden appointed him responsible for the Syrians then. Abu Hammam al-Suri, aka Farouq, fought in Afghanistan; was Emir of Kandahar Airport; trained Jihadists for Zarqawi and joined Nusra

WASHINGTON — A Saudi immigrant suspected of once applying to join Al Qaeda’s most notorious training camp was arrested on a charge of visa fraud in Oklahoma, where he had been living for years with his family, federal law enforcement officials said on Tuesday.

The F.B.I. discovered the man, Naif Abdulaziz Alfallaj, only recently, when the authorities matched his fingerprints to those taken from a document captured in Afghanistan, the officials said. The document was an application for the Farooq camp, where four of the Sept. 11 hijackers trained.

He apparently filled out the application in 2000, when he was about 17, the officials said, well after Al Qaeda had made its intentions of attacking the United States and its allies known to the world. Anyone who tried to join the camp would have known that Al Qaeda was a terrorist organization, the law enforcement officials said.

Typically people who applied to the camp filled out what was known as a “mujahedeen data form.” They needed an invitation to join the camp and a reference from someone known and trusted by Al Qaeda. Trainees learned how to use weapons and explosives at the camp. After training, camp attendees fought with Al Qaeda or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Mr. Alfallaj, 35, obtained his pilot’s license in 2016, according to public records and American officials. Noncitizens are required to submit fingerprints as part of the licensing process.

Mr. Alfallaj came to the United States in about 2011 on a nonimmigrant visa and had been living in Weatherford, Okla, about 70 miles west of Oklahoma City, American officials said. The F.B.I. had been watching hi m for about five months and had been trying determine whether Mr. Alfallaj was involved in terrorist activity in the United States. The F.B.I. declined to comment, and little else was known about him.

The case highlights the difficulty facing the government in processing the large amounts of fingerprints, photographs, messages, email addresses, phone numbers and DNA samples that have been collected in nearly two decades of war.

Many documents and electronic media collected in Afghanistan land on the shelves of a unit in the F.B.I.’s counterterrorism division. The materials, which are stored in federal facilities in Northern Virginia and at F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington, have been a vexing problem for the agency. A merican officials have long wanted to exploit the materials but lacked the resources as the F.B.I. has focused on other pressing terrorism investigations over the years.

The number of documents was staggering, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands, said a former F.B.I. official who worked in the unit. Much of the information is in other languages, such as Arabic. To inspect the materials, the F.B.I. would need to reassign linguists from other cases.

The case of Mr. Alfallaj is similar to one brought in 2011 against two Iraqi men who were arrested in Bowling Green, Ky., after they had entered the United States. The F.B.I. discovered the men after finding fingerprints on explosive devices that had been used to attack American soldiers in Iraq. The two men were later convicted of terrorism charges and sentenced to life in prison.

After the men were discovered, the F.B.I. deployed hundreds of people to pull fingerprints off of improvised explosive devices stored at the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, known around the bureau as the Bomb Library of America. Officials said a similar effort is underway to make sure other materials similar to the training camp application are examined.

At some point, the F.B.I. decided to go through the terrorist camp applications to determine whether any fingerprints could be identified as part of a renewed ef fort to identify possible terrorism suspects, law enforcement officials said.

Mr. Alfallaj should never had been able to enter the country, said James W. McJunkin, the former head of counterterrorism at the F.B.I.

“I’d say there was a number of breakdowns going back to where the original intelligence was maintained and stored,” Mr. McJunkin said. “He should have been on a watch list.”

DoJ Official Explains the Terror and Immigration Report

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Politico published an item regarding the White House press briefing on 1/17/2018 where a Justice Department official, Ed O’Callaghan explained several terror cases inside the United States had connective tissue to chain migration as well as illegal immigration in an effort to give rise to the whole debate on Capital Hill as it relates to DACA, funding the border wall and shutting down the Federal government if no deal is reached. The only paragraph that did not have some bias slant to it is:

The report’s release, part of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last year, comes as the White House is pushing for changes in the U.S. immigration system that would end the diversity visa lottery program — through which a terrorist who killed eight people with a rented truck entered the U.S. — and chain migration, the practice of legal immigrants sponsoring family members’ entry into the country.

So, what is in this report?

