The primary version of this blog is HERE. The Blogroll. My Home Page. Email John Ray here. Other blogs: "Tongue Tied" "Dissecting Leftism" "Australian Politics" "Education Watch International"
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31 August, 2022
Immigration madness
Nothing quite captures the idealism and indifference of Americans, or the cleverness and shortsightedness of their politicians, like the madness that has overtaken the country’s approach to immigration. How else to explain the scene at the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan on a recent Friday morning?
Dozens of migrants from Central and South America clustered behind yellow steel barriers, watched over by New York police. Some picked through plastic bins of new clothes or tried on shoes provided by volunteers. Two children knelt by a metal chair, colouring a blank notebook with yellow and pink pens. A baby slumped on one woman’s shoulder, peacefully asleep, while paramedics wheeled another woman on a stretcher through the barriers and towards Eighth Avenue. With irony or in earnest—take your pick—a backlit glass artwork depicting the Statue of Liberty looked down from one wall on the new arrivals.
They were the latest asylum-seekers dispatched from Texas by its governor, Greg Abbott, who has taken to loading border-crossers onto buses and, with no coordination, sending them off on oneway trips, first to Washington, dc, and now to New York as well. The governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, has got in on the act. The Arizona buses are better equipped, including with medical staff, but immigrants say they have no food or water on the two-day ride from Texas.
Before contending with the politics of this, consider a more uplifting dimension: the response of volunteers. Ilze Thielmann, the leader of the New York affiliate of a group called Grannies Respond, got word from a “confidential source” that Mr Abbot’s first bus to New York was to arrive at 5:30am on August 5th. That day and since, she has helped coordinate a loose network of groups that greet the arrivals with food and coffee, with menstrual products for the women and toys for the children, and then get them transport to a shelter or to family and friends in the area. “We’re calling Abbott’s bluff,” Ms Thielmann says. “We’ll do what we need to do. We’re New Yorkers. New Yorkers don’t blink.”
Not everyone is so generous. One commuter who paused to survey the scene that recent Friday morning wondered aloud what diseases the immigrants might be carrying. “And who’s paying for this?” she asked. “We are.”
As the buses kept arriving, every other day or so, the city government began playing a bigger role. But if the mayor, Eric Adams, isn’t blinking, he is complaining. New York, which earlier this year expanded welfare benefits for noncitizens, by law promises shelter on demand, and the shelters were already straining to accommodate the homeless. The city has rented 1,300 hotel rooms for migrant families and is looking for thousands more rooms. Mr Adams is pressing the Biden administration for help; in Washington, Mayor Muriel Bowser has twice asked the Defence Department for help from the National Guard and been turned down.
Mr Abbott is running for a third term, and he has been gleeful at the mayors’ howls of protest. “Listen, New York is a sanctuary city,” he recently told Fox News. “Mayor Adams said they welcome in illegal immigrants. And now, once they have to deal with the reality of it, they are flummoxed, and they cannot handle it. They are now getting a taste of what we have to deal with.” When Mr Adams threatened to send a busload of New Yorkers to Texas to campaign against Mr Abbott, he was tickled. “There could hardly be anything better to aid my campaign,” he said.
Just because Mr Abbott’s methods are cruel does not mean he is entirely wrong. Americans should not so easily look away from the border, where existing practice is neither wise nor humane. The governors have bused more than 7,000 migrants since April, enough to cause what Ms Bowser calls a “humanitarian crisis”. But more than 6,000 people cross the border illegally every day. They represent a sliver of the 1.82m apprehensions at the border so far this fiscal year, beginning in October, more than the record 1.66m last year. The strength of the American economy, fear and despair south of the border and mixed signals from the Biden administration about the leniency of its policy are all playing a role.
The White House has been striking deals with other countries to step up their own border enforcement, and it is piloting a programme to speed the processing of asylum cases. But mostly it seems to hope the problem will go away. As president, Mr Biden has not visited the border. The border states are bearing the brunt of the influx. Talking tough on immigration is good politics in Texas. But in New York, it is equally facile to talk tough about those who talk tough about immigration, while basking in one’s own compassion for those trying to enter Texas.
Movement of the people
In a different political reality, the Democratic mayors urging the federal government to do more might team up with the Republican governors who say the same thing, to put pressure on their congressional delegations to act. But Mr Abbott’s approach seems less likely to promote cooperation than to compound division, and with it suffering and chaos. “I understand that Texas is overwhelmed—I really do,” Ms Thielmann says. “But there are better ways to handle this than sending people off in such brutal conditions.” In any event, Mr Abbott probably cannot muster enough buses to create such a crisis that it would break the political deadlock. Many migrants move on quickly, to the homes of relatives or to the city where their asylum hearing is to be held. Others will vanish into a shelter system that somehow muddles through.
With some 11m jobs unfilled in America, this is a good moment for a long-deferred compromise on immigration, one that would combine stern enforcement of the law with a streamlined asylum process and a path to citizenship. But that outcome would antagonise extremists on both sides, and solve a problem that national politicians would rather campaign on.
https://blendle.com/i/the-economist/a-bused-people-lexington/bnl-economist-20220826-4500d43d63f
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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30 August, 2022
UK: Albanian migrants crossing Channel ‘face criminal record checks by own police at Dover’
Albanian migrants arriving in Dover after crossing the Channel face criminal record checks by police officers from their own country, according to reports.
Government sources told The Telegraph that officials from the Home Office would meet senior Albanian officers on Tuesday to agree plans to cross-reference the fingerprints and biometric data of migrants with the Balkan nation’s criminal databases.
The new measures would allow Border Force and immigration enforcement officers to “identify and fast-track” anyone regarded as not “conducive to the public good” because of their criminal background to be deported to Albania, the newspaper reports.
The powers would be used in tandem with legislation introduced in June that allows UK immigration officials to speed up the removal of Albanian asylum seekers whose claims are judged to be “unfounded”.
Gledis Nano, general director of the Albanian state police, is understood to have suggested the deployment of at least two Albanian officers to Dover during a visit in July to meet officials from the National Crime Agency and Home Office.
A source told the newspaper: “This biometric data will enable officers to detect any Albanian wanted by Albanian police or who has a criminal background.
“They will have two laptops with all the systems and data that Albanian police have.”
A Border Force source said: “This access would help us immensely, assuming there are no data protection or legal issues that would prevent the Albanian police from receiving biographic and biometric data captured by UK Border Force under UK law to check against their own records.
“It will not only enable us to identify who they are but also if there are known criminals among them. However, there may be a risk in sharing information about asylum seekers with the government of the country they are claiming to fear persecution from – at least before the claim is assessed.”
It comes after Border Force officials reported that the majority of a record-breaking number of migrants who arrived in the UK this year were from Albania.
The ISU union, which represents staff working for the Home Office’s law enforcement body, said its members had seen an increase in people from the southeast European country making the Channel crossing in the past few months.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/albanian-migrants-dover-record-checks-b2155280.html
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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29 August, 2022
More Illegals by Sea, but Many More by Land
We have all seen the reports that as many as two million illegal entrants will cross the southern (land) border this year, but such arrivals by sea are also increasing, if in smaller numbers.
An indirect measure of this trend is shown by how many apprehensions have been recorded by the Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF) — that nation’s grandiosely named coast guard. These islands lie between Haiti and Florida, the route taken by boat-carrying Haitians (and some Cubans) seeking illegal access to the States.
Reuters, the British news agency, has reported that so far this calendar year the RBDF has apprehended 2,250 aliens, compared to 2,235 for all of 2019 to 2021. These numbers suggest that this year the Bahamian apprehensions are running at about 4.5 times the rate of earlier years; a projected 3,400 for this year, as opposed to an average of 745 in the three previous years.
The RBDF, presumably funded in part by the States, is not inhibited by the kinds of restraints inflicted on our immigration authorities — no asylum system, no court dates years from now, just a quick return to the homeland for the aliens involved.
The Bahamas route is one of four maritime illegal-alien routes known to me. Once upon a time, large numbers of Cubans crossed to Florida in small boats, but the numbers have fallen in recent years.
Two other sea routes are from Haiti and the Dominican Republic (which share the island of Hispaniola) eastward to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and around the barrier just south of San Diego. I do not recall much, if any, traffic along the Texas barrier islands near Brownsville, or across the Great Lakes. Maybe it is happening successfully, in which case it would not be reported.
Illegal aliens, by and large, are not swimmers, as we learn from time to time when they are either drowned (or rescued by the Border Patrol) as they seek to cross either the Rio Grande or some canals at various parts of the southern border.
Aliens who seek to enter without inspection are, primarily, landlubbers, but the sea-borne ones also are increasing.
https://cis.org/North/More-Illegals-Sea-Many-More-Land
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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28 August, 2022
UK sees record number of illegal immigrants crossing English Channel, as deportation plan stalls
The United Kingdom saw a record number of migrants in a single day coming across the English Channel this week, as the government struggles to implement a scheme to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda.
British media reported that 1,295 migrants crossed the channel from Europe in small boats on Monday, a daily record. The BBC reported that means that 22,557 migrants have crossed since the start of the year.
Illegal immigrants typically have crossed into the U.K. by hopping onto the backs of trucks as they crossed from Calais, France to Dover either by ferry or by the Channel Tunnel.
However, the number coming across via the Channel on small boats increased sharply after 2018. According to U.K. government figures, there were just 299 illegal immigrants caught coming across in small boats in 2018. In 2021 that number had soared to 28,526.
The illegal immigrants are mainly from countries far from the U.K., and have moved through multiple safe countries in order to get to Blighty.
Official figures show that since 2018, Iranians and Iraqis represent half of all small boat arrivals, followed by migrants from Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Vietnam and then Albania. However, this year Albanians are now tied with Afghans as the nation with the most people arriving by small boats, with each accounting for 18% of the total. Additionally, some 2,165 Albanians arrived in Britain via this route in the first six months of 2022.
