ALERT: DHS still preparing for executive amnesty
Injunction? Never mind that.
Earlier this week a federal court in Texas issued a temporary injunctive order preventing implementation of Obama’s immigration executive action. Following the order, the Obama Administration made it appear as though they were prepared to put their agenda on hold and take the fight over executive power to the courts.
I say “appear” because, in spite of the injunction, DHS is still making moves to award multi-million dollar contracts to the firms tasked with handling the processing of millions of illegal immigrants’ requests for amnesty. An anonymous source has described the deal as being rushed through at a “full throttle pace,” and a Request for Proposal filed by the USCIS details how the agency expects to pull off its latest bait-and-switch.
Judicial Watch has the details:
The RFP estimates that the population of potential requesters for the president’s deferred action will be “approximately four million people” and that USCIS anticipates the initial filing of “approximately five to six million forms” related to the amnesty order which also covers the illegal immigrant parents of U.S. citizens and lawful residents. The work is to begin in mid-March, the document reveals, and the contractor will operate out of a new center in Arlington, Virginia because there is no current facility with available space or staff to accommodate the “additional volume of work.” The center will be dedicated to processing deferred action for illegal immigrant parents of citizens, employment authorization and correspondence management.
The pricing spreadsheets are astounding and list tens of thousands of work hours—for tasks such as program management, file operations and maintenance as well as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) scanning—that will undoubtedly end up costing American taxpayers enormous sums. The contractor that lands this monstrous government deal must also be able to respond on short notice to growth in volume due to urgent events and requirements. “The growth is more than normal overtime and cannot be completed with overtime,” the government documents state.
It may be barred from implementing executive amnesty, but DHS is doing everything it can to prepare for the day when the ban is lifted:
The administration appears to have no intention of slowing down while the Justice Department drafts an appeal. JW’s government source confirms that, even after the court ruling, DHS is moving forward with its plan to seal large contracts with companies that will process millions of illegal immigrants as soon as possible. “There is no indication that the court order has impacted, slowed down or modified the procurement in any way,” the source said. “They’re really rushing into it.” The immense deal calls for 200 to 600 contractors, according to JW’s source.
600 contractors. Thousands of hours. Millions of dollars. The specs alone are enough to make any limited government advocate freeze in their tracks. From a logistical perspective, it’s probably smart for DHS to be prepared to implement the order, but the scope of their preparation shows how supremely confident this Administration is that they will overcome what has ballooned into a 26 state coup against executive overreach.
That, above all else, is what should have conservatives worried.
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Comments
Sounds like they’re going to be creating a lot of jobs.
And what a coincidence, we just found out we can mollify all the terrorist head loppers by giving them jobs!
Whatcha wanna bet Democrats stand to personally make Millions of Dollars of those illegal contracts?
Exactly follow the money and I bet you will find many F.O.O. (Friends Of Obumbles)
It doesn’t show how confident the administration is. It shows how wasteful and criminal the administration is.
Wasteful, yes, if it’s not confident of prevailing. But how is it criminal?
Guys, Milhouse asked a totally reasonable question.
Holy CRAP.
I agree and he is also correct in the legal sense if not the ethical sense. (Not his ethics but the ethics of the bureaucrats in question.)
We don’t do “line item budgeting” for each department or if it is “line item” the items are very broad. So until Feb 27, 2015 the department is fully funded and they can spend that money as they see fit.
I wouldn’t dare to criticize a professional writer, but “coup” (next to last paragraph) sure seems like the wrong word to use there.
coup should be rebellion
26 state rebellion against executive overreach
(Don’t know how long I can keep this up.)
Its actually not either a coup or a rebellion, but I don’t know what word would be. They aren’t rebelling if they are trying to make the administration follow the law, at least I don’t think they are.
I don’t understand why this is newsworthy. This prep work doesn’t violate the injunction. What’s more, it can’t be enjoined, because it doesn’t harm the plaintiffs at all, let alone irreparably. If they prevail at trial, then all this prep work will simply have been wasted, and they will be no worse off. But if the government prevails then it will be ready to go. Obviously it thinks it will prevail, so why shouldn’t it prepare for that eventuality?
Where in the budget is the funding for this authorized?
Congress appropriated money for the DHS to run its immigration operations. Congress doesn’t micromanage and appropriate for each action specifically. Otherwise every time anything new was attempted in any department it’d have to go back for a new appropriation. The department has broad discretion on how to spend its appropriation, and this falls well within that discretion.
Unfortunately you are correct, which is why each agency’s expenditures should be overseen by a section of the CBO.
