Category Archives: Southern Border War

Lynch Wants $80 for More Control Control

Posted on by

AG Lynch: We Want $80 Million For Obama’s Gun-Control Plan

The price tag for implementing President Obama’s executive gun controls is $80 million, Attorney General Loretta Lynch declared during her January 20 testimony before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee.

Breitbart: Lynch said the administration will begin pushing for the money in Obama’s 2017 budget request, due next month, according to ABC News.

She’s already meeting some opposition. “This subcommittee will have no part in undermining the Constitution and the rights that it protects,” subcommittee chairman Senator Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)  told Lynch.

But another Republican lawmaker–Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)– suggested she would support the program to expand of background checks on gun-purchasers.

In addition to expanding background checks, putting new requirements on federally licensed gun dealers, and co-opting a ban on gun ownership for some Social Security beneficiaries, Obama’s executive gun controls include the hiring of “more than 230 additional examiners and other staff to help process…background checks.”

Lynch tried to sell the gun-control plan to the subcommittee by claiming that a “glitch” in the background-check system allowed Dylann Roof to buy the gun he used to kill nine people in June 2015 at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston, S.C.

But this claim runs counter to a statement from FBI Director James Comey. Roof obtained his gun, not because of a problem with background check system, but because of a clerical error made by one of the FBI reviewers who was carrying out Roof’s background check, Comey said.

*** Lynch was recently at the Al Sharpton National Action Network speaking at a breakfast honoring Martin Luther King. If there any questions about who she really is and what she is up to, here are more clues:

Dr. King’s words and deeds – and those of the millions who stood with him – are not vestiges of history, but timeless calls to action.

That call – that mission – has animated the Department of Justice since the inception of this Administration and it fuels our ongoing work to ensure that everyone in this country can achieve the full blessings of American life.  Our revitalized Civil Rights Division – the conscience of the department, led by the outstanding Vanita Gupta – is committed to ensuring that access to the ballot box is as fair and unencumbered as Dr. King dreamed it would be.  Wherever the franchise is being diminished – whether through historical barriers or newly erected ones – we stand prepared to use every tool at our disposal to protect the sacred American right to vote.  The Civil Rights Division is making significant progress bringing criminal civil rights cases, as well.  Over the course of this Administration, we have filed more criminal civil rights cases and prosecuted and convicted more defendants on hate crimes charges than at any other point in the Justice Department’s history.  And we’re working to protect civil rights within criminal justice, in part by strengthening relationships between law enforcement and the communities we serve and ensuring constitutional policing across the country.  We have launched a variety of new programs and innovative efforts at the local level – including my own six-city listening tour – to promote community policing and to build the relationships of trust that are so vital to effective law enforcement.

More broadly, we are working to ensure the fundamental fairness of the criminal justice system.  At the federal level, we are continuing to implement the “Smart on Crime” initiative – a bold reorientation of our prosecutorial approach that Attorney General Holder initiated in 2013.  In its first two years, Smart on Crime has not only been a bipartisan rallying point, but also a resounding success, with federal prosecutors using their resources conscientiously to bring the most serious wrongdoers to justice and with the overall crime rate declining in tandem with the overall incarceration rate for the first time in four decades.  But for fairness to be consistent and to have meaning, we have to look at every stage of the criminal justice process.  That is why we are working to end the school-to-prison pipeline to keep our children on the right path and out of the criminal justice system.  That is why we are investing in diversion and treatment programs that take an evidence-based approach to public health and criminal justice.  And that is why we are making sure that formerly incarcerated individuals have the tools and resources they need to successfully rejoin society and contribute to their communities.  We recently partnered with the Department of Education to extend Pell Grant support to some incarcerated individuals so that they can pursue an education that will not only reduce their likelihood of recidivism, but also throw open doors to opportunity. For all the details on what Lynch said , go here.

*** Note she was hanging with Al Sharpton at the National Action Network, a corrupt organization that owes millions in delinquent income taxes…..

DHS is Not Deporting Visa Overstays

Posted on by

The numbers are staggering but just for the time period of 2015, 482,000 are residing in the United States illegally. This number is clearly worse than those numbers coming in from the southern border.