The British government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has repeatedly pledged to crack down on illegal immigration -- but has struggled to deliver on its promises.
Earlier this year, Johnson’s government announced a deal with Rwanda that would see illegal immigrants sent there instead -- a move that sparked outrage from Britain’s left-wing politicians as well as the United Nations.
The agreement was similar in some aspects to efforts by the Trump administration in the United States to implement "safe third country" agreements that would see migrants sent there instead. Such agreements are designed to stop those who are using asylum claims as a cloak to cover economically-driven migration.
Johnson said in a speech that the move was made possible by Britain’s departure from the European Union, which gave Britain greater control over its immigration policies.
"This innovative approach driven by our shared humanitarian impulse and made possible by Brexit freedoms, will provide safe and legal routes for asylum while disrupting the business model of the gangs, because it means that economic migrants taking advantage of the asylum system will not get to stay in the U.K.," Johnson said. "While those in genuine need will be properly protected, including with access to legal services, on arrival in Rwanda and given the opportunity to build a new life in that dynamic country supported by the funding we are providing."
Johnson said that seven out of 10 migrants who arrived by small boats were men under the age of 40 and have passed through "manifestly safe countries, including many in Europe where they could and should have claimed asylum."
However, the first flight in June was blocked after the European Court of Human Rights -- separate from the European Union, from which the U.K. has departed -- issued an injunction.
Flights have been on hold since then amid the ongoing legal challenge with objections focused on alleged human rights issues related to sending migrants to the East African country.
The Guardian reported Thursday that the Home Office is planning a new deportation flight ahead of a U.K. High Court hearing on the matter next month. The U.K. also this week announced a new plan to "fast-track" deportations of Albanians out of the country.
"Large numbers of Albanians are being sold lies by ruthless people-smugglers and vicious organized crime gangs, leading them to take treacherous journeys in flimsy boats to the U.K.," Home Secretary Priti Patel said in a statement. "This abuse of our immigration system and people risking their lives cannot go on."
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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26 August, 2022
150 immigrants discovered in tractor-trailer in Mexico — just two months after fatal truck horror
Another 150 immigrants were found stashed inside a tractor-trailer in Mexico — almost two months after 53 immigrants died inside a sweltering truck in Texas, US Border Patrol said Wednesday.
A photo released by Border Patrol shows the migrants crammed into the back of an 18-wheeler. Some of the men in the photo are shirtless, likely because of the heat.
It’s unknown how hot the truck was when it was intercepted by Mexican authorities or if the truck had ventilation.
“This has proven to be a deadly tactic that smugglers use,” tweeted Chief Patrol Agent Jason D. Owens of the Border Patrol. “Luckily, no one in this large group needed medical assistance.”
He did not say when the truck was intercepted.
With the coordinated efforts of Del Rio Sector and the Government of Mexico an 18-Wheeler carrying 150 undocumented migrants traveling towards the United States was successfully interdicted.
Criminal organizations are known to smuggle immigrants into Texas inside such tractor trailers.
In June, 53 immigrants were found dead inside the back of a stifling big rig in San Antonio in what authorities have called the deadliest smuggling attempt in US history.
Initially, 46 immigrants were declared dead when the truck was discovered in San Antonio’s outskirts, but the death toll later rose to 53 after more immigrants died in the hospital when their hearts stopped multiple times, a bishop who visited the immigrants in the hospital told The Post.
Two Texas men have been indicted in connection the mass deaths, including the driver who was allegedly high on meth when he drove the immigrants from Laredo to San Antonio, authorities said.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/18/150-immigrants-in-tractor-trailer-rescued-before-entering-us/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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25 August, 2022
Team Biden’s politicized plan for federal sanctuary will mean dangerous criminals on the streets
The US Marshals Service, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, is drafting a policy change directing its field offices, marshals, deputies and detention centers to cease honoring immigration detainers filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, The Washington Times reports. The shift has reportedly already taken effect in some jurisdictions.
This protocol would put USMS in the same category as New York City, San Francisco and other notorious sanctuary cities that have adopted ordinances designed to prevent ICE from doing its job, by enabling deportable criminal aliens to remain in our communities and commit more crimes. There will be a tragic human cost.
For those who don’t know, a “detainer” is a request by ICE, a Department of Homeland Security agency, to keep an alien upon release by the holding agency — in this case the Marshals Service — so ICE has enough time to take custody of the alien and initiate removal proceedings.
The proposed policy is a monumental change: For the first time in our nation’s history, one federal enforcement organization is being directed to nullify by obstruction another federal agency’s enforcement of federal law. It’s even more remarkable because the USMS is the oldest federal enforcement agency in the United States and has plenary powers to enforce federal laws of all sorts.
The law — US Code Title 28, Section 566(c) — is clear: “Except as otherwise provided by law or Rule of Procedure, the United States Marshals Service shall execute all lawful writs, process, and orders issued under the authority of the United States, and shall command all necessary assistance to execute its duties.” A detainer is part of the process by which immigration agents take custody of alien criminals from the Marshals Service to subject them to expulsion proceedings before an immigration judge.
Ironically, prior to its breakup by the Homeland Security Act, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (ICE’s predecessor) was a Justice Department agency, as is the Marshals Service. Cooperation between the Marshals Service and both ICE and its predecessor has always been necessarily close: The number of aliens in Marshals Service custody awaiting trial and those in Federal Bureau of Prisons custody serving sentence have historically been high. At the end of federal fiscal year 2019, for instance, of the 63,725 individuals in Marshals Service custody, 23,580 (37%) were known or suspected aliens.
Further, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics, in FY 2020, 40% of all offenders charged in US District Courts were aliens; and 37% of all prisoners released from federal Bureau of Prisons custody were aliens. One wonders whether the BOP, under the Garland Justice Department too, will soon adopt such policies, potentially freeing illegal aliens who’ve served federal time.
It’s worth noting that oftentimes, it is ICE or a DHS sister agency, such as Customs and Border Protection, that makes the criminal arrest of an alien placed into Marshals Service custody. Think how often Border Patrol agents arrest aliens for criminal drug, gun or contraband smuggling offenses on the southern border — and think about the consequences of allowing them to be released on US soil instead of handing them over to ICE for removal.
USMS representatives claim they’re not actually hindering immigration enforcement because they’ll notify ICE of impending releases, enabling ICE agents to show up to take custody, should they choose. This is a canard put out for public consumption, since it presupposes that ICE field offices are co-located with Marshals Service offices, just minutes away to secure assumption of custody. But that’s far from true. It’s just as likely ICE agents are hours away from the place of release, particularly since the Marshals Service leases space all over the country from state, county and local jails to hold its prisoners.
Under the perverse rules the Garland Justice Department is drafting, undoubtedly with the knowledge and silent consent of Alejandro Mayorkas’ Homeland Security Department, aliens upon release from the Marshals Service, for example when posting a bond, will be allowed to walk freely down the streets of America.
The Constitution’s Article II, Section 3 mandates that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This requirement applies not only to the president but to his Cabinet officers. It is not a hard leap to infer that Attorney General Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas are in breach of their constitutional duty and needlessly putting the American public at risk.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/18/bidens-federal-sanctuary-plan-puts-criminals-on-the-streets/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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24 August, 2022
Hundreds of migrants line up at NYC hospital for healthcare, food, free phones
Hundreds of migrants — at least some bussed to the Big Apple by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — lined up outside Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx on Sunday to get healthcare coverage, food and other items including school supplies and free phones.
The event, organized by the city hospital system, was billed as a “resource and family fun day” for the migrants and their children, many of whom have come to New York City in droves in recent weeks.
“I came to New York about three days ago. I am a welder, and I am looking for work here,” Venezuelan refugee Adrian Medina, 32, said through a translator.
These are people/families coming from Colombia, Honduras and other Latin American countries, some came looking for better living conditions, others running away from dangerous conditions.
Medina said he arrived on a bus that left Texas five days ago, after a solo trek from his home country that included six days of walking in the jungle.
Now living at Bellevue Men’s Shelter, Medina said he saw a flier for the event there. He was waiting in line for ice cream when he spoke to The Post.
“I’m feeling a little bit better now, but when I first arrived, I wasn’t good, “he said. “We did not sleep or eat well.”
A fellow Venezuelan, Luis Quintana, 48, said he came to the event “to get an ID and health insurance” after arriving in the city from Texas on Friday.
“I’m feeling well now, but I wasn’t. I was uncomfortable on the bus. The bathroom on the bus was closed for several hours,” Quintana said.
“I came to New York to get away from the delinquency in Venezuela, cops in the streets, armed people. I want to work and progress.”
A couple and their two children, also from Venezuela, were waiting patiently in line in the hope of getting legal assistance to help them stay in the US.
“We came here today looking for help from a lawyer for political asylum,” the mother, Sandy Gonzalez, 36, told The Post. “We came to get help with immigration.”
Gonzalez said she had been staying at a shelter in Brooklyn since stepping off a plane from Texas in early July with her husband, Argenis Ramirez, 40, and their children.
A rep for Medicaid provider MetroPlusHealth, which co-sponsored the event, said it expected about 1,200 migrants, mostly children, to attend.
At least some of the migrants had been bussed to New York City by Texas’s Republican governor, who has raged about what he calls Dem President Joe Biden’s out-of-control lax border policies, while also targeting Democratic city mayors.
The migrants crossed the Mexico border into Texas illegally, then said they were seeking asylum, which allows them to legally stay in the US while their cases wind through the courts.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/21/hundreds-of-migrants-line-up-in-nyc-for-healthcare-food-phones/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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23 August, 2022
Poll: Surprising Number of Dems Think There's an Invasion Occurring at Biden's Border
A new poll reveals that over half of the American people believe the illegal immigrants pouring across the southern border represent an “invasion,” including 40 percent of Democrats.