 

Executive Order 13780 Section 11 Report – Final by zerohedge on Scribd

Most of the critical national security enhancements implemented and effectuated as a result of Executive Order 13780 are classified in nature, and will remain so to prevent malicious actors from  
exploiting our immigration system.
However, to “be more transparent with the American  people and to implement more effectively policies and practices that serve the national interest,” Section 11 of Executive Order 13780 requires the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, to collect and make publicly available the following information:
(i) Information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; convicted of terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; or removed from the United States based on terrorism-related activity, affiliation with or provision of material support to a terrorism-related organization, or any other national-security-related reasons;
(ii) Information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been radicalized after entry into the United States and who have engaged in terrorism-related acts, or who have provided material support to terrorism-related organizations in countries that pose a threat to the United States;
(iii) Information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including so-called “honor killings,” in the United States by foreign nationals; and, (iv) Any other information relevant to public safety and security as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Attorney General, including information on the immigration status of foreign nationals charged with major offenses.
According to a list maintained by DOJ’s National Security Division, at least 549 individuals were convicted of international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts  between September 11, 2001, and December 31, 2016. An analysis conducted by DHS determined that approximately 73 percent (402 of these 549 individuals) were foreign-born. Breaking down the 549 individuals by citizenship status at the time of their respective convictions reveals that:
1. 254 were not U.S. citizens;
2. 148 were foreign-born, naturalized and received U.S. citizenship; and,  
3. 147 were U.S. citizens by birth.
 8 specific cases were listed in the report with a summary of each case. The Boston bombers were not listed in this report. They went from a tourist visa, to asylum status, to green card and one got citizenship. We also have the San Bernardino killers that arrived on a marriage visa and a cultural visa. Both of those have stay limits. The argument here in both cases they are in the spirit of chain migration.
Diplomatic favors? How about that Christmas Day bomber? How was he granted a visa?

The Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had initially had his visa denied in 2004, four years prior to his 2008 application. In 2004, he applied again, and the initial denial was overturned because a supervisory consular officer decided Abdulmuttalab’s father was too prominent in Nigerian politics and finance to upset the U.S. diplomatic applecart in that country and deny his son a visa. Ironically, this was the same father who four years later visited the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and sought to help the U.S. keep his son out of the U.S., only subsequently to have the U.S. decide he was not important enough to listen to.

The legal kicker in this visa story is that on Abdulmuttalab’s 2008 application, he lied and said he had never received a prior denial, enough to deny him a visa under law and keep him out of the country. As the matter was “considered resolved,” State Department did not look again at the 2004 denial when the young Al Qaeda operative sought another visa in 2008. Instead, he was granted the multi-year visa he used to attend an Islamic convention in Houston in 2008 and again for airline check-in on Christmas Eve.

This is incredibly embarrassing to the State Department. Despite State’s spin on this “new” fact, what this makes clear is that: (1) the intelligence community was not primarily to blame after all for failure to revoke the visa, as it should never have been issued in the first place; but (2) raises – once more – a larger issue of the State Department’s policies regarding visa issuance; and (3) whether State should continue to be responsible for the visa process. More here.

The Democrats are in a pre 9/11 mentality. After the 9/11 Commission Report, recommendations and solutions were drafted of which the congressional leaders all approved. In particular, go to page 24 of the summary as it relates to immigration.

Iraq Before and After ISIS, Satellite Images and Data

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Mosul in March 2016, under Islamic State control, when nighttime lighting had fallen by 55 percent compared to its pre-ISIS levels in January 2014

January 9, 2018

What Life Under ISIS Looked Like from Space

Rand Corporation: Mosul in March 2016, under Islamic State control, when nighttime lighting had fallen by 55 percent compared to its pre-ISIS levels in January 2014

Image by NOAA Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)

A sandstorm swept through the besieged Iraqi city of Ramadi on the day it fell to the Islamic State. In the murk and confusion, suicide car bombs raced into the city center and leveled entire blocks. By the afternoon, the black flag of ISIS flew from the government headquarters.

Hundreds of miles above, an array of satellites captured what came next. Markets emptied. Factories went cold. Fields of wheat and barley withered. And the lights went out all over the city.

Data from those satellites provided RAND researchers an unprecedented look at life inside the Islamic State. They found a path of economic destruction, with few exceptions. In city after city, as in Ramadi, the arrival of the Islamic State meant a plunge into darkness.

