Breitbart News -- John Binder
“It’s almost like Tillis just ignored Trump’s victory,” Chris Chmielenski with NumbersUSA told Breitbart Texas.
Both Krikorian and Chmielenski said establishment Republicans and Democrats will use amnesty and portray it as a necessary measure after Trump’s border wall is finished being constructed along the US-Mexico Border.
LifeZette -- Brendan Kirby
Chris Chmielenski, director of content and activism at NumbersUSA, said Trump’s orders are appropriately comprehensive.
"The big thing is emphasis on both interior enforcement and interior enforcement," he said. "This something that was pretty much ignored by the Obama administration, and even the Bush administration."
The new Trump Administration has yet to take action on one of former Pres. Obama's most famous immigration actions, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), according to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Ending the program was a campaign promise of Pres. Trump's, and his campaign website pledged to end the executive amnesty "immediately".
In praising President Obama's decision to end "wet foot, dry foot," the New York Times described the decades-old policy toward Cuban migrants as "misguided" for encouraging "Cubans to embark on perilous, and often deadly, journeys on rafts across the Florida straits and across borders in South and Central America."
This week Rep. Brian Babin re-introduced his Criminal Alien Deportation Enforcement Act (H.R. 82), which would cut foreign aid and travel visas to countries who refuse to accept their illegal criminal aliens back into their country after they have been ordered deported from the U.S. Rep. Babin first introduced this bill 2016 and the bill received 52 cosponsors.
Last Friday Rep. James Sensenbrenner was named as the new Chairman of the House Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee for the 115th Congress. Rep. Sensenbrenner has been a long time advocate for border security and tougher enforcement against illegal aliens.
A new Center for Immigration Studies report shows that according to the Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) FY16 report the number of ICE deportations hit 10-year record lows. According to the OIS report ICE only removed 65,332 illegal aliens from the interior in FY16, a 6% decrease from FY15, making it the lowest number since 2006.
Appearing in a confirmation hearing yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary nominee Gen. John Kelly called for a multifaceted approach to securing the border and criticized the Obama Administration for giving “a pass” to most illegal aliens. He said that the law would "guide” his decisions if confirmed, and that he would “rapidly” process illegal aliens for return to the countries.
Former Congressman Tom Tancredo wrote an op-ed for Breitbart calling on the incoming Trump administration to make E-verify mandatory for employers their top immigration priority. E-Verify is free to employers and has an error rate of less than 1%. NumbersUSA has made mandating E-verify the first step in fixing our broken immigration enforcement system.
Mercury News reports the State of California has issued driver’s licenses to about 806,000 illegal aliens in the two years since a state law took effect. The licenses facilitate their ability to remain in the United States and compete with citizens and legal residents for jobs.
Many Washington champions for MORE immigration enforcement are abuzz and aghast at reports indicating that Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) is considered to be high on the Trump Team's list to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Yesterday Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) tweeted from his official twitter account that he will sign a new law that would ban sanctuary cities in the state of Texas. He also said he has already issued an order to cut funding to sanctuary cities.
An exit poll conducted by Zogby Analytics on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) showed that the majority of Hispanic voters are in favor of strengthening immigration enforcement.
According to those close to the transition team, President-elect Donald Trump has selected Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to be the new Attorney General of the United States. Sen. Sessions has a long history of fighting for the American worker and was the loudest opponent of the Gang of Eight bill.
During his first primetime interview since the election, President-elect Donald Trump told Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes that he plans to deport 2-3 million illegal aliens -- coincidently, that's the same number of aliens deported by the Obama Administration. So who are the 2-3 million that Trump says he'll deport?
The American people have elected someone who has made repeated promises to revolutionize immigration policies so they first serve the interests of American workers and the quality-of-life desires of regular American citizens of all ethnicities.
Harford County, Maryland Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler signed a 287(g) federal/local partnership agreement that will allow his deputies to screen for illegal aliens in the county’s jail who have committed crimes that threaten public safety or who otherwise threaten national security. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau had largely shelved the 287(g) Program in an effort to shield illegal aliens from deportation but the gambit also undermined the agency's policy of prioritizing criminal-alien deportations. The Harford County agreement is part of policy reversal meant to shore up the deportation of criminal aliens and save face.
