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Immigration Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 24, 2016 7 Comments
The refugee crisis in Europe is causing a huge number of problems for European governments and people, and now British "anarchists" from No Borders have traveled to Calais to incite refugees to violence. The Daily Mail reports:

British anarchists were among some 35 people under arrest in Calais on Sunday after leading a 'scandalous' invasion of the ferry port by some 500 migrants.

Not only did the thugs tear down security fences and threaten violence, but they also defaced a statue of France's wartime leader and former president Charles de Gaulle.

Masked agitators from the left-wing group No Borders were filmed during the trouble on Saturday afternoon as they tried to get people to the UK.

Apparently, the "anarchists" were attempting to force officials to allow the "migrants" to enter the UK.

The Mail continues:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2016 15 Comments
The U.S. Supreme Court this morning granted a Petition by the U.S. government for review of lower court decisions putting a halt to Obama's executive immigration action. That action halted deportation for up to 5 million people in the country illegally. Our prior posts have the background: Interestingly, the Order granting Certiorari added a constitutional issue to the case. The lower courts had decided it based on Obama administration failure to follow proper administrative procedure: Texas Immigration Case Supreme Court Order granting Cert. ScotusBlog summarizes today's action and what is to follow:

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 19, 2016 16 Comments
The timing could not have been more eerie. As Germany faces its biggest social and political crisis since the Second World War, Hitler’s Mein Kampf has again hit German bookstores. After 70 years, Germans once again have a chance of legally owning the vicious rants of this notorious Austrian-born psychopath -- in a hard bound version for €58,99. The recent migration from Middle East and North Africa did not only increase the level of antisemitism in Germany, it has also given a new lease of life to Neo-Nazi outfits. Last year, Charlotte Knobloch, the former President of Jewish umbrella group the Central Council of Jews in Germany, warned member of the tiny Jewish community in the country to "avoid being recognizable as Jews" in public, calling this the most perilous time for Jews to be in Germany since 1945. Charlotte Knobloch (83), a Holocaust survivor herself, knows what she is talking about.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 17, 2016 30 Comments
Marco Rubio has taken a lot of heat for his work with Chuck Schumer and the Gang of Eight, so it's a bit surprising that only this morning he's arguing that illegal aliens can stay in the U.S. as long as they are not felons, specifically excluding the violation of our immigration laws. Politico reports:
Sen. Marco Rubio says people who immigrated to the U.S. illegally but haven’t committed any major crimes could be allowed to stay. In an interview airing Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Florida contender for the Republican presidential nomination said felons shouldn’t be allowed to stay, but those who commit lesser crimes could still qualify. In this interview, he didn’t specify whether those allowed to stay would ever be able to become citizens. “If you’re a criminal alien, no, you can’t stay. If you’re someone that hasn’t been here for a very long time, you can’t stay,” he said. “I don’t think you’re gonna round up and deport 12 million people.”
The DC Caller has more:
Todd then asked Rubio, “Let me ask you on the 11 million [illegal immigrants already in America], are you still for finding a way for them to legally stay in the United States?”

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on January 15, 2016 13 Comments

Newly released documents from the State Department indicate the U.S. government has known Islamic extremists have been entering the country via Mexico for over ten years.

A cable obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act shows the U.S. was aware of "smuggling networks" that specialize in the trafficking of suspected Islamic extremists across the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2004 cable was sent to the State Department by the American Consulate in Juarez, Mexico.

Perhaps most alarming was the mention of a top Al Qaeda operative by the name of Adnan el Shukrijumah. The 2004 cable indicates the U.S. had human intelligence leading to his "exact whereabouts." It was not until December of 2014 - ten years later - that Shukrijumah would be captured (or in this case, killed in Pakistan).