DHS admits it’s not deporting most visa overstays

WashingtonExaminer: A pair of Department of Homeland Security officials told the Senate Wednesday that the government does not search for most of the people who overstay their temporary visas, a day after DHS said that nearly 500,000 people were still in the U.S. after having overstayed their visas last year.

“I didn’t mean to imply that we’re actually out monitoring them,” Craig Healy, an assistant director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., during Senate Judiciary subcommittee panel. Healy said that they review the universe of people who overstayed their visas and “prioritize” the deportation of people who went on to commit other crimes.

Their exchange came at the outset of a hearing on the federal government’s failure to implement a biometric system to track entries into and exits from the country, as required by a 2004 law. A Customs and Border Patrol official said the program couldn’t be implemented without causing “gridlock” at U.S. airports, a response that failed to allay bipartisan concern that the lack of this system is an ongoing national security threat.

“The biometric exit system is still not off the ground and that is unfortunate, very unfortunate, because it is a matter of national security,” New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader-in-waiting, said during the hearing.

John Wagner, deputy assistant commissioner of field operations for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, said the program couldn’t be implemented without causing two-hour delays when boarding airplanes. “It’s the placement of the technology and how you collect it to ensure that the person actually departed the United States,” Wagner said. “There’s no zone to do that.”

These answers frustrated Democratic lawmakers who otherwise disagree with Sessions and other immigration hawks the issue of border security and deportations. “It’s hard for me to envision that we can’t figure out where to get a space to do this at an airport or seaport,” said Senator Al Franken, D-Minn. “If you can’t solve it in 11 or 12 years, how can we know it will ever be solved?”

DHS’s report saying hundreds of thousands of people remained in the United States after having overstayed their visas drew complaints from both parties, but Sessions in particular.

“That is a population of individuals that is larger than any city in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina,” Sessions said. Healy replied that about 3,000 of the people who had overstayed their visas were under investigation, a statistic Sessions cited to argue that President Obama’s team has made no effort to implement the system or to deport people who overstay their visas, as long as those people “keep their nose clean” and do nothing to draw the attention of law enforcement or counterterrorism officials.

He said the lack of a biometric exit system was part of a broader failure by the Obama administration to implement federal immigration law.

“Our executive branch is on strike against the will of the American people,” Sessions said. “Simply put, there is no border at all if we don’t enforce our visa rules.”

****

Hold on, there is more…

Administration eases visa rules for travelers visiting terror hotspots

FNC: The Obama administration on Thursday eased visa rules for certain European travelers who have visited terror hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, triggering a backlash from congressional lawmakers who sought the restrictions for security reasons.

Moments after the announcement, two key Republicans declared the administration is “blatantly breaking the law” – a law that President Obama signed – by implementing the changes.

“This is not a difference of opinion over statutory interpretation, it is a clear contradiction of the law and the agreement we reached with the White House,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., author of the bill, said in a statement.

The revised requirements announced Thursday pertain to changes passed by Congress in the Visa Waiver Program.

Lawmakers had sought new restrictions to tighten up the program – which allows visa-free travel for residents of eligible countries — in order to prevent Europeans who have joined ISIS from entering the United States. Under the newly passed Visa Waiver Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, nationals of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan as well as other travelers who have visited those countries since Mar. 1, 2011 now must apply for a visa in order to travel to the U.S.

The administration implemented those changes Thursday — but with some changes of its own.

Under the revised requirements, some Europeans who have traveled to those four countries in the last five years may still be allowed to travel to the United States without obtaining a visa if they meet certain criteria.

The administration announced it will use its waiver authority — granted to it in the legislation — to give waivers to travelers who traveled to the terror hotspots as journalists, for work with humanitarian agencies or on behalf of international organizations, regional organizations and sub-national governments on official duty.

Further, an additional waiver was announced for people who have traveled to Iran “for legitimate business-related purposes” since the conclusion of the Iran nuclear deal in July. The administration offers waivers for individuals who have traveled to Iraq for business as well.

Republicans reacted angrily to the waivers, saying the Obama administration had exploited the limited authority and has compromised national security.

“President Obama and his administration’s decision to abuse their limited waiver authority and allow scores of people who have traveled to or are dual nationals of countries like Iraq and Syria flies in the face of reason and congressional intent,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in a statement.

