Groups complain that immigration law is being enforced

Enforcing the law? What a concept.

The AP is reporting that a bunch of scofflaw organizations are protesting the fact that federal agencies are actually, you know, enforcing the law — immigration law to be precise.

A letter was sent this week to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by more than 100 self-styled immigrant-rights and child-welfare groups complaining about the agencies using information gleaned from unaccompanied illegal immigration minors to locate and deport relatives already in the country illegally.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, a part of HHS tries to unite unaccompanied migrant children with relatives until their legal status can be resolved, but it has begun sharing information about those relatives with DHS, which reportedly has used the information to identify illegal immigrants and deport them.

“Children are being turned into bait to gather unprecedented amounts of information from immigrant communities,” Becky Wolozin, an attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center, was quoted as saying by the AP.

So far only 41 relatives in the country illegally have been arrested for deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Democrats in Congress have introduced legislation that would prohibit DHS from using information obtained in processing migrant minors. The American Civil Liberties Union sued over the practice. The feds say the information sharing protects the children from potential harm.

There now are reportedly 14,000 such minors in custody, the largest number in U.S. history, the AP reports.

Unaccompanied immigrant minors in custody in Virginia.

 

Who is telling the big lies about health care research?

Bilbray and Heck (R-J photo)

Never let the facts get in the way of a campaign theme.

Democrat Erin Bilbray, in a debate with incumbent Republican Congressman Joe Heck covered by the Las Vegas newspaper, accused Heck and all GOP lawmakers of being responsible for the presence of Ebola due to federal budget cuts for health research.

Heck pointed out that Congress this year voted to boost funding for the Centers for Disease Control by 8.2 percent.

“Our CDC needs to be funded. Our hospitals are not prepared to address this issue,” Bilbray insisted.

IBD graphic

She obviously is getting her talking points from this administration.

CDC head Thomas Frieden blamed budget cuts when he said, “There are outbreaks happening today that we’re not able to recognize, stop or prevent as effectively as we should be able to.”

The head of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, said if there had been no budget cuts “we probably would have had (an Ebola) vaccine in time for this.”

All lies. There have been no budget cuts. The CDC’s budget is 25 percent higher in 2008 and 188 percent higher than in 2000. The NIH budget is double that of 14 years ago.

It ain’t how much money they get that matters, but how they spend it.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the NIH has spent more than $39 million on valuable research to cure what ails us.

For example, the agency spent:

— $2,873,440 trying to figure out why lesbians are obese.

— $466,642 to find out why fat girls have a tough time getting dates.

—  $2,075,611 encouraging old people to join choirs.

— $674,590 texting drunks in bars to try to get them to stop drinking.

— $2,101,064 on wearable insoles and buttons that can track a person’s weight, and $374,670 to put on fruit and vegetable puppet shows for preschoolers.

— $275, 227 on new children’s menus.

— $430,608 for mother-daughter dancing outreach to fight obesity.

— $105,066 following 16 schizophrenic LGBT Canadians for a study on their community experiences.

— And my favorite, $2,466,482 to a researcher to develop “origami condoms,” in male, female, and anal versions. The inventor has been accused of fraud for using grant money for plastic surgery and parties at the Playboy mansion.

— $5 million to “mine and analyze” social media to study American’s attitudes toward drug abuse, and $306,900 to use Twitter for surveillance on depressed people.

Free Beacon noted that Health and Human Services has just recently contracted with an outside source to spend $8.6 million to research and test an Ebola vaccine.