Local Economies Under ISIS

By the time Ramadi fell in mid-2015, the Islamic State controlled an area of Iraq and Syria approaching the size of Great Britain. Its advance had been ruthless, its brutality staggering. RAND researchers wanted to know: What happened to cities and local economies when the Islamic State tried to govern?

Satellites were their way in.

Satellite observations have opened windows on everything from nuclear weapon programs to rush-hour traffic in the decades since RAND first proposed a “world-circling spaceship” in 1946. The United States alone now has more than 800 active satellites in orbit; more than half of them are commercial. Analysts have used satellite data to measure poverty in Kenya, black markets in North Korea, even the number of customer cars in Home Depot parking lots.

Those same kinds of data, RAND researchers realized, could provide a remarkably detailed look inside one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Satellite data measuring surface reflections from the Earth, for example, would show how much land was planted for agriculture. Urban heat readings would help pinpoint working factories. And infrared ground scans would show where city lights were glowing in the night, bright spider webs against a dark background.

In Syria, more than 60 percent of the lights went dark as ISIS struggled to restore electricity or fuel generators. In Iraq, it was more like 80 percent.

The researchers collected data on more than 150 cities in Iraq and Syria, month by month. They estimated that as much as a third of the population had fled areas under ISIS control. Factories closed; fields dried up. In Syria, more than 60 percent of the lights went dark as ISIS struggled to restore electricity or fuel generators. In Iraq, it was more like 80 percent.

“What’s unique about this is that we were able to bring all these different measurements together and provide a much more holistic understanding of the local economies,” said Eric Robinson, a research programmer and analyst at RAND who led the project. “We were able to use nighttime lighting to understand electricity consumption, but control for population levels. We knew that if an entire city had depopulated, then there was no one there to turn the lights on.”

Some Economic Decay, Some Effective Governance

The researchers then zoomed in on five major cities using high-resolution photographs from commercial satellites. Those photographs, similar to the satellite-view images on Google Maps, were so detailed the researchers could count cars on the road or measure foot traffic at a market. A small army of volunteers helped them go through the images, one by one, and perform those counts by hand—a crowd-sourced solution to a big-data problem.

The images told two very different stories.

In cities like Ramadi, Tikrit, and Deir ez-Zor, where ISIS was under fire and struggling to maintain control, its rule brought economic decay. Satellite images of the main market in Ramadi, for example, showed a ghost town. Commercial trucks all but disappeared from the roads in Tikrit. And in Deir ez-Zor, the lights went dark in ISIS-controlled neighborhoods even though the group held massive oil fields outside the city that could have kept generators running.

But in the core of the caliphate, where ISIS control was more secure, the satellite images showed some evidence of effective governance. In its capital city of Raqqa, for example, the group managed to keep the lights on at hospitals even when the rest of the city went dark, a sign that it was managing electricity. In the big city of Mosul, the group transformed an open-air market into a covered shopping district that was soon bustling with shoppers and car traffic—all of which it could tax.

Mosul City Center and Market

Following liberation of the city, recent satellite photo shows extensive damage and destruction to Mosul.

Satellite image by Digitalglobe

“There were obviously just terrible stories of brutality coming out of the city, but people still need to buy food, and shop owners still own shops, and goods are still moving in and out of this market,” Robinson said.

“One of the key takeaways of our report,” he added, “is that without the military campaign to retake this territory, the Islamic State could have tried to replicate some of the modest success it experienced in Mosul and Raqqa. We would be facing a much different enemy.”

Preparing for a Post-ISIS Recovery

In fact, the researchers concluded it wasn’t necessarily the harsh rule and high taxes of ISIS that ground out local economies. The group was constantly trying to fend off counterattacks and air strikes, and could not turn its attention to governing or building back local economies.

Its caliphate has since splintered. It lost Tikrit in 2015, Ramadi in early 2016. Iraqi forces declared Mosul liberated last year, after dislodging ISIS forces neighborhood by neighborhood. A RAND analysis calculated that the Islamic State had lost more than half its territory by early 2017, a rout that has continued since then.

The extensive destruction of West Mosul, Iraq, June 2017

The extensive destruction of West Mosul, Iraq, June 2017

Photo by Sipa via AP Images

The disintegration of the Islamic State as a state has given RAND’s satellite analysis new importance. No longer a window into how the group governs, though, it is now providing a window into the economic damage it left behind, and what it will take to rebuild. Researchers have been working with U.S. government agencies to prioritize work in Syria to help stabilize cities captured from ISIS—restoring the electric grid, for example, or investing in markets.