“The Obama Administration is essentially rewriting the law by blowing wide open a small window of discretion that Congress gave it for law enforcement and national security reasons,” Goodlatte said.

Under the visa program itself, citizens of 38 countries, mostly in Europe, are generally allowed to travel to the United States without applying for a visa. But they still have to submit biographical information to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA.

The Homeland Security Department said waivers for some ESTA applicants will be granted on a “case-by-case” basis. Those travelers who are denied visa-free travel can still apply for visa through a U.S. embassy in their home country.

The new restrictions had previously been criticized by the Iranian government which suggested the U.S. might be violating the nuclear deal by penalizing legitimate business travel to the country.

Snapshot: U.S. Terror Report

Posted on by

Last year saw the deadliest Islamist jihad attacks in America since 9/11 and in Europe since 2004, according to the January Terror Threat Snapshot released by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas).

“The heinous ISIS-linked attack on a policeman in Philadelphia [earlier this month] is a grim reminder of the Islamist terror threat we face today,” McCaul said in releasing this month’s terror snapshot. “ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists are expanding their networks and carving out sanctuaries abroad, while their supporters and operatives have been plotting terror attacks in the West.”

McCaul said Obama’s “strategy to defeat ISIS and other Islamist extremists … is out of touch with reality …”

According to the Snapshot, “Islamist terrorists have been attempting to infiltrate the United States as authorities have uncovered jihadists who were resettled in America through the refugee resettlement program. Two refugees from Iraq resettled in the US were recently arrested on terror-related charges linked to ISIS.”

Additionally, the Snapshot stated, “The United States faces an unprecedented terror threat level at home due to the continued failure to destroy ISIS. Law enforcement authorities have arrested nearly 80 individuals in ISIS-related cases in the United States since 2014 – 62 in 2015 alone. There have been 21 ISIS-linked plots to launch attacks in the homeland. Over 80 percent of the post-9/11 homegrown Islamist extremist cases in the United States have occurred or been disrupted since 2009.”

Islamist terrorists returning to the West from Syria are also “a surging threat,” the snapshot added, noting legislation recently signed into law “will enhance the security of the Visa Waiver Program in order to prevent terrorists from entering the United States.”

The Full SnapShot Report from the Homeland Security Congressional Committee is here.

Recent Developments

• January 7: ISIS supporter Edward Archer ambushed and fired 13 shots at a Philadelphia police officer using s stolen police firearm before being arrested. Archer pledged allegiance to ISIS.

• January 7: Sacramento, California-based Islamist extremist Aws Mohammed Younis al Jayab was arrested after lying to authorities about traveling to Syria and fighting alongside terrorist organizations between November 2013 and January 2014. Al Jayab, an Iraqi refugee of Palestinian descent who was resettled in the U.S. from Syria in October 2012, communicated his intention to join terror organizations in Syria over social media. He said he had joined the ranks of Ansar al Islam, a foreign terrorist organization and had communications with an ISIS supporter.

• January 6: Houston, Texas-based ISIS supporter Omar Faraj Saeed al Hardan was arrested for attempting to support ISIS. Hardan, an Iraqi refugee of Palestinian descent who was resettled in the U.S. from Iraq in November 2009, lied to authorities regarding his automatic machine gun training and had associated with ISIS since 2014 and with al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al Nusra in 2013 and 2014.

• December 30: Rochester, New York-based ISIS supporter Emanuel Lutchman planned to attack a restaurant on New Year’s Eve before being arrested. Lutchman said he received direction from an ISIS operative overseas and also expressed his desire to travel to join ISIS. He recorded a video pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and claiming responsibility for the planned attack.

• December 17: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based ISIS supporter Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz was arrested for advocating for violence against Americans through social media and facilitating the travel of ISIS recruits overseas. Aziz was storing high-capacity weapon magazines and ammunition in his residence. He used at least 57 Twitter accounts in support of ISIS’s messaging and reposted a list of the names and personal information of 100 American service members with the intent of inciting attacks against them.