Shukrijumah was described by FBI as "a grave danger to the security of the United States" and had ties to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed as well as to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Among other acts domestic and abroad, he helped plot the 2009 foiled bombing of Oprah Winfrey's Chicago studios and the Sears Tower.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 12, 2016 8 Comments
Something maddening is happening in the European and Nordic countries which have opened their doors to millions of refugees from Muslim countries. Women of the host countries were sexually assaulted in numerous cities during holiday celebrations by refugees and it's being ignored in some cases and even covered up in others. In Sweden, these attacks have allegedly been going on for months. The Times of Israel reports:
Swedish police take flak for covering up refugee sex attacks Swedish police were criticized on Monday after admitting they failed to release information about alleged sexual assaults against women by young immigrants at a Stockholm summer music festival over the past two years. There were 38 reports of rape and sexual assault filed after the We Are Sthlm festival, which uses the postal abbreviation for Stockholm, in 2014 and 2015, according to police.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 11, 2016 99 Comments
Back in November, Donald Trump asserted that if elected president he would have a "humane deportation force" to round up all illegal immigrants and deport them.  This statement is now being used in interviews with other presidential candidates who are opposed to amnesty and want to close the border and enforce existing immigration law. For example, in a Sunday interview, CNN's Jake Tapper harangued Ted Cruz on Trump's concept of a "deportation force." Watch:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 05, 2016 15 Comments
Ted Cruz's video ad, Invasion, is getting a lot of attention for the scenes of suits running across the border. But it's not the key moment in the video. That key moment comes when the screen splits to view Marco Rubio next to Cruz, with a cotton-mouth expression on his face as Cruz slams the economic impact of illegal immigration: Marco Rubio Ted Cruz Invasion Video

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 04, 2016 8 Comments
The strains are showing throughout Europe from the current wave of migration from Muslim lands. The latest to bow to reality are Sweden and Denmark, which just implemented border controls. The Christian Science Monitor reports:
Denmark and Sweden tightened their borders on Monday in efforts to stem the flow of migrants entering Scandinavia from Germany. Just hours after Swedish rules went into effect requiring train passengers traveling from Denmark to show ID, the Danish government announced it had beefed up border controls with Germany as of noon Monday (1100 GMT, 6 a.m. EST). "We are introducing temporary border controls, but in a balanced way," Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen told reporters in Copenhagen, adding there would be no problem for "ordinary" Danes and Germans to cross the border.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 29, 2015 5 Comments
Border Patrol agents at Texas' Rio Grande Valley Processing Center spent part of Christmas Day with unaccompanied immigrant minors. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection:
“These children are thousands of miles from home, and most of them are essentially alone for the holidays as they came here without their parents or another family member,” said Chief Patrol Agent Manuel Padilla Jr. “Christmas is a tough time to be without your family, so management at the CPC got together and raised money to purchase gifts for the kids and help make Christmas better for them.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 28, 2015 39 Comments
This is no surprise, particularly given the dismal economic situation in upstate NY. The government under pressure from political activists shut down any hope of fracking even though it works fine elsewhere and has kept parts of Pennsylvania economically alive for years; regulations and taxes are strangling businesses; and almost every day brings a news story about how much more control the state wants over our lives. So people continue to leave. (h/t @michellemalkin) The Albany Times Union reports on the large outflow, offset only by immigrants and immigrant children:
Once again more people are leaving New York State than arriving here, at least when it comes to people moving from one state to another. The Empire Center is out with findings, based on periodic Census updates, that “During the 12 months ending last July 1, 153,921 more residents moved out of New York than moved into it from other states.” ....