According to the NPR/Ipsos survey, 73 percent of Americans believe the large number of migrants illegally crossing the border is a problem.
Fifty-four percent think it’s “at least somewhat true” that the U.S. is under a state of invasion by illegal immigrants. “Republicans (76%) believe this more so than Democrats (40%) and independents (46%),” Ipsos reported.
Half of the Americans polled believe there is truth to reports of illegal immigrants smuggling fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the U.S. and that they are partly responsible for the spike in fentanyl-related overdoses and deaths.
There has also been a marked decline in support for giving legal status to illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Only a slim 51 percent majority favors providing them legal status, a figure that has plunged from 65 percent in 2018.
The poll found rising support for building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, with a 46 percent plurality in favor, 42 percent opposing it and 12 percent who were unsure.
A surprisingly large number of Democrats — 23 percent — either somewhat or strongly support building a border wall.
Forty-six percent of Americans supported a ban on unaccompanied children entering the U.S., including 34 percent of Democrats, 46 percent of independents and 64 percent of Republicans.
“Raising the number of immigrants allowed into the U.S. each year” came out as the least popular immigration policy, with only 39 percent in support.
The most popular policy was former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” rule, which required asylum seekers to await their day in U.S. immigration court in Mexico.
Fifty-seven percent supported the policy, including 44 percent of Democrats, 54 percent of independents and 77 percent of Republicans.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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22 August, 2022
How selfies fuel rise in illegal migrants
Smart-phone technology is a massive driver of migration, sending the message to Central and South America of “wish you were here.”
People in Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela use their phones to plug into chatrooms and social media networks that serve as a real-time intelligence network.
The network reports up-trail conditions, border crossings, violence, smuggling fees, and especially the availability of free stuff like clothes, food and shelter to those who are still down-trail. The intelligence networks don’t just tell with text. They show. Often with photographs and video of real people from the bus stations, on the buses, and in the shelters with their handouts, checks, documents and new clothes.
This works like any flash mob. It is always the phones that tell and show where the deportation and robbery zones are, so the crowds coming up behind can divert elsewhere. It is always the phones that tell of and show where to find the welcome mats and free giveaways, often exactly where and how to get them.
I know this because I have met and interviewed thousands of US-bound immigrants while they were on the trail to the US border, and at the border who have told me repeatedly of their heavy reliance on the phone network.
I’ve rarely met a supposedly impoverished US-bound migrant without a modern cellphone fully connected to the Internet and social media. There they were again, I noticed, in news photos of immigrants in New York homeless shelters.
They have invited me into their chat groups where policy news and border-crossing openings are openly reported and discussed. They have showed me the selfie content that their friends, neighbors and countrymen created as they documented their good fortune of being freed into America with documents handed to them by Border Patrol. In early June, I was in Del Rio, Texas, watching scores of immigrants fresh from the Rio Grande board charter buses to cities all over America create selfie videos of themselves smiling with thumbs up next to the buses.
One Cuban who I watched make a selfie of himself standing next to the Greyhound bus he was about to board to Georgia told me it was one of several he sent to his brother still in Havana. That brother would soon be on his way now, too, he said.
If immigrants are showing up to the same New York homeless shelters and nonprofit storefronts where free goods and assistance is being handed out, you can be sure that all of that information is making it back to the Texas border and beyond, influencing decisions to head for the Big Apple on Abbott’s buses.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/18/how-selfies-fuel-rise-in-illegal-migrants/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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21 August, 2022
Cartels are 'killing Americans with fentanyl at rates never seen before': DEA administrator's dire assessment of the Biden border drug crisis
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) administrator Anne Milgram issued a dire warning Friday that cartels are 'killing Americans with fentanyl at rates never seen before.
'There are two cartels in Mexico the Sinoloa cartel and the El Jalisco cartel that are killing Americans with fentanyl at catastrophic and record rates like we have never seen before,' Milgram said.
Milgram said that cartels had become more aggressive than they'd been in years past.
'Those cartels are acting with calculated, deliberate treachery to get fentanyl to the United States and to get people to buy it - through fake pills, through other drugs, through any means.'
'The whole world of drugs has changed,' she added.
In the past year there have been over 107,000 drug overdoses in the U.S., 70 percent of those tied to fentanyl.
In the first nine months of fiscal year 2022, border agents just in San Diego and Imperial counties seized over 5,000 pounds of fentanyl.
'Mexican cartels are increasingly manufacturing fentanyl for distribution and sale in the United States Precursors are imported from China and other countries and then pressed into pills, powder or mixed into other drugs at massive, industrial-scale labs,' the Department of Justice warned in a public statement on Aug. 12.
Meanwhile migrants have gotten more creative to evade arrest, as Border Patrol agents in New Mexico arrested three dressed in camouflage dried grass suits to blend in with the local terrain.
US Border Patrol Sector Chief Gloria Chavez credited the migrants for their 'ghillie suits,' as the outfit is called, saying in a tweet people use 'extraordinary tactics to evade and detect arrest.'
So far this fiscal year border agents at the southern border have apprehended migrants trying to pass illegally at least two million times
CBP sources told Fox News that the migrant encounters hit 2,001,034 this weekend, with the majority of the fourth quarter left to go. That figure does not include the number of gotaways who successfully evaded arrest.
It comes after the agency released figures for July that showed encounters reaching below 200,000 for the first month since February. It was also the second consecutive month that saw a decline in encounters following four months in a row of increases.
At this point in Fiscal Year 2021, encounter figures were at 1,277,177 – more than 700,000 less than the same point this year.
Meanwhile, buses full of migrants continue to offload at New York City's Port Authority on Wednesday as Texas Governor Greg Abbott goes forward with an initiative sending illegal immigrants out of his state to major U.S. cities.
So far, Abbott has sent at least 6,000 migrants to Washington, D.C. and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has sent at least 1,000 migrants out of his state by bus to the nation's capital.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser have decried Abbott's efforts, which were started in mid-April and led to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey launching the same program a month later bussing migrants from his state to the sanctuary cities.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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19 August, 2022
Texas National Guard Locks Border Gate, Then Border Patrol Throws It Open to Let Illegal Immigrants Stream Through
In an incident replete with symbolism, a video shows Biden administration agents opening a gate that the Texas National Guard had closed to keep illegal immigrants out of the country.
Fox News reporter Bill Melugin shared the video Wednesday on his Twitter account.
“For the first time, we witnessed the TX National Guard close & lock a gate on private property at a major crossing area in Eagle Pass, denying entry to migrants who just crossed illegally & expected to be let in. Border Patrol then came w/ a key & let them in for processing,” he said in his first tweet.
“This was the moment Border Patrol arrived with the key and let the migrants in. The landowner allows both TX DPS/National Guard and Border Patrol to work here. The gate has always been left open in the past. TX is now closing it, & migrants have to wait for BP to be let in,” Melugin added.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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18 August, 2022
Most illegal immigrants do not qualify for US asylum
The arrival of busloads of migrants into New York City has raised questions about the administration’s border policies. Here are the facts about our increasingly dysfunctional immigration system:
Under US law, most migrants coming here without permission must be expelled. The only exceptions are migrants fleeing torture or racial, religious, ethnic, political or social-group persecution. “Economic refugee” is a contradiction, and “seeking a better life” means nothing if a migrant lacks permission to enter.
Otherwise, millions would seek entry and local governments would go bankrupt, medical and public-school systems would be strained, and America’s poor would remain in poverty for generations.
To avoid such harms, Congress requires the Department of Homeland Security to prevent all illegal entries and has given it authority to quickly remove migrants who enter illegally or come without proper documents.
To comply with our international obligations, though, Congress also allows migrants caught at entry to claim a fear of return before removal.
DHS statistics reveal that the Biden administration has rarely used this “expedited removal” authority. Between July 2021 and July 2022, the department processed 1.079 million migrants stopped at the southwest border for removal. Of that 1.079 million, it cleared just 41,206 to apply for asylum or other humanitarian protection in the US.
During that same period, however, DHS released approximately 853,000 migrants stopped at the southwest border into the United States. Although those migrants are commonly called “asylum-seekers,” these statistics show fewer than 5% are.
That’s not to say that others won’t seek asylum eventually. Most who appear in immigration court will file asylum applications, regardless of whether they fear persecution or torture, because that will allow them to seek work permits and remain here indefinitely.
But many won’t show up. According to the Department of Justice, between FY 2008 and late FY 2019 — when DHS vigorously used expedited removal — 83% of migrants stopped at the border who claimed a fear of harm were cleared to make asylum claims in court. Fewer than 17% of them received asylum. By contrast, more than 45% never applied for asylum, and 32.5% were ordered removed in absentia when they failed to appear in court.
And although President Donald Trump tried to comply with a statutory mandate to detain all who entered illegally until they are granted asylum or removed, President Biden largely just ignores that rule.
The administration complains it can’t detain illegal migrants because it lacks space and must instead release most into the US pending removal proceedings. Consequently, seven times as many of those illegal migrants were released between July 2021 and July 2022 than were removed or returned.
While DHS does need more detention resources, Biden intends to make that problem worse.
He wants Congress to cut adult detention beds from 34,000 daily to 25,000 in FY 2023. In July, Border Patrol apprehended 5,856 illegal entrants per day at the southwest border. If Congress makes those cuts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement could only detain any given migrant for about four days. Even more migrants will be released, encouraging more to enter illegally.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admits the administration’s objective isn’t reducing illegal entries but instead providing “safe, orderly, and legal pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system” — that is, to apply for asylum.
Mayorkas knows, however, that the in-absentia rate for illegal entrants is high (not surprising, given that they ignored US law already by coming illegally) and that establishing asylum eligibility is difficult.