“I think the big concern in this region is that if we don’t help truly rebuild and reconstitute the local governance in those areas, that there will be a resurgence of an ISIS 2.0 or an ISIS-like group,” Robinson said. He’s hoping to continue tracking the satellite data, “to measure our progress so far, to make sure we don’t take our foot off the gas too soon.”

The scale of that need is apparent in Ramadi. It’s been almost three years since ISIS fighters swept into the city in the blur of a sandstorm, and two years since Iraqi forces swept them back out. RAND’s satellite data showed destruction in almost every neighborhood in the city; every bridge was demolished. The city was once home to nearly 300,000 people; RAND’s data suggest no more than 36,000 still lived there after ISIS.

— Doug Irving

Highlights of DHS Report to Judiciary Cmte on Immigration

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Image result for secretary of dhs photo

Primer:

The Justice Department on Tuesday announced plans to appeal a judge’s ruling that blocked President Donald Trump from shuttering a program that gave protections and work permits to some people who entered the U.S. illegally as children.

In a ruling last week, San Francisco-based U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup ordered the administration to resume accepting renewal applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as DACA. More here from Politico.

In part, highlights:

The Department has also implemented historic efforts to step up international cooperation. For the first time ever, DHS established a clear baseline for what countries must do to help the United States confidently screen travelers and immigrants from their territory. Every country in the world is now required to meet high security standards and to help us understand who is coming into our country.
As required under President Trump’s Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States (EO 13780), all foreign governments have been notified of the new standards, which include the sharing of terrorist identities, criminal
history information, and other data needed to ensure public safety and national security, as well as the requirement that countries issue secure biometric passports, report lost and stolen travel documents to INTERPOL, and take other essential actions to prevent identity fraud.
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Visa Waiver Program
We are also looking at ways to further strengthen the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). First and foremost, the VWP is a security partnership program. It mandates high and consistent standards from partner countries in the areas of national security, law enfor
cement, and immigration enforcement to detect and prevent terrorists, criminals, and other potentially dangerous individuals from traveling to the United States —
while still facilitating legitimate travel and tourism.
Currently, 38 countries participate in the VWP, which allows their citizens to travel to the United States for business or tourism for stays of up to 90 days after applying and being approved through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). In return, these countries must comply with program requirements to enter into information
-sharing protocols that enable the relay of information concerning known and suspected terrorists and criminals; consistent and timely lost and stolen passport information reporting; and robust border and travel document
screening. As a result of these program requirements, countries have adopted new laws, policies, and practices that strengthen our mutual security.
The Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015,
combined with Secretarial action, have strengthened the VWP’s security provisions over the past two years.
VWP countries are now required to issue high -security electronic passports (e-
passports); implement information sharing arrangements to exchange terrorist identity information; establish mechanisms to validate e-passports at each key port of entry; report all lost and stolen passports to INTERPOL or directly to the United States no later than 24 hours after the country becomes aware of the loss or theft; and screen international travelers against the INTERPOL Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database and notices. As with other operational activities of DHS, a full discussion of the privacy impact of these initiatives and how we mitigate the risk to personal privacy is available on our website.
Since enactment of the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, DHS has realized an increase in the sharing of terrorist identity information. Several countries have increased the frequency of their reporting of lost and stolen passports —VWP countries account for over 70 percent of the almost 73 million lost and stolen travel documents reported to INTERPOL. All VWP countries are now issuing and using for travel to the United States fraud-resistant e-passports that meet or exceed the ICAO standards. Over 70,000 ESTA applicationshave been denied, cancelled or revoked under enforcement of the VWP Improvement Act’seligibility restrictions for VWP travel.
Border Security
In compliance with Executive Order 13767: Border Security and Immigration Enforcement
Improvements, DHS has conducted a comprehensive study of the security of the southern border that addresses all of the elements that provide an integrated solution for the Nation. Our first priority is to expand on our existing southern border wall system and close legal loopholes that encourage and enable illegal immigration and create a corresponding backlog in the courts. We currently have an immigration court backlog of more than 650,000 cases pending before the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. We also have a massive asylum backlog with more than 270,000 pending cases before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Recognizing the unsustainability of the asylum case backlog, USCIS has implemented efficiency measures designed to reduce adjudication times. Similarly, the Department of Justice has taken action to reduce unwarranted case continuances in immigration courts, which helps reduce the backlog while affording aliens full and fair hearings. To further