No, he’s not correct. This “proposal” seeks to perform functions specifically outside the law. All monies provided are for executing the law, not for exceeding it. An agency can exercise SOUND discretion with no oversight except audits. This DAPA crap is an exercise of UNSOUND discretion. In the legal jargon, it’s called abuse of discretion which is shorthand for abuse of authorized (sound) discretion.
You can call it conspiracy to defraud the United States. If I was AG, that’s what I would call it.
I’m speaking out of ignorance, but aren’t the House Republicans trying to fund everything at DHS but funding for Obama’s amnesty? Then doesn’t that mean they do have control over what DHS does? Does DHS have a slush fund? Just wondering.
They aren’t SUPPOSED to have a slush fund. This is one of the wonderful “hidden in plain sight” aspects of CR budgeting. A CR continues funding at the previous year’s levels PLUS 8%. A built in slush fund for every executive department.
Here’s another plain side hidden fact for you – the “stimulus has been re-authorized every year since it started.
And happily provided by John Boehner because of course it’s so much better to destroy the economy and assassinate the dollar than it is to partially shut down the government.
Not sure you noticed but they’re currently in a big fight in Congress over trying to not authorize it for the next fiscal year. As for this fiscal year? They’re using the principle of ‘discretion’ to say, we’re better allocating resources to do this. So they’re cannibalizing the existing budget with an extremely aggressive interpretation of prosecutorial discretion.
I find it rather ironic, in a not-funny way, that hard leftist writer and much later, Eric Snowden fellow traveler Glenn Greenwald had Obama pegged for this years ago, predicting he would take the Bush era “unitary executive” push and quietly, and eventually not so quietly, make it deeper, broader, more entrenched into the system.
Actually, this is not necessarily true. For example, DoD budgets passed by Congress are very firmly divided into fund categories and money may not be transferred from one to another.
The question should involve an audit by CBO to see if those budget categories are being violated by DHS.
It would seem unethical to be spending taxpayer money on a project put on hold by the courts and generally unsupported by the majority of states and clearly, as the results of the midterm elections indicated, not by a plebiscite of the voters. There is no national emergency or need here — nothing whatsoever to compel urgency. It is unethical and pointless. You say they should proceed if they’re confident of prevailing? I would suggest confidence has nothing to do with it. I submit that they have every intention to proceed even if they lose. NOTHING is going to stop amnesty as far as this administration is concerned.
I think it is newsworthy because it shows the continued lack of respect for the other branches of government and it continues to show the narcissistic attitude of this administration. You just wait, by sometime next week the meme of the lone rogue judge will be in full swing.
Dunno, ’cause this is WAY out of my wheelhouse, but…
this could be necessary (by some bureaucratic standards) work that can’t be deferred under regs or laws.
I can happily report that I can’t think this way. Somebody who understands Federal contracting should address this.
It’s not necessary, but it doesn’t have to be. Not until last year’s appropriation runs out.
I’m just trying to understand … how can they spend money on something that is currently illegal? If it is fulfillment of a contract maybe, but they can’t spend the money appropriated to build houses for illegals, so how can they print something for illegals, that is illegal to use? Is it not a given that spending must be for legal activities? Can they spend the money printing comic books on how to break our laws, like Mexico did?
Anyway, you are probably correct, there are just some big gaps in my understanding of how they can appropriate huge funds for an illegal action. And these would seem to be new contracts. I guess this is why departments make sure to use up all their appropriated money each quarter (or year), so they don’t get it cut the next year.
The short answer is they can’t go beyond the statutes. This does; therefore it is both unauthorized and illegal (stealing from the US). See my other comments on this thread.
I was just wondering about the regs surrounding an “invitation to bid”, and if they could set up some requirement that the government act in certain ways or face liability from the prospective contractors.
The liability exists but so does the ability to lose future contracts (or be subjected to accusations of shoddy work and clawback orders on future contracts). I would not want to be the one to sue over a contract and then submit a proposal for a contract the next time around.
So no, it’s pretty much free criminal opportunity for TPTB in gubmint.
Amnesty, yes. Naturalization, no. Only Congress can establish the Rule of Naturalization. That said, the violation of civil rights began with the so-called “anchor baby” constitutional discretion. Executive amnesty that grants tens of millions of people relief from violation of constitutional law is merely a progressive step to violate the legal jurisdiction and civil rights of Americans.
Anyway, Displace, Replace, Abort, and Tax or DRAT is commonly accepted policy among Americans. The price of following the secular profits of wealth, pleasure, and leisure is the loss of sovereign rights and human life (at the rate of 1 million annually).
Second and third-world nations are relieved to shift their burden. Domestic politicians are ecstatic to increase diversity and thereby neutralize democratic leverage of any one group, especially Americans. The secular Church will continue to promote human sacrifice or the euphemistic “planned parenthood”.
