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)

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.

 

Suddenly the abuse of a visa program for foreign investors is a problem

Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein asks questions at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday. (Reuters pix via the San Diego Union-Tribune)

Only now that the shoe is on the other foot does there appear to be a problem.

Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Monday that Congress should end the EB-5 visa program that grants visas to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in job-creating projects in the U.S., calling it a “citizenship-for-sale” program, according to news accounts.

Her umbrage was prompted by reports that President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner representatives marketed the visa program to potential Chinese investors over the weekend.

 

Where was the outrage four years ago when Nevada Sen. Harry Reid twisted arms at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reverse a decision that was blocking Chinese investors in a Las Vegas casino with ties to Reid’s son Rory?

An ethics complaint was filed against Reid but it was buried in the bureaucracy.

In fact, four days after that complaint was filed, the Senate voted to confirm the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to become the second in command at the Department of Homeland Security. Mayorkas was the one who granted the visas after personally talking to Reid. The vote was 54-41. Had Reid not just nuked the Senate rules of filibuster the nomination would have failed to achieve the previously required 60 votes.

Mayorkas was confirmed despite the fact he was under investigation at the time for expediting certain visa applications for certain applicants despite the rejection of those visas by career staffers.

 

Reid had made a personal call to Mayorkas, according to the Washington Times, who promised him his agency would take a “fresh look” at the SLS hotel and casino visa request. Soon after that the agency expedited visas for about two dozen foreign SLS investors. The Washington Times reported that Federal Election Commission records show executives for two companies involved in the hotel project had made $127,000 in political donations over the previous three elections, mostly to Democrats.

The Cause of Action ethics complaint said, “Despite the fact that these applications were ineligible for appeal, Senator Reid’s efforts to lobby USCIS resulted in the reconsideration and approval of those applications … Even more troublesome is the fact that Senator Reid’s son, Rory Reid, and his law firm, Lionel, Sawyer & Collins P.C., are legal counsel to the SLS Hotel and Casino.”

Later an ICE agent who tried to block the SLS visas was fired. She refused to accept a $100,000 severance package that would have required non-disclosure and testified before Congress about the abuse of the EB-5 program. She later accepted an undisclosed settlement.

The agent testified that EB-5 visas were approved in as little 16 days and “lacked basic necessary law enforcement” screening.

 

In a June 2016 story The Daily Caller listed some of the questions left unanswered following the agent being fired:

–Did Reid’s office specifically demand she be fired so the visa application could go through? When (ICE Special Agent Taylor) Johnson was re-assigned to clerical duties was Reid’s office informed?

–When Johnson spoke with Democratic Senate Homeland Security Committee staffers in preparation for her June 2015 testimony at a whistleblowers hearing they coerced her into not fingering Reid. They said mentioning him would violate the Hatch Act, Johnson later told this reporter.

The Hatch Act, of course, limits overt political activities by federal employees, not congressional testimony by whistleblowers.  Who authorized the staffers to employ such obvious falsehoods to coerce Johnson into silence?

The political kneecapping certainly worked. In-remarks, Johnson spoke of suffering retaliation for her opposition to the EB-5 program but left Reid’s name out of it.

–DHS fired Johnson in February 2016 after she declined a $100,000 severance package with a confidentiality agreement that would have allowed her to leave the agency with a clean work record. Who at DHS thought it would be a good use of taxpayer money to pay Johnson not to talk publicly about something she had already testified before Congress?

None of that has been answered.

Back then nothing could be heard from Democrats over the chirping of crickets, but now Feinstein ruminates that it is  “crystal clear that the EB-5 regional center program presents a stark conflict of interest for the Trump White House.”

Reid got a pass and a coverup, but Trump is not a fellow Democrat.

Congressional testimony of Johnson in 2015:

 

 

Newspaper column: Bill proposes to turn Nevada into a ‘sanctuary state’

Return with us now to those thrilling days under the Articles of Confederation when every state made up its own rules regarding immigration and naturalization of foreigners, back before the Constitution gave Congress the sole authority to establish such rules.