For example, it’s not enough for a Venezuelan to assert that life is hard under the Nicolás Maduro regime. That applicant must prove either torture or a “well-founded fear” of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group. As the DOJ statistics show, few illegal entrants can carry that burden.
But most ordered removed won’t depart. In FY 2019, nearly 600,000 fugitive illegal immigrants under final removal orders had failed to leave. That figure has only increased in the interim, as Mayorkas has placed needless burdens on ICE officers.
Unlike all his predecessors, Biden is not deterring illegal entrants at the border. Instead, he’s inviting every foreign national in the world to come illegally and seek asylum — whether they’re “asylum-seekers” or not.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/16/most-illegal-immigrants-do-not-qualify-for-us-asylum/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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17 August, 2022
Sen. Ron Johnson slammed what he described as an 'open border' policy held by the Biden administration during a roundtable he hosted Tuesday in Milwaukee
Pointing to record-high border apprehension numbers from the U.S. Border Patrol, Johnson said the number of illegal migrant crossings was a crisis, and a threat to Wisconsin mainly because it increased the likelihood of fentanyl continuing to fuel a rise in overdoses.
Critics have pointed to those very numbers -- a recent average of more than 200,000 monthly border encounters -- as proof it's misleading for Johnson and other Republicans to claim the current administration has an 'open border' policy.
"You know, what terminology you use, you can't debate numbers," Johnson responded when asked about the criticism. "I mean, we had the border largely under control. You'll never have a 100-percent secure border, but we had it largely under control. Now, it's completely out of control."
Johnson seeks to make immigration a key issue in the high-profile Senate race this fall. The campaign for Johnson's Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, declined to comment for this story.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin pointed to Johnson's vote against a bipartisan immigration bill that passed in 2013 as a sign Johnson was more focused on rhetoric than repairing the country's immigration laws.
“Whether it’s voting against comprehensive immigration reform that would have secured our border and fixed the broken immigration system," party spokesperson Philip Shulman said. "Or protecting big pharmaceutical companies that exploited the opioid epidemic, Ron Johnson isn’t serious about keeping our communities safe.”
Johnson said Congress should not take up immigration reform until the borders are more secure. His stance was echoed on the panel by Mark Morgan, who served as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the Trump administration, and Brandon Judd, president of the Border Patrol agents union.
"Among the many unfortunate things about what's been happening during this administration is you set back the possibility of immigration reform," Johnson said. "Because the first step in doing so is to secure the border, having a border under reasonable control."
Johnson said while he supports the idea of modernizing the nation's immigration laws, and providing lasting protection to residents who were brought into the U.S. illegally at a young age, known as Dreamers, he would not support legislation on those subjects until stricter border security measures were in place.
Judd said the current issue with security was too many of the migrants caught by patrol agents are under court order to release them, as opposed to deporting them.
"Yes, we still have enforcement on the border," he said. "Yes, agents are still on the border, but what you do with the individuals that cross the border, once they're in our custody, that is the open border policies."
"So, when they cross, and they claim asylum just to be released, we're ultimately rewarding them for violating our laws."
Darryl Morin, president of pro-immigrant group Forward Latino, said the number of migrants waiting in squalor on the Mexican side of the border was proof Johnson and the panelists were disingenuous in arguing illegal immigrants have easy access to the U.S.
Morin argued if Johnson was serious about cutting down on illegal immigration, he'd be a bigger proponent of aid and expanded partnerships with Central American countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
"Everyone knows what needs to be done," Morin said. "But there are those, such as the senator, who prefer to have inflammatory rhetoric that maybe helps them at the polls, rather than actually getting to the root of the problem."
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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16 August, 2022
Joe Biden restarts construction of Trump’s wall
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Political pressure is forcing the President to go back on his campaign promise
Two years ago, while campaigning for the presidency, Joe Biden said, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration.” On his first day in office, President Biden ordered “an immediate pause in wall construction projects”.
And yet, the Biden administration last week ordered gaps in the wall to be filled near Yuma, Arizona, where huge numbers of illegal border-crossers have entered. This was simply following through on a Department of Homeland Security announcement last December that “small gaps” in the wall (left by Biden’s hasty order to stop construction) would be filled. So not only will there be additional feet of wall constructed, but they might amount to additional miles.
Does this signify a change of course on immigration by the Biden White House? Are they admitting that they were wrong, and that President Trump was right? Unfortunately not. Instead it’s a cosmetic gesture driven by the upcoming elections — specifically, the re-election campaign of Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona. In a 50-50 Senate, every seat up for election counts. If Republicans manage a net gain of just one seat in the upper house, Biden’s plans to appoint judges, and perhaps even another Supreme Court justice, will be significantly complicated, if not scuttled altogether.
Whoever wins this week’s Republican primary to run against Kelly is sure to highlight his support of the administration’s border policies. And the situation in Yuma is quite dire. A quarter-million border-jumpers have crossed so far this fiscal year, double the prior year and a 30-fold increase from the same period in 2020. Aware of this vulnerability, Sen. Kelly took credit for the DHS move, headlining his press release in response, “After Sen. Kelly’s Urging, DHS to Close Morelos Dam Gaps at the Southern Border.”
Unfortunately, the underlying policy that is causing the surge in illegal crossings in the first place remains unchanged, meaning that people will continue to infiltrate the border along all the other stretches with no fencing. Unlike all prior administrations, the Biden White House rejects the very idea of deterring illegal immigration. In a Fox News interview with Bret Baier, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said: “It is the objective of the Biden administration to make sure that we have safe, orderly, and legal pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system.” In other words, the Biden administration is not trying to reduce the number of illegal immigrants at the southern border.
This is happening not so much because Biden is trying to import Democratic voters, as some have claimed. While administration figures would welcome any political benefits, they’re ambiguous and in any case far in the future. Instead, the administration is driven by an ideological belief that every person in the world — excepting only terrorists and child molesters — has a right to enter the United States, whether legally or not, and claim asylum, and live and work here for as long as the adjudication process takes.
This is much more alarming than if the White House were merely engaging in cynical political manoeuvres, and isn’t going to change simply because a few high-profile, photogenic gaps in the border fence are closed.
https://unherd.com/thepost/will-joe-biden-finish-trumps-wall/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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15 August, 2022
Can Asylum Seekers Relocate to Safety Within Their Home Countries?
As the historic crisis on the Southern border continues to surge and strain limited government resources, the Biden administration must implement reforms to deter the filing of fraudulent or frivolous asylum applications at the Southern border. Fortunately, the government already has tools to mitigate the crisis in existing legal and regulatory authorities. And, importantly, Congress can codify and strengthen the current regulatory requirements to ensure asylum officers properly apply this bar early on at the credible fear screening stage.
Aliens who receive protection from deportation in the United States typically either receive relief under the asylum laws or protection under the regulations implementing the Convention Against Torture (CAT). A grant of asylum is not a right but a discretionary benefit that requires an applicant to show both that they possess a well-founded fear of persecution in their home country and that they warrant a grant of adjudicator discretion. Protection under CAT, on the other hand, prohibits the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from removing an alien to a country where it is more likely than not that the alien’s life or liberty will be threatened.
Both the asylum laws and regulations implementing CAT require the government to consider an alien’s ability to relocate to a safer region in their home country to avoid the harms they claim to fear. For example, once an asylum applicant establishes that they have suffered persecution in their home country, 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(1)(i)(B) makes asylum unavailable if “[t]he applicant could avoid future persecution by relocating to another part of the applicant’s country of nationality ... and under all the circumstances, it would be reasonable to expect the applicant to do so”. When evaluating whether an alien is eligible for protection under CAT, officers must consider whether, while evaluating the totality of the circumstances, the availability of internal relocation eradicates the alien’s need for protection in the United States.
Currently, regulations (at 8 C.F.R. § 1208.13(b)(3)(ii)) also set a presumption in favor of the applicant that internal relocation is not reasonable in cases where the alien’s alleged persecutor is their government. In recent years, however, the majority of illegal border-crossers are not claiming persecution at the hands of their government. Most claims allege harm from private actors, such as gangs, rogue officials, or domestic partners. Courts have held that “Relocation is generally not unreasonable solely because the country at large is subject to generalized violence.” (See Hussain v. Rosen). Indeed, asylum protection is also not available for fear of generalized violence, but that is another discussion.
In short, if an alien can safely relocate to another region of their home country without facing unreasonable hardship, the alien should be found ineligible for protection through either asylum or CAT under the existing framework. And while each internal relocation determination must be made on a case-by-case basis, meaning a country’s conditions alone should not be determinative of an applicant’s eligibility, faithful application of the internal relocation bar would both limit the number of credible fear applicants who receive positive fear determinations and discourage illegal immigration by making it harder for illegitimate asylum claims to clog the immigration system.
Accomplishing these ends would save the government (and taxpayers) millions in detention, housing, transportation, healthcare, legal, and administrative costs associated with processing credible fear cases at the Southern border. (It should be noted that, despite statutory mandates, DHS is currently not detaining the majority of aliens who are placed into expedited removal proceedings after illegally crossing the border. This topic also warrants its own discussion.) Most importantly, strengthening internal relocation rules will help ensure that government resources are focused on applicants with both the greatest likelihood of receiving protection in the United States and who possess the greatest need for protection.
Accordingly, Congress should amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to ensure internal relocation is applied at the credible fear screening stage and clarify the standards by which internal relocation is applied. As the government explained in its 2020 proposed rule, Procedures for Asylum and Withholding of Removal; Credible Fear and Reasonable Fear Review, “Current regulations regarding internal relocation inadequately assess the relevant considerations in determining whether internal relocation is possible, and if possible, whether it is reasonable to expect the asylum applicant to relocate.” Even without Congress’s help, the government can strengthen the internal relocation framework by clarifying its regulations and providing adjudicators better training and resources on conditions in countries with high numbers of asylum-seekers.
https://cis.org/Jacobs/Can-Asylum-Seekers-Relocate-Safety-Within-Their-Home-Countries
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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14 August, 2022
Migrant-loving lefties live in a Dreamerworld
Who are the “Dreamers” in America? In recent years the term has been used to describe young people who have been brought to America illegally. But — taking a leaf from the Democratic playbook — I would like to suggest a change of use. From now on can we use the term “Dreamers” to describe anyone who believes that this country’s border system can go on as it is?