During an interview on The Laura Ingraham Show, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Chris Cabrera said that the Obama administration is trying circumvent federal immigration laws and prevent agents from securing the border. "They don’t seem to take it seriously. They seem to look at immigration violations like a traffic ticket, that it’s not really a big deal to them. And it is a big deal, especially for the fact that there are a lot of people coming across with criminal history in the United States,” Cabrera said.
A new alert by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced this month that the Obama administration would grant work permits to illegal aliens who were affected by the hurricane and would assist those who missed their deportation hearings. Hurricane Matthew devastated the eastern coastline from Florida to Virginia, which would mean that any illegal aliens who were in this region could take advantage of these “immigration relief” measures.
A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analyzes statistics from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to show how asylum petitions have increased since 2004. According to the report, credible fear asylum cases began to dramatically increase after the Obama administration’s catch-and-release policy was enacted in 2009.
According to the latest DHS report, released on Monday, the number of illegal aliens caught at the southern border increased around 23% from FY15. 408,870 illegal aliens were apprehended trying to cross the border in FY16 compared to the 331,333 illegal aliens apprehended in FY15.
A federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois voided thousands of ICE detainers requesting that deportable aliens and others be held in custody for 48 hours after their normal release to accommodate Agent pickup. The ruling increases the likelihood that aliens in at least six states will be released to the streets and disappear before they can be captured and placed in federal detention facilities.
The Obama administration has started delaying deportation proceedings for more than 56,000 illegal aliens who crossed in the 2014 border surge. The administration says that a lapse in enforcement allowed many of the illegal aliens to go free instead of being enrolled in an electronic monitoring program, saving the government from paying the daily $4-$8 fee for the GPS devices, so they have pushed back their deportation cases.
New Orleans altered its sanctuary city policy last week in response to increasing crime rates and to further comply with federal law. Under the new policy police can honor ICE detainer requests but are still prohibited from asking or checking a person’s immigration status.
Reps. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) have sent letters to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to investigate and revoke the over 1,800 illegal aliens who were mistakenly given U.S. citizenship due to the lack of information sharing and system failures in DHS. These actions are in response to the inspector general report that showed that over 800 illegal aliens who had orders of deportation were granted citizenship because their fingerprints had not been uploaded to the digital database.
DHS’ inspector general released an audit on Monday that showed that around 858 illegal aliens who had pending deportation orders were mistakenly granted citizenship. These illegal aliens, many of whom are from countries that pose national security concerns, were able to commit fraud since DHS did not have their fingerprints on file to check their identity.
According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) the Massachusetts’ immigration court had the lowest deportation rate of any U.S. state last year while ranking as one of the top states in granting asylum to illegal aliens.
The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) has endorsed NumberUSA’s "10 Steps to Fix Our Broken Immigration System".
According to a new report by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a Syracuse University-based nonprofit, immigration judges are denying DHS’ attempts to deport illegal aliens in 57% of their cases. So far in FY16 immigration judges have released 96,233 illegal aliens, including criminals, back into U.S. communities.
Having just returned from a week-long vacation in The Bahamas with my family, I’d like to report back on some unexpected immigration-related findings. It seems that The Bahamas – a true paradise filled with gorgeous vistas and wonderful people – is subject to the same kind of illegal and legal immigration problems that plague the United States. We spoke to many native Bahamians and, when the conversation turned to employment, virtually all complained about foreign nationals, especially guest workers, taking jobs.
The Obama Administration finalized a new rule that expands upon a 2013 rule that waives the 3-year/10-year re-entry bars imposed on illegal aliens once they become eligible for a green card. The policy could encourage the 4.5 million people on the family-based green cards backlog to move to the U.S. illegally while they wait for their green cards to become available.
Pres. Obama’s decision to reestablish diplomatic ties with Cuba has led to a surge of Cuban migrants that has already exceeded FY15 numbers. The Customs and Border Patrol agency reported that 44,353 Cuban migrants have entered the U.S. in FY26 already compared to the 40,115 that entered last year.
The Department of Justice’s Inspector General has released a memorandum that finds that the practices of sanctuary jurisdictions violate federal law. This report was only made public after the Senate voted down Sen. Toomey’s bill that would have ended sanctuary practices.
A recent Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) report shows that federal immigration courts’ backlog of cases awaiting resolution has reached an all time high of 496,704. A third of those cases involve border surge minors (69,278) and family units (74,502) which have increased as a result of the Obama administration’s catch-and-release policies.