In arguing for enactment of the Constitution in Federalist Paper No. 42, James Madison wrote, “The new Constitution has accordingly, with great propriety, made provision against them, and all others proceeding from the defect of the Confederation on this head, by authorizing the general government to establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States.”

Now along comes Democratic state Sen. Yvanna Cancela of Las Vegas, along with a host of fellow scofflaw Democrats, with a bill in Carson City that would turn Nevada into a “sanctuary state” by forbidding law enforcement cooperating with federal immigration authorities in identifying persons in their custody who are in this country illegally.

Senate Bill 223 states: “No state or local law enforcement agency, school police unit or campus police department shall: (a) Use money, facilities, property, equipment or personnel of the agency, unit or department to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect or arrest a person for the purposes of immigration enforcement …”

Cancela was quoted by the Reno newspaper as saying the bill “limits the ability to participate in immigration enforcement as far as what’s under federal purview.”

She went on to say, “The uncertainty that (President) Trump has created because of his executive orders, because of his political – frankly – hate speech around them has created a lot of problems not only for local law enforcement, but individuals. I think it’s our responsibility as legislators to provide as much clarity not only to law enforcement but families who are affected by those policies.”

Currently, under a program called 287(g), cooperating police departments that take a suspected illegal immigrant into custody notify U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents and they have 48 hours to pick up that person. In the past, ICE has been notoriously lax in showing up within those 48 hours, but, according to numerous press accounts, this is no longer the case under the new Trump presidential administration.

Under SB223 this would come to a screeching halt, despite the fact all lawmakers are required to take an oath of office swearing to “support, protect and defend the Constitution and Government of the United States … that I will bear true faith, allegiance and loyalty to the same, any ordinance, resolution or law of any state notwithstanding …”

In reaction to the bill, Senate Republican Minority Leader Michael Roberson released a statement to the press, saying, “This ‘Sanctuary State’ bill is, without question, the most recklessly irresponsible piece of legislation that I have witnessed during my six plus years in the Nevada Legislature. This Democrat bill will undoubtedly result in violent criminals, who have no business being in our state, to be released back into our communities to wreak more havoc on Nevadans.”

One of the arguments made by sanctuary proponents is that illegal immigrants are loath to report crimes for fear they will risk deportation and this increases criminal activity. But state and local law enforcement currently does not ask those who report crimes about their immigration status, only those who are in custody, those most likely to continue criminal activity if ICE is not given the opportunity to deport them because they pose a danger to the entire community — illegal immigrants included.

To add potential impact on state taxpayers to real danger of criminal activity, it should be noted that President Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities, and presumably sanctuary states.

He signed an executive order directing government officials to identify federal money that can be withheld to punish sanctuary cities.

So what could this mean for the “sanctuary state” of Nevada should SB223 pass in a Democrat majority Legislature?

The state’s total budget for the past two years was $26 billion. Fully $9 billion of that came from federal funds, according to the state budget.

Passing SB223 could have serious consequences to the bottom line of the state of Nevada, but that has never stopped the self-righteous Democrats, has it?

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.

Turning Nevada into a ‘sanctuary state’ could have severe consequences

ICE agents at work in Las Vegas. (R-J pix)

Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it — good and hard.

Democratic state Sen. Yvanna Cancela of Las Vegas, along with a number of fellow Democrats, has introduced a bill that would turn Nevada into a “sanctuary state” by forbidding law enforcement cooperating with federal immigration authorities in identifying persons who are in this country illegally.

Senate Bill 223 states:

No state or local law enforcement agency, school police unit or campus police department shall:

(a) Use money, facilities, property, equipment or personnel of the agency, unit or department to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect or arrest a person for the purposes of immigration enforcement, including, without limitation:

(1) Inquiring into or collecting information about the immigration status of a person.

(2) Detaining a person on the basis of a hold request, except where there is an independent finding of probable cause.

(3) Responding to a notification request or transfer request.