reduce the “pull factors” and restore integrity to our immigration benefits adjudication process, we must tighten case processing standards, including the “credible
-fear” standard, impose and enforce penalties for fraud, and ensure applicants are fully vetted before they are allowed access to the United States.
In addition, visa-overstays account for roughly 40 percent of all illegal immigration in the
United States. In FY 2016, more than 628,000 aliens overstayed their visas. By increasing
overstay penalties and expanding ICE’s enforcement tools, we can help ensure that foreign
workers, students, and visitors respect the terms of their temporary visas. We need Congress to authorize the Department to raise and collect fees from immigration benefit applications to fund additional enhancements to our immigration system called for by the President’s Executive Orders.
Enforcing Immigration Laws
We are also prioritizing the enforcement of our immigration laws in the interior of our country.
There are nearly one million aliens with final orders of removal across the country
—meaning these removable aliens were afforded due process of law, had their
day in court, and were ultimately ordered removed by a judge — yet they remain in our nation and ICE only has 6,000 Deportation Officers to arrest and remove them. The Administration looks to strengthen law enforcement by hiring 10,000 more ICE officers and agents, and supports the request from the Department of Justice to hire 300 more federal prosecutors.
To further protect our communities, we must end so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions. Hundreds of state and local jurisdictions across the country that do not honor requests from ICE to hold criminal aliens who are already in state and local custody. Instead, they allow them back into their communities, where they are allowed to commit more crimes. This also poses a greater risk of harm to ICE officers, who must locate and arrest these criminals in public places, and increases the likelihood that the criminal aliens can resist arrest or flee. Rather than enhancing public safety, sanctuary jurisdictions undermine it.
The only “sanctuary” these jurisdictions create is a safe haven for criminals. States and localities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities should be ineligible for funding from certain grants and cooperative agreements.
Authorizing and incentivizing states and localities to enforce immigration laws would further help ICE with its mission and make all communities safer.
In FY 2017, 1,761 criminal illegal aliens were released from ICE custody because of a 2001
Supreme Court decision that generally requires ICE to release certain removable aliens with final orders of removal—including violent criminals—
within 180 days, if they have not been removed and there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future. Legally insupportable judicial interpretations of the law regarding the detention and removability of criminal aliens have eroded ICE’s authority to keep aliens in custody pending removal.
Pursuant to this Executive Order, USCIS announced it will take a more targeted approach to combatting fraud and abuse in the employment -based visa programs, including the H-1B program. To help end H-1B petitioner fraud and abuse, USCIS has established a Targeted Site Visit and Verification Program (TSVVP). Targeted site visits allow USCIS to focus its resources where fraud and abuse of certain programs are more likely to occur. TSVVP initially focused on H-1B petitions filed by companies that are H-1B dependent (as defined by statute), employers petitioning for H-1B workers who will be placed off -site at another company’s location, or cases where USCIS cannot validate the H-1B petitioner’s business information through commercially -available data.
USCIS has also taken great strides to improve transparency with the public about employment -based immigration programs. The agency has published new data on its website to give the public more information regarding the use of nonimmigrant workers in the H-1B, H-2B, and L nonimmigrant programs. Information about the use and legal authority for employment authorization documents has also been published.
Most low-skilled immigration into the United States occurs legally through our
immigrant-visa system, which, unlike many other countries’ systems, prioritizes family
-based chain-migration. Each year, the United States grants lawful permanent resident status (greencards) to more than one million people; two-thirds of that total is based on a person having a sponsoring relative in the United States, regardless of the new immigrant’s skills, education, English language proficiency, or ability to successfully assimilate. This system of chain-migration has accounted for more than 60 percent of immigration into the United States over the past 35 years. We must end chain-migration, and limit family -based green cards to spouses and the minor children of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
We must also eliminate the “diversity visa” lottery. Every year, through this lottery, 50,000
green cards are awarded at random to foreign nationals. Many of these lottery beneficiaries have absolutely no ties to the United States, no special skills, and limited education. The random lottery program has not been adopted by other countries and does not adequately serve our national interest. Full opening summary here.