A recent ICE enforcement report, released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, shows that with 75% of FY16 over ICE is on track to complete only 230,000 deportations, the lowest number since 2006. The report showed a decline in all ICE enforcement activity meaning fewer aliens have been put on the deportation track in 2016.
Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.) introduced the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2016, that would attempt to close the loopholes that allow employers to use the visas to replace American workers. The bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.).
The immigration section of 2016 Republican Platform calls for a system that serves the national interest of the United States, focuses on protecting the American worker, opposes amnesty for illegal aliens, and promotes E-Verify, interior enforcement, and border security. The Party's platform, approved on Monday, states that immigration "must protect American working families and their wages, for citizens and legal immigrants alike, in a way that will improve the economy."
The State Department puts foreign relations ahead of the safety of American citizens with respect to immigration laws, according to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) who chairs the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform. The committee listened to testimony from State Department officials on Wednesday on the agency's use of a rarely used provision that's been around since 1952, allowing it to deny visas to countries that refuse to repatriate criminal aliens with deportation orders.
Recent events have brought a renewed focus on criminal justice reform in Congress, and yesterday, the four Senators leading the effort in that chamber called for the consideration of their legislation S. 2123 to reform the federal sentencing guidelines. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Corey Booker (D-N.J.) gave consecutive speeches on the Senate floor, pushing for passage of the bill, but not one of them talked about the benefit the bill would have, if passed, for thousands of criminal aliens.
There's been a lot of public outcry in the year since the tragic shooting death of San Francisco woman Kate Steinle at the hands of a seven-times convicted and five-times deported illegal alien who was set free because of the city's sanctuary policies. But Congress has done little to force jurisdictions to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement even when it has detained a violent criminal alien.
Under urging from Rep. John Culberson's (R-Texas), the Department of Justice announced today that it will block certain federal grants for cities that interfere with federal immigration agents. The DOJ directive requires state and local law enforcement agencies to take an oath that their policies do not interfere “in any way” with requests for immigration information from federal authorities.
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that illegal alien parents crossing the border with children are not protected under the 1997 Flores-agreement and can be held in detention until they have an immigration hearing. Children crossing with their parents, however, must be processed quickly and released to a relative or sponsor.
In a growing number of cases where countries won't repatriate criminal aliens who have received deportation orders in the United States, the State Department has refused to use its power under federal law to block visas or financial aid to those countries according to The Washington Times. This results in thousands of violent criminals being released back into American communities, including Jean Jacques who was convicted of murdering Casey Chadwick in Connecticut earlier this year after his native country of Haiti wouldn't take him back.
According to the Department of Homeland Security figures by May 2016 more illegal alien family units have been apprehended at the border than in all of FY 2015. 44,524 illegal family units have been apprehended crossing the border so far this fiscal year compared to the 39,838 that were apprehended last year.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) has introduced legislation that would limit funds for jurisdictions with sanctuary city polices who refuse to work with immigration officials. The legislation was fast-tracked to the Senate’s calendar, which means it will skip the usual committee process. This makes is likely that the Senate will vote on the bill, though a date has not been set yet.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, Gil Kerlikowske, has named FBI assistant director, Mark Morgan, as the new chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, though he has no prior experience with the agency. This is the first time in the Border Patrol’s 92-year-old history that the chief has been chosen from outside the agency.
At the request of Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) DHS’ Office of Inspector General released a report showing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials “could have and should have done more to remove Jean Jacques from this country before he had the chance to brutally murder Casey Chadwick."
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., announced a House Republican national security strategy that highlights border security, overhauling the nation’s immigration system, interior immigration enforcement, and improved screening of admissions. Among other things the plan calls for developing the means to track illegal aliens within the U.S., detaining and removing criminal aliens and restoring overall immigration enforcement. The plan also slams President Obama for “utterly false claims that security is improving.”
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker issued a new policy that allows state police to detain certain removable aliens at the request of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau. The move reverses a sanctuary policy imposed by former Gov. Deval Patrick that barred State Police from honoring ICE detention requests and limited communication between agencies.
At least a dozen men from terrorist hotspots in the Middle East have been apprehended after using smuggling rings to illegally enter the U.S. through the southern border. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) obtained documents that confirmed the fears that terrorists are using the southern border and lenient immigration enforcement polices to infiltrate the U.S., contrary to what the Obama administration has claimed.
