Editorial: Homeland Security concerned about illegals driving legally

The acting head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered all the agencies under his purview to review the ramifications of state laws that allow illegal aliens to obtain driver authorization cards and restrict sharing data with immigration enforcement authorities.

Nevada is one of those 14 states.

Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 303 in 2013 and it was signed by Gov. Brian Sandoval. Ostensibly, the bill was intended to reduce the number of uninsured motorists on the roads, because it is difficult to obtain car insurance if one can’t legally drive.

But the bill, now ensconced in law as NRS 481.063, also dictates that the DMV “shall not release any information relating to legal presence or any other information relating to or describing immigration status, nationality or citizenship from a file or record relating to a request for or the issuance of a license, identification card or title or registration of a vehicle to any person or to any federal, state or local governmental entity for any purpose relating to the enforcement of immigration laws.”

This apparently was intended to assuage illegal aliens of the notion that obtaining a driver authorization card — which allows one to drive in Nevada but cannot be used for such things as boarding an aircraft — would subject them to actual enforcement of existing immigration law.

A March article in The Nevada Independent reported that there were at the time 49,000 active driver authorization cards issued in the state and another 3,500 learners’ permits for the cards.

What prompted Chad Wolf, the acting director of Homeland Security, to issue his memo this past week was the passage of similar laws in New York and New Jersey recently, according to The Daily Caller.

“Accordingly, I am instructing each operational component to conduct an assessment of the impact of these laws, so that the Department is prepared to deal with and counter these impacts as we protect the homeland,” Wolf’s memo read. Those components include U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration.

After passage of the illegal alien driver authorization law in New York numerous county clerks pointed out that such a policy could pave the way for voter fraud, identity theft and even terrorism.

“Laws like New York’s greenlight law have dangerous consequences that have far reaches beyond the DMV,” Homeland Security spokeswomen Heather Swift was quoted as saying. “These types of laws make it easier for terrorists and criminals to obtain fraudulent documents and also prevent DHS investigators from accessing important records that help take down child pornography and human trafficking rings and combat everything from terrorism to drug smuggling.”

Wolf’s memo ordered agencies to determine what DMV information is currently available and what the consequences would be if that data were restricted.

“Never before in our history have we seen politicians make such rash and dangerous decisions to end all communication and cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security law enforcement,” The Daily Caller further quoted Swift. “The Secretary is prepared to take every measure necessary to ensure the safety and security of the homeland and we look forward to the recommendations of our agents and officers in the field.”

Las Vegas newspaper columnist Victor Joecks pointed out in an April 2018 column that the DMV uses the same forms for those getting a driver authorization card as for those getting a regular driver’s license. At the bottom of the form is a voter registration application. The form asks whether the applicant is a citizen and old enough to vote, but requires no proof whatsoever. Neither does the Secretary of State’s office, which processes the voter registration.

Highway safety concerns are important, but state abrogation of federal immigration law and voter registration integrity is hardly justifiable.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Newspaper column: Asylum seekers should prove their claims

Nevada’s Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford joined with other attorneys general this past week in filing a friend of the court brief in a case challenging another Trump administration rule attempting to curb the flood of asylum seekers.

The rule would deny asylum to those who passed through a safe country en route to the U.S., but did not apply for asylum in that country and get turned down. The lawsuit challenging the rule was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union — styled East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Barr — is currently pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California.

In a press release announcing the filing of the brief, Ford was quoted as saying, “Facing violence or persecution, asylum seekers look to us for help and safety. As Attorney General, my ultimate goal is to welcome and protect Nevadans, and I will fight every attempt by the Trump Administration to turn its back on those in need of dire assistance.”

The press release said the rule subjects asylum seekers to trauma and perils in dangerous countries, such as Mexico and Guatemala. Sounds like the sort of stereotyping rhetoric the left is always accusing Trump of spouting.

The attorneys general of California and Massachusetts, who are taking the lead in the brief filing, issued an almost identically worded press release.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is quoted as saying, “Again and again, the Trump Administration proffers sloppy reasoning at best for decisions that have lasting consequences on the lives of real people. Countless people are being put at risk by a rule that runs afoul of one of our core principles — welcoming homeless refugees to our shores. This rule is unreasonable and disturbingly callous. We’re going to do everything we can to stand up for the rights of those seeking refuge from persecution and violence.”

Both press releases claim the rule is particularly injurious to unaccompanied children, LGBTQ applicants, and women, for whom applying for asylum in a third country is said to be perilous. “For example, two-thirds of LGBTQ Central American asylum-seekers reportedly suffered sexual violence while transiting through Mexico and, in Guatemala, children are frequently targets of recruitment by criminal gangs,” both releases say. “In addition, the rule will cause state agencies and non-profits to divert resources to address the added trauma asylum-seekers will suffer because of precarious conditions in third countries and will force states to lose out on the economic contributions of those who might otherwise have been welcomed to the country.”

Yes, the brief claims the rule will deprive states of the economic benefits of immigrants denied asylum.

