ACCORDING TO CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL KAMALA HARRIS, NEARLY HALF THE MURDERS IN LA RAZA-OCCUPIED CA ARE BY MEX GANGS!
REALLY WANT AMNESTY AND OPEN BORDERS?
Virginia Police Make Arrests in Gruesome MS-13 Gang Murders
by Warner Todd Huston17 Jan 2016Alexandria, VA63
17 Jan, 2016
17 Jan, 2016
Police have announced that they have solved two murders in Virginia linked to the violent gang MS-13, which is primarily made up of Central American illegal immigrants.
At a press conference earlier this week, Alexandria Police Chief Earl Cook reported that arrests have now been made in the case of two murders carried out by members of the California-based Hispanic gang.
Late last year the bodies of the two victims, Jose Luis Ferman Perez, 24, and Eduardo David Chandias Almendarez, 22, were discovered in separate cases. Police determined that neither victim was a member of the Salvadoran-dominated gang but both were killed by gang members.
Perez’s body was discovered in November. Now police have announced that a 17-year-old MS-13 gang member has been arrested and charged with the murder. A 16-year-old girl and another adult male will also soon be charged for Perez’s death, authorities say.
As to Almendarez’s murder, Chief Cook said that 18-year-old Edwin Alexander Guerreo Umana, also an MS-13 gang banger, was arrested and charged with that murder.
The chief reported that MS-13 activity has been increasing in the area.
“All of this gang activity in this region, and many of you have reported on it recently in the last couple years, the intensity of the violence has risen a great deal in the last couple years. We unfortunately had two of the victims here in Alexandria die because of that violence,” the Chief said.
Alexandria is certainly not alone in seeing a rise in MS-13 activity.
During the same week that police in Alexandria were announcing their arrests, plea deals were being announced in North Carolina as prosecutors go after a large number of MS-13 gang members.
Police in Washington D.C. were also announcing an uptick in the gang’s activity in the nation’s capital and say that the gang is responsible for a rise in homicides in the city.
Additionally, officials in Maryland were also saying that there has been a resurgence of MS-13 activity in the Old Line State.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
Supremes to Hear Amnesty Case
By Mark Krikorian
The Corner at National Review Online, January 19, 2016
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/430004/supremes-court-amnesty-lawsuit?target=author&tid=982
The Supreme Court has announced that it will hear the 26-state challenge to Obama’s DAPA amnesty for illegal aliens who have U.S.-citizen or permanent-resident children. Arguments are expected in April, with a ruling likely in June, in the middle of the presidential campaign.
The District Court issued an injunction against proceeding with the amnesty, based on narrow procedural grounds. The Fifth Circuit upheld the injunction, and went further by actually ruling that the amnesty is illegal. The Supreme Court has said it will also consider the constitutionality of the president’s decree, i.e., whether he has violated the requirement that he “take care” that the laws be faithfully executed.
The administration and the anti-borders groups (but I repeat myself) are applauding the Court’s decision to take the case not because they’re sure of victory, despite their rhetoric, but because Obama’s amnesty decree could turn into a pumpkin at noon on January 20, 2017. If a Republican is sworn in as president without the DAPA amnesty having been implemented, it’s virtually assured that one of the first things he’ll do it cancel it. But if the Supremes allow the administration to start processing amnesty applications, all other immigration processing and enforcement will be halted in a frantic push to give out as many work permits as possible before January. Because if four illegal aliens are improperly given work permits, Social Security numbers, and driver’s licenses, taking them away is easy. But if four million illegal aliens receive that kind of amnesty, it becomes very difficult to reverse.
In the end, of course, this matter – like all important questions in our society – will be decided not on “law” but on what Justice Anthony Kennedy had for dinner the night before.
Return to Top
********
********
2.
Barbara Jordan, American Patriot
By Mark Krikorian
The Corner at National Review Online, January 18, 2016
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/429946/barbara-jordans-immigration-legacy?target=author&tid=982
Barbara Jordan died 20 years ago Sunday. As a Democrat, she shared her fellow liberals’ erroneous views – but not the wicked ones. Her patriotism and unwavering support for the Constitution were famously evident at the Watergate hearings. But they were most consequential in her role as chairwoman of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.
The Jordan Commission’s reports called for tightening enforcement and cutting legal immigration by limiting family chain migration and eliminating the idiotic Visa Lottery. They formed the basis of legislation that might well have passed had her death not enabled President Bill Clinton to weasel out from under his earlier pledge of support; he was thus freed to ally with the corporate/leftist front led by Republican senator Spencer Abraham to kill the bill.
Jordan’s statements on immigration will strike ordinary people as common sense, banal even. But over the past two decades we’ve seldom heard even Republicans saying anything like them; any Democrat who did so today would be disowned and shunned.
This first statement has particular resonance at a time when the current administration is unwilling to deport any but a handful of the thousands of Central Americans surging across the Rio Grande:
Deportation is crucial. Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave. The top priorities for detention and removal, of course, are criminal aliens. But for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process.