The sort of people who think that it is sustainable to have millions of illegal immigrants flood into the United States every year. The people who think that having any border at all is basically bigoted.
Such views used to be held only by a “progressive” fringe. But today they are mainstream on the Democratic side. That is how far the Democratic Party has moved.
It isn’t so long ago that they thought differently. In 1996 the party´s platform said, “Today´s Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it.” Just consider the difference between that platform of only a quarter of a century ago and the same party today. Today that statement would be said to be “restrictionist,” bigoted and probably racist.
‘Asylum seekers’
In only a few decades illegal migrants have become “undocumented migrants,” “Dreamers” and much more. The Democratic Party has moved from worrying about illegal immigration toward encouraging it. As they did when they stopped construction of the border wall. Like their left-wing counterparts in Europe, they seem to believe that anyone trying to break into the country is an “asylum seeker” and that countries like the US have a duty to take in anyone in the world who wants to move here.
Just one of the problems of this is that it is unsustainable. A fact that is finally hitting Dem politicians where it hurts. On their own doorstep.
It used to be so easy for leftists in Washington and New York to talk the mantras of the day. “No human is illegal” became one of the fatuous slogans of our day. Say that you wanted a wall on the southern border and you were a “nativist.” Say that you were opposed to it and you got virtue points.
All this did was to encourage the flow of illegal migrants across the southern border. In a poll last year, members of the progressive left said — by a whopping 86% — that they agreed with the phrase “People who have immigrated into the US illegally generally make the communities they live in better.” They said that because for them it was all just theory. Only people in places like Texas had to experience it in reality.
Well now we are all getting that opportunity. And the left’s ideas about open borders are suddenly being tested across the nation.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is completely within his rights to try to distribute migrants around the country. If politicians in Washington are going to grandstand about migration then why should it only be Texans who suffer the consequences?
So the buses have started to arrive. In DC and New York. And even though this is just a taste of what could come, already left-wing officials in both cities are grandstanding and whining. Radical leftists like New York City Council member Shahana Hanif are actually encouraging the move. This week she boasted about standing at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to “welcome asylum seekers.” Note the change of language there. On their bus journey to New York these people turn from illegal immigrants to “asylum seekers.”
Other New York officials are complaining that the whole thing is unfair on them. Since May, New York has received over 4,000 illegal immigrants from Texas. You can see the results at the DHS shelters in the city, where Central and South American families with large numbers of children hopelessly wander in and out. You can see it at the city’s homeless shelters, which are now feeling the strain from all these people from outside the state. And it isn’t as though everything was easy in New York before this.
But what did the left-wing open-borders people think would happen? New York is straining under a few thousand illegal migrants being added to the city. But that is just a few hours of the illegal immigrants coming across the southern border. Where were they meant to go?
https://nypost.com/2022/08/11/migrant-loving-lefties-live-in-a-dreamerworld/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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12 August, 2022
Biden's New Plan Will Dramatically Cut Down on 'Illegals' But Will Destroy the Country
As illegal immigration numbers skyrocket, the Biden administration’s new strategy will only make matters worse. According to multiple experts, the new plan threatens both national security and the American economy.
Instead of prioritizing deportation or border security, President Joe Biden will institute a backdoor policy reclassifying immigrants as asylum-seekers for U.S. entry. In other words, instead of pursuing policies that would reduce the number of undocumented immigrants, Biden has opted to simply reclassify them. Therefore, while the number of “illegals” may go down, that isn’t because fewer are crossing the border — it’s because more of them will now be classified as “asylees.”
This so-called free immigration pass is an online asylum system, on which anyone seeking refuge in the U.S. can sign up for asylum status, Just the News reported in July.
Some immigration law experts argued this plan could further weaken American borders by “flooding the system.” Since those who request asylum are eligible for various welfare benefits in the U.S., this new strategy could also strain American taxpayers in the process.
In separate interviews with The Western Journal, former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Ronald Vitiello and immigration specialist Julie Kirchner discussed the forthcoming policy.
Reclassifying Illegals
Vitiello, whose professional career in immigration law enforcement lasted over 30 years, said the possible asylum system would only add to the nation’s immigration crisis by allowing aliens to more easily claim asylum status. He said many immigrants claimed to be asylees during his time in ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
“Not only are they unqualified, but they don’t follow up on their claims,” Vitiello said. “They use that as a tactic to be released at the border, and they come into the United States.”
An “asylee” refers to anyone who requests asylum while already in the U.S., as opposed to refugees who are outside the country. Both asylees and refugees can apply for asylum.
To qualify, aliens must be coming to the U.S. to escape some form of persecution from a third-world country. The federal asylum law, or 8 U.S. Code 1158, defines persecution as suffering due to “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.” Escaping a country’s poor economic conditions is excluded from the law’s definition of persecution, Vitiello said.
“When I was still in government when we did surveys, people were coming for economic reasons,” he said. “We certainly understand that, as human beings, they’re trying to make their lives better, but they don’t qualify for asylum.”
If immigrants are in fact coming for economic reasons, Biden will give them exactly what they want — free money paid for by American taxpayers.
In 2007, The Heritage Foundation estimated that immigrant families received an average of $30,160 per year in government benefits while only paying $10,573 in taxes. That still left upwards of $20,000 to be paid by higher-income taxpayers. These numbers are likely higher 15 years later when factoring in current U.S. inflation rates.
“The Crush of Humanity”
The new system without ample Border Patrol agents would further contribute to the border crisis, what Vitiello called a “crush of humanity.”
Almost a quarter of a million immigrants encountered law enforcement agents at the southern border per month from March to June 2022, bringing the total number to just over 906,000 encounters in those four months alone. This data was gathered from CBP’s Southwest Land Border Encounters statistics webpage.
With three months left, fiscal year 2022 has seen 1,746,119 border encounters compared to 458,088 in fiscal year 2020. This total includes over 500,000 “gotaway” immigrants, who are spotted entering the U.S. but are never caught by Border Patrol, since the start of October 2021, the Department of Homeland Security told Fox News in July.
Vitiello believes Biden has no intention of stopping nor reducing these record-high numbers and said the online asylum process would effectively “overflow the system” even more than it currently is.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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11 August, 2022
The real cruelty of Biden’s open border policy — it hurts low-income Americans
When it comes to “open borders,” Joe Biden has gone as far as a president can go without actually abolishing them. This June alone, US Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 200,000 people at the southern border, leading Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to bus migrants to Washington, DC, and New York, liberal “sanctuary cities” whose police departments don’t cooperate with federal immigration officials.
Such progressive posturing may soon run out of steam: Faced with a looming humanitarian crisis, the Democratic mayors of both cities, Eric Adams of New York and Muriel Bowser of DC, are now begging the federal government for assistance.
Yet perhaps the most surprising element of all this chaos is the way the media have blamed the right for this crisis. “Cold-Blooded Texas Guv Vows to Dump Asylum Seekers in the Middle of D.C.,” was how The Daily Beast covered the story. “GOP Governors Cause Havoc by Busing Migrants to the East Coast,” explained The New York Times. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre called Abbott’s policy “shameful” and a “political ploy.”
The migrants themselves, however, are under no illusions about who deserves credit for their arrival in the US. “Biden promised us that everything was going to change,” one migrant told reporters back in March. “He promised the Haitian community he will help them,” a Haitian migrant told Fox News. “I just need [the US] to tell me when we can cross,” a Honduran woman told Politico.
Where did millions of migrants get the idea that Biden had invited them in? From Biden himself, naturally. During the 2020 primary debates, then-candidate Biden said that migrants illegally crossing the border should not be detained, and like nearly every other candidate on the debate stage, he said he would decriminalize illegal border crossing. Millions of migrants were listening, along with the human traffickers who extort, torture, rape and kill them.
And Biden has more or less followed through as president. From day one, he stopped construction of a border wall with Mexico, ended former President Donald Trump’s travel ban restricting travel from 14 countries, and dramatically reduced deportations — from more than 267,000 in 2019 to just 59,000 in 2021. The Biden administration also vowed to end Title 42, a Trump-era restriction that allowed migrants to be turned away due to the pandemic, though a federal judge in Louisiana has for now blocked Biden’s attempts to end the policy.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security said this week that it plans to end another effective Trump-era program, Remain in Mexico, which allowed border agents to turn migrants away and have them wait in Mexico until their removal hearings.
What’s most peculiar about all this is how the administration’s de facto open-border policy represents a remarkable U-turn on the left. Until very recently, free-market Republicans were the ones pushing for things like amnesty and easy access to migrant labor, while the Democrats were on the side of limiting immigration.
Back in the ’90s, Barbara Jordan, the first black woman from the South elected to Congress and Democratic chair of the US Commission on Immigration Reform, wrote that the commission found “no national interest in continuing to import lesser skilled and unskilled workers to compete in the most vulnerable parts of our labor force.”
“Open borders? No, that’s a Koch Brothers proposal,” socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders scoffed as recently as 2015. “What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don’t believe in that.” Fast forward to that 2020 primary debate and Sanders, just like Biden, said he would support decriminalizing illegal border crossing.
This reversal is especially surprising given that the Democrats’ base — or what used to be their base — agrees more with Bernie 2015 than Bernie 2020. In 2019, a large majority of black and Hispanic Americans said they would vote for a presidential candidate who stood for strengthening border security to reduce illegal immigration. This shouldn’t be surprising: Illegal immigration has been tied to a 20% to 60% decrease in black working-class wages.