(4) Providing or responding to a request for nonpublic personal information about a person, including, without limitation, information about the person’s home address, work address or date of release from custody.

(5) Making an arrest on the basis of a civil immigration warrant, except where there is an independent finding of probable cause.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Under a program called 287(g) local cooperating police departments, which includes Clark County, that take a suspected illegal immigrant into custody notify U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents and they have 48 hours to pick up that person.

According to an account in the Las Vegas newspaper, in the past that rarely happened, but in recent weeks ICE officers are at the jail almost every day, apparently stepping up enforcement of immigration laws under the Trump administration.

Under SB223 this would come to a screeching halt.

But Tump has threatened to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities. He signed an executive order directing government officials to identify federal money that can be withheld to punish “sanctuary cities.”

So what could this mean for the “sanctuary state” of Nevada?

The state’s total budget for the past two years was $26 billion. Fully $9 billion of that came from federal funds, according to the state budget.

Passing SB223 could have serious consequences to the taxpayers of Nevada, but that has never stopped the self-righteous Democrats, has it?

 

Obama has created amnesty with a stroke of his pen

Border apprehension (Photo by Caroline May via Brietbart)

“They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.” — John Adams

According to laws passed by Congress, those who enter this country without proper authorization have broken the law and are to be deported. Congress has in the past granted amnesty to such people, during the Reagan administration, for example. Congress has debated for years doing so again, but has passed no such law.

But the only people being deported as illegal immigrants in this second Obama administration are criminals, and not many of them. Fox News reports that of the 69,478 deported from the interior — not turned back at the border, which counts as deportation in this administration — 91 percent were previously convicted of a crime. Thus the chance of being deported for merely being in the country illegally is half a percent.

“You have the resources to do it, those resources should be dedicated to not just removing criminal aliens but anyone else,” Claude Arnold, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent for 27 years. “The fact is, someone doesn’t want those laws enforced and it’s plain to see.”

In fact, even criminal illegals are being turned loose. As many as 19,723 were released as of April 2015, about the same as the previous year. Approximately 32 percent of federal prisoners are illegal aliens.

A Border Patrol agent recently testified before Congress that they are not stopping people from crossing the border illegally but are engaged in catch and release.

“We’re releasing basically everybody as long as you’re not from the country of Mexico. And even if you’re from the country of Mexico and you claim that you have a credible fear and you’re asking for asylum for one reason or another — we’re still releasing those individuals,” Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, testified.

He added, “If I were to guess, I would say that at least 80 percent of the individuals that the United States Border Patrol arrests at the border qualify for this catch and release program and in essence we are just letting them come into the United States.”

Fully 85 percent of those given notices to appear for a hearing never show, and the 15 percent who do are released for further hearings in the future or are given asylum.

Texas Federal Judge Andrew Hanen, who is presiding over a case brought by 26 states over Obama’s de facto amnesty executive orders, recently ordered attorneys for the Justice Department to undergo ethics training after they lied to him.

Hanen wrote:

“The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ” or “Justice Department”) has now admitted making statements that clearly did not match the facts. It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements. The DOJ’s only explanation has been that its lawyers either ‘lost focus’ or that the ‘fact[s] receded in memory or awareness.’ … These misrepresentations were made on multiple occasions starting with the very first hearing this Court held. This Court would be remiss if it left such unseemly and unprofessional conduct unaddressed.”

A government of laws?

 

The wrath of Democrats … continued

ICE Agent Taylor Johnson testifies before Congress. (AP photo via ABC)

Fraudulently manipulate waiting lists, leaving ailing veterans to die? Get a promotion.

Investigate conservative groups seeking tax exemptions? Ho hum.

Jeopardize national security and the lives of overseas operatives by flagrantly using an unsecured email server? Run for president.

Actually do your job and try to block a powerful Washington senator from bending the law to benefit his family and cronies? Get fired, smeared and offered a bribe to keep quiet.