Oddly, just a few weeks ago Ford joined in another court filing that challenged a Trump administration rule that would have denied legal immigration status and work cards to non-naturalized immigrants who have come to rely on government welfare — known as the public charge rule.

At the time, Ford wailed, “I pledged to protect Nevada’s families, and I will continue to protect our families from the Trump Administration’s numerous attacks. This proposed change is not only mean-spirited, it essentially makes legal immigrants choose between maintaining their legal status and receiving assistance to meet basic needs, like food, health care and housing. It’s unconscionable.”

Asylum seekers are required to prove persecution on one of five grounds — race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion. That covers a lot of ground.

In June, then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told a congressional hearing that a recently conducted study of 7,000 family units revealed that 90 percent failed to appear for immigration hearings and simply vanished into the countryside rather than face the judicial process. In 2018, fully 65 percent of asylum cases that were heard were denied.

Despite this, Nevada’s senior U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, signed onto a letter with other senators opposing a Trump administration immigration rule requiring asylum seekers at the southern border to remain in Mexico pending hearings.

As further witness to the lack of validity of asylum requests, this past week Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection in the El Paso area identified 238 fraudulent families, as well as 50 adults falsely claiming to be minors. More than 350 people are being prosecuted.

Legal immigration should be afforded only to those who can prove their cases and then can support themselves and their families once allowed in. Open borders will not work for current Nevada taxpayers and job seekers.

A version of this column appeared this week in many of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel and the Lincoln County Record — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Fraudulent families detected at the border. (ICE pix)

Both sides slip sliding away from the political middle

It all depends on your perspective. Once again Mitchell’s general theory of political relativity is proved. What you observe depends on where you are standing.

An IBD editorial today recounts the left accusing the those on the right of shifting further right. Depends on how far left they are, right?

The editorial includes a quote from Brookings Institute’s Thomas Mann saying:

“Republicans have become a radical insurgency — ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of their political opposition.”

Your government also thinks that conservatives are prone to violence and is willing to spend a half a million of your money to study Internet activity of right-wingers and Islamic extremists, but mostly right-wingers.

The Justice Department awarded Michigan State University $585,719 to study “messages that promote extremist agendas and radicalize individuals to violence.”

Occupy Wall Street, riots in Missouri and Maryland? No need to study those.

According to a Washington Post blog, the right is moving faster to the right than the left is moving to the left.

Supposedly this is backed up by data developed by Kenneth Poole and Howard Rosenthal, showing Republicans in Congress have drifted from the center more so than Democrats. Here is the chart:

 

Looks like both are drifting and it depends on where you draw the center.

Remember that 2009 Homeland Security report that said conservatives and the unemployed represent a danger, especially returning veterans?

“Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts. Nevertheless, the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.

“Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and apppeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning. …

“The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.”

It also noted that some these dangerous extremists “are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority …”

That used to be called Federalism. I always thought those Radical Founders needed to be watched.

 

Put this in your next ad promoting Las Vegas: We’re a huge terrorist target, come and have a blast

Money can’t buy a good reputation, but it sure can buy a lot of toys for bureaucrats to play with.

And that is what is important to our local elected officials who are upset that Las Vegas has fallen out of the top 30 cities most likely to be attacked by terrorists, according to a Homeland Security ranking that is used to dole out federal tax dollars to local jurisdictions to buy gadgets to be used to prevent such an event. Homeland dropped Las Vegas’ ranking as terrorist target to 33rd, just out of the funding list.

Before

Wasn’t it only days ago that elected officials were talking about spending $9 million to attract tourists to Nevada?

The slogan “A World Within. A State Apart” still makes no sense, but sounds better than “A World-renowned Target, Soon to be Blown Apart.”

According to the Review-Journal, County Emergency Manager and Deputy Fire Chief Fernandez Leary has written a letter to Homeland Security explaining why terrorists would love to attack the city with its many hotels, big crowds and nearly 40 million visitors a year.

Leary writes, the paper says, that the Las Vegas area:

“has long been considered a highly attractive terrorist target” since the discovery that five of the 19 terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks had visited the city. Leary also cites videotape seizures in 2002 of suspected al-Qaida operatives that show footage of several resorts, including Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, MGM Grand and New York-New York.

That footage was later played in a post-9/11 federal trial of a possible terrorist cell in Detroit, where one defendant called Las Vegas the “city of Satan.”

What self respecting terrorist could possibly resist? If a couple of pressure cooker bombs shut down Boston, imagine what would happen to Las Vegas and its vulnerable, tourism-dependent economy.

The R-J says Sen. Harry Reid also got into the act with a letter of his own, explaining, “Hundreds of thousands of people gather in large venues in Southern Nevada every day,” adding that the city is near Nellis and Creech Air Force bases and the Nevada National Security Site where atomic bombs were tested.

Why are none of these people exclaiming: Las Vegas, safer than 32 other cities you could visit.

But, no, it’s all about the money, no matter what message they send to potential tourists and would-be terrorists.

After?