Another recent study suggested that immigration accounts for a third of the decline in the black employment rate over the last 40 years. “Black Americans are more supportive of limiting immigration than any other bloc of the Democratic coalition,” the sociologist Musa al Gharbi reported. “And Hispanics actually tend to be more concerned about illegal immigration than are whites or Blacks.”
Why did the Democrats abandon these voters? Many who support mass immigration do so ostensibly because of the overall effect on GDP, which is positive.
But they tend not to ask, positive for whom? As the economist George Borjas has argued, immigration primarily boosts the incomes of the immigrants themselves, while redistributing wealth from the native poor to the native rich. In other words, among Americans, it is the elites who benefit from open borders, people whose professional-class jobs would never be threatened by someone who doesn’t speak English. For the American working classes, good jobs are sacrificed on the altar of helping those from other countries.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/10/cruelty-of-bidens-open-border-policy-it-hurts-low-income-americans/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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10 August, 2022
More Americans want fewer immigrants in US for first time since 2014, poll reveals
A plurality of Americans believe the level of immigration into the US should be decreased, according to a new Gallup poll — the first time the survey has shown that in eight years.
The poll found that 38% of Americans want less immigration, while 27% said they want more. Another 31% said they want immigration to remain at its current level.
The last time more Americans wanted immigration reduced was in 2014, when 41% held that opinion, 33% said they wanted present levels maintained, and just 22% said they wanted immigration levels increased.
This year’s numbers are almost a mirror image of 2020, when 28% of Americans said they wanted to see immigration levels decreased — matching the low-water mark for that point of view. In the same poll, 36% said they wanted immigration to stay at current levels and 34% said they wanted increased immigration.
The change in attitudes comes as nationwide encounters of migrants have more than quadrupled in the US over the last two years. On the southern border alone, Customs and Border Protection has already reported the highest number of migrant encounters in a fiscal year since 1960 after recording 207,416 stops in June.
President Biden and his administration have been heavily criticized for the historic spike as some Republican leaders – namely Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey – have begun to transport migrants to east coast cities like New York and Washington DC in order to ease the strain on border towns.
The Gallup survey did not refer to “legal” or “illegal” immigration, leaving interpretation up to respondents.
The venerable polling company has been asking Americans their views on immigration since 1965. Support for more restrictions peaked between 1993 and 1995, when 65% of Americans said they wanted the number of new arrivals reduced amid efforts by then-President Bill Clinton to strengthen border control.
The poll found that 38% of Americans want less immigration while just 27% said they want more.
The poll found that 38% of Americans want less immigration while just 27% said they want more.
The poll found that 70% of respondents believe immigration is a "good thing."
The poll found that 70% of respondents believe immigration is a “good thing.”
Support for decreased immigration fell to 38% in 2000 before spiking to 58% in October 2001, a month after the 9/11 terror attacks.
Gallup also found that 69% of Republicans want less immigration to the US, up 12 percentage points from last year. Meanwhile, just 33% and 17% of Independents and Democrats want less immigration – a four-point increase from 2021 among both groups.
Despite the growing desire for fewer immigrants, the vast majority of Americans still believe immigration is a positive for the US.
Gallup found that 70% of respondents call immigration a “good thing,” while just 24% of Americans say it is a “bad thing.”
Broken down by party, Democrats (86%) and Independents (75%) overwhelmingly view immigration as a positive while Republicans are split, with 46% saying immigration is good and 45% saying it is bad.
Gallup’s survey was conducted between July 5 – 26 among 1,013 random adults. The poll carries a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/08/more-americans-want-fewer-immigrants-for-first-time-since-14-poll/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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9 August, 2022
One Alien Jams the Justice System for 22 Years with Eight Federal Court Cases
Looking at DHS press releases, I noticed this one issued on July 26 from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “ERO Los Angeles removes Armenian with multiple prior removals”.
ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations.
As a writer, I would not have cited initials known only to insiders or used some form of the word “remove” five times in the headline and lede sentence, as ICE did in this case, but my curiosity was piqued by the unusual home country (Armenia) and this question: How many times was he jailed for repeated illegal entries? He was reported to have three of them. A second illegal entry can often lead to a jail sentence if the government feels strongly enough about it, and a third one could, and should, lead to more prison time.
The short answer is that I could not find any indication that he had been prosecuted for any of his illegal entries, but I did find that this man, Vigen Patatanyan, now 59, has spent most of the last 22 years living illegally in the U.S. and occupying much governmental attention. His PACER files (plural) are eight in number, as he had two cases in Federal District Court plus two appeals to the Ninth Circuit plus four bankruptcy cases; the total number of documents in those cases, a measure of how much government time he has used, was 238. These are petitions, rulings, reports, and orders, most taking up several pages. I did not look up his record, if any, in state courts, but know that in addition to his years in and out of judicial branch cases, he was busy in the immigration courts as well.
Patatanyan, in short, had ample use of what the lawyers call “due process”. There was no indication in the ICE press release, incidentally, of his four bankruptcy cases. In the one I examined, he had diddled nine different banks, run up debts of about $159,000 he could not pay, and managed to pay them off (with the court’s permission) at the $4,617 level. That works out to about three cents on the dollar.
Perhaps if he had been popped into jail after he being caught the second time as an illegal entrant, he would not have run up all those bills and created so much work for the feds, both in DHS and in the judiciary. It would have cost the taxpayers some initial money, but it might have saved a lot in the long run.
The other thing I learned from the press release is the spelling of, if not the pronunciation of, Armenia’s main airport. It is the Zvartnots International Airport, at Yerevan; that the name of the landing field was included in the press statement but no mention of his eight court cases is interesting in and of itself.
https://cis.org/North/One-Alien-Jams-Justice-System-22-Years-Eight-Federal-Court-Cases
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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8 August, 2022
Two migrants dead, five missing after ‘rustic’ boat capsizes off Florida Keys
At least two people are dead and five remain missing after a boat of apparent Cuban migrants capsized near the Florida Keys, according to the Coast Guard and reports.
The Coast Guard responded to a call around 10 a.m. on Friday of a capsized “rustic” vessel that had 15 people aboard about 14 miles off of Sugarloaf Key, officials said.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation officers pulled two dead migrants from the ocean.
With the help of good Samaritans, eight other migrants were rescued, six of whom were taken to emergency medical services for treatment. Two others were taken on a Coast Guard cutter “in good health.”
Five migrants remain missing.
“Our search continues for others that may have survived this tragic incident,” Rear Adm. Brendan McPherson said in a statement Friday night.
“This situation highlights the risks these migrants face as they attempt to enter the United States illegally by sea. The Florida Straits and its approaches can be hazardous for even the best trained and equipped mariners,” he added.
“For people illegally migrating aboard unseaworthy or overloaded boats and homemade rafts, who lack basic lifesaving equipment like life jackets, those risks can often prove deadly,” McPherson said.
The deaths come amid a major surge of Cuban migrants arriving in the Florida Keys. United States Border Control reported Over 130 migrants had been apprehended along the island chain in the last two days, according to WPLG.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/05/two-migrants-dead-five-missing-after-boat-capsizes-in-florida/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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7 August, 2022
Why Biden Hasn’t Scrapped Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy
The Biden administration has yet to scrap a key Trump-era border policy; the Supreme Court said it could do so and the reason could be because of the president’s political future, experts told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
After months of attempts to stop the continuation of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which is used to expel certain migrants to Mexico as they await immigration proceedings, the Supreme Court granted the Biden administration the authority to do so in a June decision.
The Biden administration has yet to end the program and the White House and the Department of Homeland Security are silent on next steps as they didn’t respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
One reason President Joe Biden hasn’t delivered on his word is because his political future could be at risk by the potential for more chaos at the border, Allen Orr, American Immigration Lawyers Association immediate past president, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“I think the Biden administration is being overly cautious with regards to ending the program as they don’t want to have anything to happen at the southern border that would seem that things were out of control. Politically, that would not be a great thing with the midterms coming up and his approval ratings being so low,” Orr said.
“I also think that he has been working with private and public partnerships to sort of address the immigration issue as we’ve seen an agreement reached with Mexico just a few weeks ago, where they were going to put millions of dollars into helping ensure an orderly border between the United States and Mexico,” he added.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, whose district is along the southern border, agreed that the lack of change is political, he told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“I think they, especially the career people, not the political people, know that there are some things that will slow people down and [the Migrant Protection Protocols] is one of them. They probably don’t want to say that publicly,” Cuellar said.
“They unfortunately have to follow the instructions that come from the top, and I would say even [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas understands this and understands that we got to slow down the number of people, but you know, everybody gets instructions from higher up places at the White House. So, I think they probably are trying to slow this as much as possible,” he added.
The policy, however, hasn’t returned significant numbers of migrants to Mexico, making the Biden administration’s implementation of the policy “all for show,” Federation for American Immigration Reform press secretary Ron Kovach told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“MPP is already dead—the court-ordered relaunch was all for show. Only a few thousand migrants have been enrolled in the program, with most being either released into the country or expelled under Title 42. Border numbers are still through the roof,” Kovach said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection expelled 2,097 illegal aliens in June, 2,129 in May, and 1,725 in April. During the aforementioned months, migrant encounters at the southern border exceeded 200,000, respectively, according to CBP statistics.
“Nothing will change one way or another once the MPP facade officially ends,” Kovach said.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/03/why-biden-hasnt-scrapped-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy/
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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5 August, 2022
Excusing Illegal Immigration Comes Back to Bite Mayors of DC, NYC
As busloads of illegal immigrants sent by border states Texas and Arizona make their way to the nation’s capital, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is feeling overrun.