The Daily Caller reports that a Department of Homeland Security agent who tried to block the government handing out green cards to foreign investors with questionable backgrounds — including some who invested in a Las Vegas hotel and casino with ties to Rory Reid, son of Sen. Harry Reid — has been fired, but she refused to accept a $100,000 severance payment that was conditional on her signing a non-disclosure agreement.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Taylor Johnson told Congress this past year that she found gross mismanagement and possible corruption in a program that hands out U.S. visas to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in American companies. She described the abuse as a threat to public safety.

She also said her investigation was shut down and her firearm and credentials confiscated.

A Daily Caller reporter says an ICE press secretary approached him with what she claimed to be confidential information showing Johnson was dishonest in an effort to smear the soon-to-be former employee. Of course, now those officials are mum because it is a personnel matter.

As for Reid’s involvement, in December 2013 Cause of Action, a group that says it advocates for government accountability, filed an ethics complaint against Reid. The complaint has been ignored.

The complaint accused Reid of using his influence to overturn decisions by ICE that denied visas to foreigners who planned to lend financial support to the renovation of the Sahara Hotel, the now renamed and reopened SLS. The agency had turned down the SLS investor visa applications due to “suspicious financial activity.” The decision was ineligible for appeal.

One official reported getting into a shouting match with a Reid staffer over the denial of those visas.

But that Cause of Action complaint was filed before all the chips were on the table.

Four days after that complaint was filed, the Senate voted to confirm the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to become the second in command at the Department of Homeland Security. He was the one who granted the visas after personally talking to Reid. The vote was 54-41. Had Reid not just nuked the Senate rules of filibuster the nomination would have failed to achieve the previously required 60 votes.

Mayorkas was confirmed despite the fact he was under investigation at the time for expediting certain visa applications for certain applicants despite the rejection of those visas by career staffers. Among those seeking foreign investors were Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and the brother of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Anthony Rodham.

Reid had made a personal call to Mayorkas, according to the Washington Times, who promised him his agency would take a “fresh look” at the SLS visa request. Soon after that the agency expedited visas for about two dozen foreign SLS investors. The Washington Times reported that Federal Election Commission records show executives for two companies involved in the hotel project had made $127,000 in political donations over the previous three elections, mostly to Democrats.

The Cause of Action complaint said, “Despite the fact that these applications were ineligible for appeal, Senator Reid’s efforts to lobby USCIS resulted in the reconsideration and approval of those applications … Even more troublesome is the fact that Senator Reid’s son, Rory Reid, and his law firm, Lionel, Sawyer & Collins P.C., are legal counsel to the SLS Hotel and Casino.”

The Senate Code of Official Conduct prohibits members from acting on matters that in which they have “a political, personal, or financial interest.”

Johnson testified that EB-5 visas were approved in as little 16 days and without “lacked basic necessary law enforcement” screening.

ABC News, in its own investigation, found foreign visa applicants were approved despite “allegations of fraud, money laundering, forgery, and other crimes against them.”

Taylor testimony:

 

 

 

‘Felons, not families’ line rings false

Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable -– especially those who may be dangerous. That’s why, over the past six years, deportations of criminals are up 80 percent. And that’s why we’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security. Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids. We’ll prioritize, just like law enforcement does every day. — President Obama, Nov. 20 televised speech

Accordingly, I am directing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to discontinue Secure Communities. ICE should put in its place a program that will continue to rely on fingerprint-based biometric data submitted during bookings by state and local law enforcement agencies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for criminal background checks. However, ICE should only seek the transfer of an alien in the custody of state or local law enforcement through the new program when the alien has been convicted of an offense listed in Priority 1 (a), (c), (d), and (e) and Priority 2 (a) and (b) of the November 20, 2014 Policies for the Apprehension, Detention and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants Memorandum, or when, in the judgment of an ICE Field Office Director, the alien otherwise poses a danger to national security. In other words, unless the alien poses a demonstrable risk to national security, enforcement actions through the new program will only be taken against aliens who are convicted of specifically enumerated crimes. — Secretary of Homeland Defense, Jeh Johnson, Nov. 20 memo.