 

• December 11: Edgewood, Maryland-based ISIS supporter Mohamed Elshinawy was arrested after communicating electronically with ISIS operatives based overseas and accepting funds he believed were from ISIS for the purpose of launching an attack inside the United States. Elshinawy pledged allegiance to ISIS leader al Baghdadi in February 2015 and received $8,700 he believed was sent from ISIS operatives through Western Union and PayPal.

• December 11: Minneapolis, Minnesota-based ISIS supporter Khaalid Adam Abdulkadir was arrested when he threatened law enforcement authorities after the FBI publically announced the arrest of ISIS recruit Abdirizak Warsame near Minnesota. Abdulkadir had previously communicated with at least two other ISIS-linked recruiters and former Minnesota-area residents.

• December 9: Eagan, Minnesota-based ISIS supporter Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame was arrested after plotting to join ISIS overseas and facilitating the travel of other individuals in a broader ISIS recruitment network operating from Minnesota. The network began watching Islamist extremist propaganda in 2014 after which it began plotting to send members to join ISIS overseas.

• December 2: Two ISIS-linked terrorists, U.S.-born Syed Rizwan Farook and Pakistani national Tashfeen Malik, attacked a holiday party for local government workers at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people. Farook’s friend, Enrique Marquez Jr., was later arrested for purchasing the rifles used in the attack and for conspiring with Farook to plot an attack in 2011-2012. The attackers posted a pledge of allegiance to ISIS’s leader on Facebook.

ISIS TERROR ATTACK PLOTS AGAINST THE WEST

ISIS dramatically expanded its war with a concerted campaign to target the West in 2015.

By the numbers

• There have been 72 ISIS-linked plots to attack Western targets, including 20 inside in the United States, since 2014.3 The number of ISIS-linked attack plots grew by nearly three times from 2014 (20) to 2015 (50).4

 

Recent Developments

• January 7: ISIS supporter Edward Archer ambushed and fired 13 shots at a Philadelphia police officer using s stolen police firearm before being arrested. Archer pledged allegiance to ISIS.

• January 7: An attacker wielding a meat cleaver was shot after attempting to storm a Paris police station. The man was carrying a reproduction of ISIS’s flag and a claim of responsibility for the planned attack.

 

Judge Rules Against Obama on Fast and Furious Documents

Posted on by

The wheels of justice are slooooow for sure, but Obama and Eric Holder lost their appeal and Fast and Furious documents must be released. That is all of those that are not national security sensitive. This could be interesting for Eric Holder and several others. Remember too that the approval for the weapons in straw purchases came from the U.S. State Department. Ahem…Hillary? Janet?

It has also never been officially determined how many south of the border were actually killed by Fast and Furious weapons, perhaps releasing the documents will give us more facts.

Update: ABC News: 5 of 11 guns found at El Chapo’s Mexican hideout came from AZ. One was a .50 cal  rifle confirmed to be a Fast & Furious gun.

Judge rejects Obama’s executive privilege claim over Fast and Furious records

Politico: A federal judge has rejected President Barack Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to records pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, a gunrunning probe that allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to flow across the border into Mexico.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department’s public disclosures about its response to the so-called “gun walking” controversy undercut Obama’s executive privilege claim.

The standoff over the records led to a House vote in 2012 holding then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the records. The House later initiated a lawsuit to try to force disclosure of the files.

Jackson left open the possibility that some of the records could be held back from Congress because they contain sensitive information on law enforcement techniques or implicate foreign policy concerns.

The administration could appeal the ruling.

 

 

 

NY Judge Gives Victory Decision to U.S. Islamists

Posted on by

Court Requires NYPD to Purge Docs on Terrorists Inside U.S.

Muslim community sued police over surveillance programs

FreeBeacon: The New York Police Department has been directed by a U.S. court to remove from its online records an investigation pertaining to the rise of Islamic extremists in the West and the threats these individuals pose to American safety, according to legal documents.

As part of a settlement agreement reached earlier this month with Muslim community advocates in U.S. District Court, the NYPD will purge from its website an extensive report that experts say has been critical to the department’s understanding of radical Islam and its efforts to police the threat.

The court settlement also stipulates that the NYPD make a concerted effort to mitigate the impact of future terror investigations on certain religious and political groups, according to a copy of the court documents published by the American Civil Liberties Union, which has spearheaded the case since June 2013.