Bowser on July 28 formally requested deployment of the National Guard to deal with the influx of illegal migrants as she claimed her city, the nation’s capital, was at a “tipping point.”
“This is a very significant issue,” Bowser acknowledged in mid-July in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “Our collective response and service efforts have now become overwhelmed.”
The call for help comes after Bowser and other Democratic politicians initially downplayed the massive wave of illegal immigrants flooding across the nation’s southern border and had done everything in their power to exacerbate the crisis.
President Joe Biden has made opening the southern border a priority by proposing to rescind his predecessor’s “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum-seekers and to revoke Title 42, a rule that allows the government to quickly deport illegal immigrants over public health concerns.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas implausibly claimed July 19 that the border was “secure.”
Now that the problem of illegal immigration is in Bowser’s backyard and that of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, they’re seeing what it’s really like.
Bowser is experiencing a minuscule fraction of the problem that Texas is suffering through daily with illegal immigration, but she’s still complaining.
CNN reported that a little more than 5,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in the District of Columbia to date. As of the end of June, the Border Patrol had logged more than 2 million encounters at the southern border since the beginning of the fiscal year last Oct. 1.
Bowser isn’t the only Democratic politician moaning about being inundated with a flood of migrants.
Adams, whose city sought to allow illegal immigrants to vote in municipal elections, before the measure was struck down, also begged the federal government for aid.
“If we do not get these urgently needed resources, we may struggle to provide the proper level of support our clients deserve, while also facing challenges as we serve both a rapidly growing shelter population and new clients who are seeking asylum,” Adams said July 19.
For his part, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, invited Bowser and Adams down to the southern border to get a sense of how dire the situation really is. Adams refused and claimed Abbott was just looking for a photo-op.
If the District of Columbia and New York City are so overwhelmed by such a tiny fraction of all the illegal immigrants now in this country, how can Democrats say with a straight face that things are fine at the southern border?
From humanitarian concerns surrounding migrant deaths and human trafficking to exploding drug smuggling, the border is definitely not “secure.”
The United Nations says the U.S.-Mexico border is the “deadliest land crossing in the world” and that 728 migrants died last year attempting to make the journey across. Meanwhile, drugs flow across the border like a river, and hundreds of pounds of fentanyl are seized each month.
In the face of this obvious crisis, what should be done?
Despite how hypocritical they are for begging the federal government to step in and help, Bowser and Adams correctly say that the influx of illegal aliens requires federal intervention. We currently are experiencing unprecedented levels of illegal immigration that require a concerted effort at the national level.
The Biden administration can pull back from the foolish policies it has put in place and take things at the border more seriously. By pledging to keep both Title 42 and Remain in Mexico in place, Biden would signal that he is serious about combating illegal immigration.
Additionally, Democrats could stop making overtures to migrants and promising them citizenship or benefits for crossing illegally. Why would anyone go through the difficult process to become a citizen legally when he could get citizenship though mass amnesty programs such as the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or have all the benefits of citizenship even without becoming one?
Those are commonsense strategies that the Biden administration could implement right now, but regrettably, it likely won’t do so.
Democratic Party leaders should be held accountable when they act like hypocrites. If the National Guard is good enough for the D.C. mayor now, why wasn’t it when she turned down the Trump administration’s offer to send in Guard troops ahead of what became the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021?
If the District of Columbia and New York need help dealing with illegal immigration, border states surely deserve federal help as well. Texas and Arizona shouldn’t be expected to face the consequences alone for the Biden administration’s policy failures.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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4 August, 2022
Amid Record Illegal Immigration, the hairless horror Insists Border Is ‘Secure.’ What Would Unsecured Look Like?
Typical Leftist flight from reality
Millions of people have illegally crossed the southern border into the United States in the past few years, but the Biden administration says everything is fine, with “nothing to see here.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas even said last week that the southern border is “secure.”
With scant evidence or justification, he’s been repeating that “secure” line since assuming his post in February 2021.
“Look, the border is secure,” he said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on July 19. “We are working to make the border more secure. That has been a historic challenge.”
That’s quite a remarkable statement from the homeland security secretary. Almost none of it is true, except for the “historic” part.
Of course, Mayorkas followed up his assurance that all is well with a predictable call for “comprehensive immigration reform” that Democrats have been selling for generations.
“I have said to a number of legislators who expressed to me that we need to address the challenge at the border before they pass legislation, and I take issue with the math of holding the solution hostage until the problem is resolved,” Mayorkas said.
“There is work to be done,” he said, before adding that “safe and secure are two different words.”
Since President Joe Biden took office just over 18 months ago, there has been a historic surge of illegal immigration across the southern border. It’s been decades since we’ve seen anything like it.
In fiscal 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 1.7 million border encounters. It was the highest number ever recorded, but fiscal year 2022’s numbers are already higher. More than 2 million people have been encountered at the border through June. And the fiscal year doesn’t end until Sept. 30.
On top of those detained are the hundreds of thousands of “got-aways” who have evaded Border Patrol, according to a Fox News report. Senior Department of Homeland Security sources reportedly told Fox News that there have been nearly a million of these got-aways since the beginning of fiscal year 2021.
“There have been approximately 900,000 known got-aways since the beginning of [fiscal year 2021], per the sources, which is equivalent to a population bigger than the city of San Francisco sneaking across the border without apprehension,” Fox News reported on Monday.
Not only are there millions of people coming across the border and breaking U.S. law in the process, but many of those crossing are drug smugglers, human traffickers, and even potential terrorists.
Does that sound like the border is secure? Hardly. In fact, some Border Patrol agents took issue with Mayorkas’ assessment that all is well at the border.
“Hundreds of thousands crossing every month is not the definition of ‘secure,’” a Border Patrol agent told Fox News Digital. “They are liars, and anyone who believes them are fools.”
Another agent, according to the Fox report, said that the administration is using “bogus” claims to help border-crossers dodge U.S. immigration laws.
“They’re using issues like poverty, crime, and climate change as reasons for [seeking] asylum, but those do not meet the legal standard of the law,” the agents said.
Another agent quoted in the report said that Biden and members of his administration haven’t upheld their oath of office.
“Mayorkas, [Border Patrol Chief Raul] Ortiz, and Biden are failures that do not have the support of agents and many command staff. They all have violated their oath of office to defend the laws and Constitution, and should be removed,” the source said, according to Fox News.
It’s hard to blame Border Patrol agents for being outspoken. The now badly understaffed agency—thanks in large part to Biden’s policies—is now dealing with a generational crisis. It doesn’t help that the administration has maligned, and seeks to punish, Border Patrol agents for doing their job and simply trying to contain the administration’s self-caused mess.
It gets worse.
Though the Border Patrol is detaining an incredible number of would-be illegal immigrants at the border, the administration isn’t prosecuting most of them.
A recent report by The Washington Free Beacon uncovered that the Biden administration “dramatically reduced migrant prosecutions by nearly 80 percent in the 2021 fiscal year.”
That was a huge shift from the final year of the Donald Trump administration, as the Free Beacon noted:
Just 2,896 migrants apprehended on the southwest border were transferred into U.S. Marshals Service custody in the 2021 fiscal year, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. In the 2020 fiscal year, 13,213 migrants were transferred to federal authorities for prosecution.
The Free Beacon explained that this drop-off wasn’t just because of the Title 42 health policy that led to expedited deportations during a pandemic.
“Trump instituted Title 42 in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and still prosecuted far more migrants than in Biden’s first year of his presidency,” The Washington Free Beacon reported. “Moreover, illegal border crossings in 2020 were much lower than in 2021, which saw the most migrant apprehensions in U.S. history.”
Of course, the Biden administration has been trying to discontinue Title 42, a policy change that would only make things worse. A federal judge blocked the policy change, but it appears the administration is still doing its best to make a farce of border enforcement in this country.
On border enforcement, the administration is essentially a rogue prosecutor. Law enforcement brings people in, the administration lets them go, and more people arrive. When you fail to prosecute crime, you get more crime and more criminals. Likewise, when you fail to maintain the law at the border, you get more people willing to break the law and cross the border.
So, the historic numbers we are now seeing are no mystery. The only question now is whether the administration is just incompetent or doing this on purpose—or is it both?
One way or another, it’s hard to see the Biden administration’s approach to border security as anything other than a national disaster. If this really is what the administration sees as borders that are “secure,” one shudders at the thought of what an “unsecure” border—by its definition—would look like.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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3 August, 2022
Australia: Tourism and hospitality sectors plea for international workers to cover shortage
Queensland industries crippled by a worker shortage have pleaded with the federal government to throw open the border for international workers to provide much-needed employment relief.
The state’s tourism and hospitality sectors were among the hardest hit, with tens of thousands of workers needed to support various industries and many forced to trim operations due to the staffing shortfall.
Industry leaders say they have met with Anthony Albanese’s Home Affairs ministers to ask for an increase to the number of skilled and seasonal workers permitted to enter the country.
But a spokesman for Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said the government is unlikely to pull the trigger until it holds its Jobs and Skills Summit in early September.
The summit aims to “help to shape the future of Australia’s labour market”, according to the federal government, but the Queensland tourism peak body fears the widespread staff shortfall is a crisis in need of urgent relief.
“The challenge that we have is the problem is here, right now,” Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Brett Fraser said. “It’s a problem that we need to address right now.”
The tourism and hospitality sector alone reported more than 5300 vacancies in June, with the industry stripped of its access to holiday visa workers throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, while the number of job advertisements was more than 35 per cent higher compared with June 2021.
“There’s segments of the employment market that just right now aren’t in Australia,” Mr Fraser said. “Getting those visitors back in the country is a really critical part to it.”
Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn says “resolving the people shortage” in the construction industry is the main concern at the moment. “That is really where the crunch is,” she told Sky News Australia. “We desperately need more…
Queensland Hotels Association chief executive Bernie Hogan said jobs that once attracted hundreds of applications are now laying dormant, with the recruiting of chefs “virtually impossible”.