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 26, 2015 4 Comments
Just before Christmas, it was quietly announced that the Obama administration is going to deport a significant number of illegal immigrants after the holidays. That presents a political problem for Hillary Clinton, who will have to choose a side in a no-win scenario. The Washington Post reported:
U.S. plans raids to deport families who surged across border The Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with the operation. The nationwide campaign, to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as soon as early January, would be the first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America, those familiar with the plan said. More than 100,000 families with both adults and children have made the journey across the southwest border since last year, though this migration has largely been overshadowed by a related surge of unaccompanied minors.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on December 22, 2015 16 Comments
Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel received a rockstar reception at her conservative party CDU's annual convention in Karlsruhe. Merkel received a nine-minute-long standing ovation from the party delegates for a speech in which she refused to put a fixed limit on migrant intake. Germany is expecting to take as many as 1.5 million migrant this year. With each migrant expected to bring 4-8 family member in the short-term, the real number for 2015 alone could be well over 7 million. However, some odd 30 party delegates dared to question Merkel's stand on mass migration -- out of roughly 3000 attending delegates. That's 99 percent approval by the party cadre for Merkel's open border policy. Even Stalin-era purges didn't East-German dictators that level of support. The British newspaper Independent reports:
[I]n her keynote address to more than 3,000 Christian Democrat (CDU) delegates at a party congress in Karlsruhe, Ms Merkel effectively threw down the gauntlet to the rest of Europe and insisted that it share the burden in helping to solve the problem. “We face the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War,” she told the party faithful. Appealing to other EU members for help she called for solidarity, saying that Europe faced a “historic test” and insisting: “The fight for a unified Europe is worthwhile – of that I am deeply convinced.” Ms Merkel conceded that overcoming the problems facing Germany, which has accepted over a million migrants in 2015 alone, amounted to a “giant task”. But the Chancellor flatly refused to accept demands from within her own ranks to set an “upper limit” on the migrant influx, or for the installation of Berlin Wall-style fortifications and controls on Germany’s borders.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 21, 2015 13 Comments
There's been quite a bit of drama surrounding the Marco Rubio - Ted Cruz exchange on immigration during the CNN debate and the Rubio-Schumer Gang of Eight immigration bill. Bret Baier's interview with Cruz following the CNN debate skirmish allowed Cruz to explain his rationale for proposing an amendment (one of several) that, had it been approved—and Cruz knew it would not be, would have legalized millions of illegals. When Cruz explains his "poison pill" amendment, it becomes clear that he was being not only smart but also quite savvy (and ultimately, and all that matters to me, successful in quashing the Rubio-Schumer amnesty bill). The amendment that Rubio is touting is an amendment that included the stipulation that no illegal immigrant would ever get citizenship.  Under any circumstances.  Cruz obviously knew that Rubio and the other Gang of Eight members would never agree to such a proposition when a path to citizenship was a key driver in their bill.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 18, 2015 63 Comments
Having spent years working in immigration law, the current immigration cluster is enough to make me want to neck punch the entire internet (except for commenters who like my posts, of course). Of the many immigration rhetoric atrocities that make my blood boil, one of the worst is the lax use of terms like "amnesty" and "pathway to citizenship." "Pathway to legalization" is also on that list. These poor, defenseless terms are tossed about without regard for their respective definitions. They're used interchangeably, mischaracterized, and generally abused by armchair immigrationers and political reporters alike. Words matter. Definitions matter. Not being an ignoramus? Also important. So let's talk about these terms, shall we?

The "A" Word

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 17, 2015 18 Comments
Among the various random provisions in the 2,000+ page omnibus spending bill rattling around Congress is the amending the condition of the H-2B visa annual cap. The bill itself is indefensible. Cobbling together a 2,000 page tax-payer funded Christmas wish list, expediting it through both chambers and on to the Oval Office within 72 hours is hardly good government. It's particularly problematic when the bill is spiked with substantial immigration reforms. That being said, is amending the H-2B visa allocation a bad thing? The H-2B visa (along with its H-2A counterpart) is the guest worker program everyone on the immigration reform bandwagon loves to talk about but pretends does not exist. H-2Bs are for seasonal, one-time employment only. They're not used, nor will they be approved if the job is ongoing under normal circumstances. H-2Bs typically cover the oft cited, "jobs Americans don't want." H-2Bs are job specific, employer specific, and rarely (in my experience) see dependents tagging along. Employers are required to pay all costs for getting people here and sending them home. Like most other visa types where work is permitted, petitions must first be approved by the Department of Labor (DOL) before being sent to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for processing.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 16, 2015 18 Comments
Legislation designed to strengthen the existing Visa Waiver Program was lumped into the massive omnibus bill. The Visa Waiver Program currently allows foreign nationals holding citizenship from any of the 38 participating countries (there are a few other qualifying factors) to bypass consular processing in order to request entry to the U.S.. Though the House bill was introduced in January, the terrorist attacks in Paris last month prompted Congress to consider legislation designed to strengthen the existing Visa Waiver Program of which France is a particpant and, “help prevent terrorists from entering the United States,” said Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ). USA Today reported Wednesday:
The visa-waiver provisions were included in a 2009-page spending bill to fund the federal government until next October. The House and Senate are expected to vote on the bill without changes by Dec. 22.
I read both the House and Senate version of the bill last week and outlined them in painful detail here. In sum, the bill could be a little stronger, but it makes solid, substantive reforms to the existing visa waiver program.
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