But apparently even a conviction isn’t good enough already.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) obtained a document from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) showing that in fiscal year 2013 the agency set free in this country 36,007 convicted criminal aliens — with a total of 88,000 criminal convictions — who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings.

Under the Obama administration a person in the country illegally and suspected of a heinous crime may not be deported until the state and local community go to the expense of convicting that person and probably providing free attorneys to boot.

CIS reports that in fiscal year 2014 ICE statistics found the number of criminal aliens deported declined 39 percent in the past three years and nearly 167,000 convicted criminals released by ICE are currently at large in the U.S.

Investor’s Business Daily cites stats from the Congressional Research Service that show more than 26,000 illegals already released by the Obama administration have since release committed 58,000 new crimes — inlcuding 59 murders, 21 attempted murders and more than 5,000 major or violent criminal offenses.

According to a Las Vegas newspaper account from April, under Secure Communities there have been more than 3,000 deportations from Clark County, 888 of those were convicted of crimes as murder, rape and drug trafficking.

CIS notes:

Finally, the president described his program to the public as “going after felons, not families.” What he fails to mention is that, while he will go after illegal aliens who are “suspected” of terrorism and espionage, illegal aliens charged with rape, murder, burglary, and child molestation will be not be detained or expelled unless and until they are “convicted.” In other words, if an illegal alien has been booked and jailed by local police, but has not yet been tried and convicted, ICE is not permitted to detain the alien no matter how heinous the crime and no matter how much evidence of his guilt is presented to them. Most Americans would be shocked to learn that the federal government refuses to detain and expel tens of thousands of potentially dangerous aliens, who are not supposed to be in the country to begin with, who are already under arrest, and whom the local police are eager to have removed from their communities.

Even if an illegal is convicted, reports IBD, ICE must now consider “extenuating circumstances” — such as the criminal’s “family or community ties in the United States” and “humanitarian factors such as poor health, age, pregnancy, a young child or a seriously ill relative.”

Obama at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas announcing his executive fiat on immigration.

Obama administration turns loose thousands of criminal aliens

Speaking of federal agencies that ignore or flout the law, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has obtained a document from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) showing that in fiscal year 2013 the agency set free in this country 36,007 convicted criminal aliens — with a total of 88,000 criminal convictions — who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings.

CIS listed the worse offenders:

• 193 homicide convictions (including one willful killing of a public official with gun)

• 426 sexual assault convictions

• 303 kidnapping convictions

• 1,075 aggravated assault convictions

• 1,160 stolen vehicle convictions

• 9,187 dangerous drug convictions

• 16,070 drunk or drugged driving convictions

• 303 flight escape convictions

And that is on top of the 68,000 criminal aliens ICE did not even bother to try to deport. CIS called its report on that group of ignored criminal aliens, “Catch and Release.” Many of those are probably back on the streets, too, making the total more than 1000,000 in one year alone.

Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith called it “the worst prison break in American history, except it was sanctioned by the president and perpetrated by our own immigration officials.”

ICE did this even though it touts its deportation of criminal aliens on its website:

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) places a high priority on combating illegal immigration, including targeting illegal aliens with criminal records who pose a threat to public safety.

“The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) provides ICE-wide direction and support in the biometric and biographic identification, arrest, and removal of priority aliens who are incarcerated within federal, state, and local prisons and jails, as well as at-large criminal aliens that have circumvented identification. It is incumbent upon ICE to ensure that all efforts are made to investigate, arrest, and remove individuals from the United States that ICE deems priorities by processing the alien expeditiously and securing a final order of removal for an incarcerated alien before the alien is released to ICE custody.  The identification and processing of incarcerated criminal aliens, before release from jails and prisons, decreases or eliminates the time spent in ICE custody and reduces the overall cost to the Federal Government.”

 

As for those claims that the Obama administration is deporting more illegal immigrants that ever before, the explanation is that they’ve changed what is counted as a deportation to include those detained at the border and voluntarily go home. Those were never counted before.

Future Democratic voters, perhaps?