“If you lose a chef, it’s very, very difficult to find a replacement, which means most of them end up closing parts of their business for several days a week,” he said.
Increasing international migration should be “one of the first levers” to help the struggling workforce, according to Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland (CCIQ).
Policy and Advocacy manager Cherie Josephson said the Home Affairs department allowing residents from specific countries into Australia to work in industries could be a solution rather than increasing the overall cap for either skilled or seasonal workers.
“But I think when you’ve got worker shortages across a good number of industries, it would make sense to be developing a plan to attract more skilled and seasonal workers into Queensland to address the shortages across multiple industries,” she said.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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2 August, 2022
A shortfall in immigration has become an economic problem for America
Almost every day for four months buses carrying asylum-seeking migrants have disembarked near the heart of American power, just half a mile from Capitol Hill. So far more than 6,000 people have arrived on these buses, sent by the governors of Arizona and Texas in a none-too-subtle jab at what they see as President Joe Biden’s weakness on immigration. It is the latest chapter in a decades-long fight over how to control entries from Mexico.
This border crisis has come to dominate media coverage and political debate about immigration in America. All the while, another crisis of the opposite sort is brewing: a broader decline in immigration. The resulting shortfall in the population is already making it harder for companies to find workers and threatens to do more damage to the economy. But whereas unauthorised border crossings are a perennial controversy, the drop in overall immigration has barely registered in Congress.
Net international migration—that is, accounting for both arrivals, whether authorised or not, and departures—added 247,000 to America’s population between July 2020 and July 2021. That was the smallest increase in the past three decades, and less than a third of the annual average during that time. The covid pandemic explained much of the drop, as America barred international visitors from dozens of countries, closed consulates around the world and froze many applications.
But the decline began before covid. Net immigration has trended down since 2017, Donald Trump’s first year in office. High-profile restrictions on travel from several predominately Muslim countries set the tone for his administration. Most important, it put sand in the gears of the immigration process by, for instance, adding interviews and raising fees. Emigration has been another factor. The number of Mexicans living in America peaked 15 years ago. Many older migrants have returned home. Indeed, for all the furore about the southern border, the estimated population of unauthorised immigrants in the United States has declined during that same period, from 12.2m in 2007 to perhaps 10m in 2020.
The shortfall is visible in the labour market. Giovanni Peri and Reem Zaiour of the University of California, Davis, estimate that by February America was missing roughly 1.8m working-age foreign migrants relative to its post-2010 trend (see chart). Industries with higher shares of migrant workers tend to have higher vacancy rates now. Strikingly, that is true across the skills spectrum.
Employers in the restaurant and accommodation sector, which draws a quarter of its employees from the foreign-born population, could not fill about 15% of job openings last year. In professional and business services, where the foreign-born make up a fifth of workers, doing everything from architectural sketches to tax preparation, roughly 10% of jobs went unfilled last year. That, in turn, may be contributing to higher wages, with pay rising especially quickly for low-income earners.
The fact that a decline in immigration could have such an impact is, on the one hand, unsurprising. New immigrants accounted for nearly 70% of the growth in the American labour force in the 2010s. Over the next two decades, immigrants are likely to be the only source of growth. The Pew Research Centre calculates that without new arrivals America’s labour force would decline to 163m in 2040 from 166m in 2020. If net immigration were to return to pre-pandemic levels, the labour force would instead grow to 178m by 2040.
On the other hand, the relentless focus on America’s southern border seems to have obscured the bigger picture. Even the Federal Reserve failed to note the remarkable drop in immigration as a cause of labour-market tightness in either of its monetary-policy reports to Congress last year. In February this year it acknowledged at last that reduced immigration had probably constrained the labour supply.
Businesses are noticing the gaps. In an analysis published on July 15th, the us Chamber of Commerce outlined how widespread the problems are. Just one out of every three individuals seeking standard employment visas or seasonal work visas was successful last year, while one in four applicants for highly skilled work visas will make the cut this year. Each of these visa categories is subject to quotas created in 1990. They “have not been sufficiently updated to serve our national interest,” says Jon Baselice of the us Chamber.
Some delays are absurd. David Bier of the Cato Institute, a think-tank, estimates that Indians with degrees face a notional 90-year wait for green cards. From farm groups to theme-park associations, lobbyists have been asking the government to make it easier for American firms to hire from abroad. Silicon Valley’s tech giants have long clamoured for the same, arguing that they need foreign tech talent to stay at the global leading edge.
There is, however, little prospect of real change. The last concerted attempt at comprehensive immigration reform fizzled out in 2013, blocked by Republicans. The idea then, still seen by many advocates as the holy grail, was to combine greater openings for foreigners to work in America with some legalisation of unauthorised migrants plus tighter border security. As it turns out, the only real movement has been on bolstering border controls, symbolised by Mr Trump’s extension of the wall between America and Mexico. Lack of progress in expanding legal channels has pushed yet more migrants to view unchecked border crossings and asylum claims as their best route into America.
Some immigration experts, noting the failure of comprehensive reform, think piecemeal efforts may offer hope. But the legislative maths is daunting, requiring votes from ten Republican senators for anything to pass. Even within the Democratic Party, some officials are wary of looking soft on border security. “We are in a very defensive position,” says a congressional aide close to immigration discussions. “It’s important to continue to remind everybody about the extreme economic impact that inaction is having,” says Bob Menendez, a Democratic senator.
There is no shortage of sensible ideas. Connecting migrants with employers before they reach America’s southern border would reduce pressure on crossings and help businesses. Marianne Wanamaker, who served as an economic adviser in Mr Trump’s White House, argues that getting rid of visa caps for specific occupations would also alleviate worker shortages. “We have tools available to us to resolve labour issues that we don’t appear willing to use,” she says. “That is the result of years and years of making immigration a third rail of American politics.” The conclusion is a dismal one: the headaches of the past year from worker shortages, far from being temporary, will be a recurrent problem in an ageing America that has forgotten how immigrants made the country what it is
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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1 August, 2022
Rising Number of Deportation Cases Automatically Dismissed Over Failure to Provide Key Documents: Report
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are having their cases dismissed before stepping inside an immigration courtroom because Department of Homeland Security officials are failing to file the requisite paperwork, a new report has found.
One out of every six new cases (16.6 percent) is being dismissed due to the failure, according to the immigration court docket tracker Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.
For the six-year period from fiscal year 2013 through fiscal 2018, fewer than 1 percent of the cases, or 1,221, were dismissed due to DHS failure to submit the necessary “notice to appear” paperwork.
The number of dismissals due to the same failure has increased dramatically every year since, with 47,330 cases so far in fiscal 2022, which has three months remaining, according to the newly released data.
TRAC obtained the information through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests.
A notice to appear is typically given to an illegal border crosser while the person is still in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody. The notice includes the date of the illegal immigrant’s first court hearing.
After handing over that notice, CBP is required to make sure the court receives an electronic copy of the document, according to TRAC. If CBP fails to submit the paperwork, the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear the case, and must dismiss it.
The failure to properly manage the process “suggests there is a serious disconnect between the CBP agents entering new cases and scheduling hearings through the Court’s ISS [Interactive Scheduling System] system, and other CBP personnel responsible for submitting a copy to the Court,” the report states.
CBP and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not respond to requests for comment.
Effects
The dismissals mean asylum seekers “now have no path to a work authorization card, possibly no path to asylum (unless they have an attorney who will file affirmatively), plus it’s just creating a mess for everyone,” Austin Kocher, a researcher at TRAC, wrote on Twitter.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, said immigrants whose cases are dismissed are “effectively stuck in limbo, unclear how to proceed.”
While TRAC was unable to find where exactly the failure was occurring within CBP, it discovered that several immigration courts are responsible for the bulk of the dismissals.
The immigration court in Miami, Florida, topped the list for dismissals at 81 percent of all new dedicated docket cases, or a total of 7,700 people. The city was also fourth on the list with a 43-percent dismissal rate for its regular hearing docket. Boston and Houston came in second and third, respectively.
Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, told The Epoch Times in an email that immigration proceedings are handled on the federal level and called the issue was “another failure of the Biden administration to defend the sovereignty of our nation.”
Biden Administration Changes
The Biden administration created the dedicated docket program in May 2021 and set a goal of issuing decisions in these cases within 300 days from their initial hearing, according to an earlier TRAC report on dedicated dockets. The average wait time for asylum cases is nearly 4.5 years.
Immigration judges ruled 92 percent of asylum claims on the dedicated docket as meritless and ordered the defendants removed from the United States, according to December 2021 data.
In 2021, as illegal border crossings reached record levels, Border Patrol agents began to issue “notice to report” to illegal aliens, instead of the official notice to appear form.
The notice to report was essentially a request that the illegal alien report within 60 days to a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office once they got to their destination in the United States.
Nearly 95,000 notices to report were issued from January through October in 2021, according to DHS. By January 2022, more than 47,000 were yet to report to ICE, according to official data received by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
Matt O’Brien, an immigration judge dismissed by the Biden administration, said during his final two months on the bench that ICE dropped 99 percent of its deportation cases that were pending on his docket.
“The vast majority of the matters dismissed were legitimate cases that ICE spent taxpayer dollars investigating, filing, and prosecuting. There was absolutely no legitimate reason to withdraw the charges against any of these immigration law-breakers,” O’Brien, now the director of investigations for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, told The Epoch Times via email.
O’Brien suggested the dumping of cases is related to what he described as “the Biden administration’s radical commitment to destroying America’s borders and its immigration enforcement mechanisms” as well as a cosmetic reduction in the immigration courts’ overloaded system.
“This kind of complete lawlessness shows a disregard for the safety of the American public that simply cannot be overstated,” he said.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: You usually CAN buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
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