Legal experts and critics of the settlement maintain that it could hamper future terrorism investigations and view it as part of a larger campaign by Muslim advocacy organizations in the United States to dismantle surveillance programs encompassing that community.

Critics expressed particular concern about the case in light of a recent surge in attacks on U.S. citizens committed by individuals pledging allegiance to terror groups such as ISIS.

A key portion of the settlement focuses on the NYPD’s purported use of a document produced by the department’s intelligence division to examine how radicalized individuals make their way to the United States and carry out terror attacks.

The document, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” aimed to provide local law enforcement and policy makers with information about domestic terrorists and their operations.

As part of the settlement agreement, the NYPD will be forced to remove the publication from its database and vow not to rely on it in the future.

The NYPD and New York state government agencies included in the case “represent that they do not, have not, and will not rely upon the Radicalization in the West report to open or extend investigations,” according to the settlement. “Defendants will remove the Radicalization in the West report from the NYPD website.”

The settlement further affirms that the NYPD will be “committed to mitigating the potential impact” of future investigations on political and religious groups, such as those in the Muslim-American community.

While NYPD officials would not comment Thursday when contacted by the Washington Free Beacon, a spokesperson directed a reporter to a recent press release affirming the department’s commitment to upholding the court settlement.

The NYPD and relevant New York state agencies will “provide additional guidance to police officers as part of a settlement of lawsuits accusing the NYPD of improperly investigating Muslim groups,” according to the Jan. 7 press release. “While the City did not admit to engaging in any improper practices, the changes represent an effort to provide more detailed guidance to NYPD personnel within the existing Handschu Guidelines,” which govern how authorities investigate political activities.

The NYPD confirmed that it would remove from its website the 2007 radicalization report.

The department will additionally incorporate into the guidelines “police policies against religious profiling” and insert an additional “provision for considering the impact investigations have on people who are not targets of investigations,” according to the statement.

John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, maintained in a statement that the settlement would not “weaken the [department’s] ability to fulfill its steadfast commitment to investigate and prevent terrorist activity in New York City.”

However, some experts have cast doubt on this statement, claiming that the decision to delete the anti-terrorism handbook will impact officers’ ability to understand how terrorists organize and operate in the United States.

Benjamin Weingarten, a writer and national security analyst who has covered the court case, said that local police departments should be relying more heavily on the now-banned counterterror analysis.

Referring to the recent shooting of a Philadelphia police officer by a radicalized individual who allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS, Weingarten noted that the assailant followed the “‘four stages of radicalization’ detailed in the NYPD report.”

The information about radical terrorists provided in “the NYPD’s analysis may have at the least led Philadelphia authorities to dig deeper and flag him,” he said.

The settlement further reflects a larger cultural shift in America that shuns terms such as “war on terror” and “Muslim terrorism,” Weingarten said.

“To pursue a see-no-Islam counter-jihadist strategy is not only absurd and contradictory on its face, but its a severe dereliction of duty—ignorance is not an excuse, and it represents a failure to do everything necessary to defend against an ideology that seeks to undermine the Constitution and subvert and destroy Western civilization again, according to Islamic supremacists themselves,” he said.

Stephen Coughlin, an attorney and intelligence officer, expressed concern about what he described as a widening attempt by local and federal authorities to redefine the nature of domestic counter-terror efforts.

“I am greatly concerned with the imposition of [the case] which, I believe, exists to replace counter-terror efforts,” Coughlin said. “This is a continuation of a purging of evidentiary based counter-terror analysis first initiated in 2011.”

The ACLU and Muslim community advocates initially filed the lawsuit following reports after the 9/11 terror attacks that the NYPD was running a domestic spy operation centered on the American-Muslim community.

The ACLU, which would not comment on record for this report, directed the Free Beacon to a recent editorial published in the Guardian celebrating the court decision.

“Bias-based policing legitimizes religious discrimination, It can pave the way to copy-cat approaches by other agencies and set the stage for hate crimes nationwide,” wrote Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s national security project, and Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York.

“We hope the settlement announced this week pulls our city and its police department out of a downward spiral by reaffirming core values and principles, ones just as necessary to a local police force as they are to a rational debate on civil rights and liberties nationally,” they wrote.

*** It goes back a long way, directly post 9/11.