“Anchor babies” are not a matter of discretion. The constitution is quite clear that they are citizens.
Actually, no the constitution doesn’t cover anchor babies, its says.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
It wasn’t until the SCOTUS case United States v. Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898) decided to ignore the “and subject to the jurisdiction there of” part and declare that the 14th amendment made anchor babies citizens.
I do not agree with your take on that case. I also do not believe it set a precedent for what’s going on today.
My only stipulation to that case is it is the one that said that a baby born on U.S. soil was a citizen regardless of whether the parents were citizens or not. I am not implying that it was meant to set up what is going on today. Frankly I think the decision was ill advised and wrong headed in the first place. No what is happening today, as with so many things liberals do, it is a twisting and perversion of the intent of the decision.
Just like when the constitution says Freedom of Religion, but liberals want it interpreted as Freedom from Religion.
No Amnesty, period. I am tired of hearing that is it so hard to immigrate here, the millions of people who do it legally every year, it is also supremely unfair to them.
The good news is that “setting up a huge new bureaucracy” is not the same thing as “action” – as we all know. All O is doing so far is spending money we don’t have; business as usual.
Devaluing capital and labor.
It’s amazing that with a multi-trillion dollar welfare economy, there are still indigent, homeless, and even unidentified Americans; and that’s after the loss of around 1 million Americans annually to the abortion industry.
Hopefully, the opiates (e.g. Obamacare) offered by government will compensate and calm cognitive dissonance.
Obama may not expedite an Appeal. It is very attractive to keep this issue as “Republicans hate Latinos”, plus pushing the potential SCOTUS slap-down past 20 Jan 2017.
It occurs to me that the entire scheme may be a Trojan Horse to funnel money to some very specific friends of the administration through contractual largesse. What better red cloak to wave at the bull than amnesty by fiat? I can see the conversation in my head:
“You know this won’t withstand judicial review. It’s one thing to argue executive discretion, for which there is ample precedent, but to go against the express will of Congress is another matter. Even some of our most reliable judges are going to choke on that. Imagine the mischief a President Cruz could stir up with that.”
“Of course it won’t. But by the time the SCOTUS euthanizes it, the contracts will be signed, and our people will be squared away for years to come. We can count on that generosity to be repaid many times. Not to mention the soft landings that our loyal team members will enjoy if they’re cycled out by a Republican administration. This is how the sausage is made.”
If the court kills the program, then the contract becomes void.
Yes, but if I understand the practice correctly then all the company has to do is declare bankruptcy and then they just get to keep the money. See Solyndra.
That doesn’t fit any kind of bankruptcy process about which I know.
When a company goes into bankruptcy, as a generality, they are placed into the control of a receiver. That receiver takes all their assets and all their liabilities and doles out assets to cover liabilities as best as they can be, and according to a specific hierarchy.
Once again, I bow to the more knowledgeable, it just seems to me that our government doles out a lot of money that they never see a return on. I guess that is my real problem.
Also, we both know there are many tricks to getting around a corp. bankruptcy, like paying bonuses to the muckrake mucks then declaring bankruptcy because in certain types of businesses their personal wealth isn’t attached.
It becomes void as of the date the court declares it null and void. However, all monies obligated under contract before that date, especially if work is actually performed, are still paid.
There seems to be some confusion here. DHS is not preparing for the eventual day when it might implement Obama’s amnesty. It’s just going ahead with implementation. This “preparation” has to come first, therefore it does.
I see no evidence whatsoever that they intend to comply with the stay.
Chill, people. Obama can’t just go into neutral and do nothing – that would signal he doesn’t expect to prevail. He has to at least appear to be confidently moving forward. All I’m hearing is words on this. “We’re preparing to..” Anybody out there seeing any actual movement yet? I think they’re just bloviating for base effect, smoke screening, while they absorb how deep in shit they are and what to do about it.
The objective of the administration here is that if they can get even a few hours where the injunction is lifted, they can promptly spend tens of millions of dollars on the project that can’t be un-spent if the injunction is slapped back down on them.
I can’t help wondering if this immigration sideshow isn’t meant to distract us from Iran going nuclear and ISIS butchering, burning and crucifying the whole Middle East. How many jihadis can enter the country while we’re tied up in endless useless discussions from this Administration?
With a wide open southern border and a northern border not difficult to pierce, the number of jihadis hiding in America is impossible to know. 50? 500? 5,000?
It is impossible to think ISIS/al-Qaeda would not take advantage and haven’t been since 2008, when Obama blindfolded and handcuffed the Border Patrol and Immigrant Service.