And Jordan didn’t peddle the “legal good, illegal bad” fraud so beloved of politicians. This is from a speech delivered a few months before her death, and could be read verbatim today by Jeff Sessions:
The commission finds no national interest in continuing to import lesser-skilled and unskilled workers to compete in the most vulnerable parts of our labor force. Many American workers do not have adequate job prospects. We should make their task easier to find employment, not harder.
Instead of the Commission’s call for a one-third reduction in legal immigration, we’ve witnessed a one-third increase. Had Barbara Jordan lived she would have been able to use her enormous store of moral capital to shame Congress and the president into doing the right thing 20 years ago, and the immigration debate would sound very different today. Immigration is eventually going to be reduced, but her premature death ensured that the process will be messier and more contentious than it needed to be, with many more Americans harmed by excessive immigration than needed to be. If “the supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils,” then Barbara Jordan was truly a statesman.
(My colleague Jerry Kammer has penned a compact appreciation of Jordan’s life and her role in the immigration debate.)
Return to Top
********
********
3.
Half a Million Visa Overstays— in Just One Year
By Mark Krikorian
The Corner at National Review Online, January 19, 2016
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/430049/half-million-visa-overstays-2015?target=author&tid=982
For some time now, Congress has been demanding a report on the number of foreign visitors who overstay their visas and thereby become illegal aliens. This matters because an estimated 40 percent of the illegal population is made up of overstays rather than border infiltrators. (And it’s estimated that up to 60 percent of new illegal aliens are overstays.)
The Obama administration has long suppressed this information, for transparently political reasons. But Congress showed evidence of at least one vertebra when it included in last month’s omnibus spending bill a cutoff of $13 million in funds to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson’s office if an overstay report was not issued by January 19. The report was released yesterday.
It shows that nearly half a million foreign visitors who were supposed to return home last year had failed to do so by the end of the year. And the report looked only at a subset of the problem: arrivals by air and sea of people with B1/B2 visas (tourists and business travelers), Visa Waiver visitors (generally from developed countries), and those who flew or came by sea from Canada or Mexico. Not examined were the three-quarters of lawful entries by foreigners that happen at the land borders, as well as people coming with other types of visas, such as for students or guestworkers, that are known to also have significant overstay rates.
As my colleague Jessica Vaughan points out, the report understates the rate of visa overstays by counting the number of entries by foreigners rather than the number of individual foreigners arriving. In other words, if 10 foreigners each come and go three times, properly, during the course of the year, but another one person overstays on his first visit, that means only one in 31 admissions results in an overstay. But looking at individuals, one in 11 people granted a visa would overstay – roughly triple the rate. In a sense, counting entries highlights the failures of DHS (which manages crossings at the borders), while counting individuals highlights the failures of the State Department (which issues visas to individuals).
(Oh, and 12,000 of the overstays last year came from countries associated with terrorism. But I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.)
One of the keys to getting the overstay problem under control is a biometric exit-tracking system for foreign visitors. (This report was prepared by matching arrival and departure records after the fact.) The Senate immigration subcommittee will hold a hearing this afternoon on why, 14 years after 9/11, the congressionally mandated system for tracking the departure of foreign visitors is still not in place. Watching the three DHS officials who will be in the hot seat should be almost as entertaining as watching another DHS official squirm cluelessly during a House hearing last month.
Return to Top
********
********
4.
The Cubans Are Coming!
By Mark Krikorian
National Review Online, January 18, 2016
They’re coming for jobs, not freedom. It’s time to end the island’s special immigration status. Cubans are arriving in the U.S. in record numbers. And not on boats. Most are traveling through Mexico and crossing the Rio Grande. They don’t even have to wade across the river; they simply present themselves to immigration inspectors and, under the “wet-foot/dry-foot” policy stemming from the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, they’re paroled into the United States and eventually given green cards, unlike illegal immigrants from any other nation. The numbers are growing rapidly. Last year more than 43,000 Cubans entered without visas (three-quarters of them having come through Mexico), up 78 percent from the previous year and a sixfold increase from the start of the Obama administration. The surge results from Cuba’s loosening travel rules and, more recently, a fear that special privileges for Cuban migrants might end with the thawing of relations.
For many, their journey to the U.S. started in Ecuador, which until late last year allowed visa-free access to Cubans. From there, thousands traveled by bus through a string of countries to reach the U.S. border. In November, Nicaragua closed its border to Cuban illegals, blocking the land route and stranding about 8,000 in Costa Rica. After negotiations among Central American nations, last week the first batch of 180 young men was flown over Nicaragua to El Salvador and bused to Mexico, allowing them to continue on their way. They started arriving in Laredo this past weekend. (One thousand more got stuck in Panama when Costa Rica shut its southern border.) These are not refugees seeking freedom. They’re not escapees hopping a tropical Berlin Wall. They’re coming for jobs, family, and access to American welfare, just like other migrants. That’s why it’s long past time to repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act and have one immigration policy for everybody. Cubans who can demonstrate political persecution would still be able to seek asylum, but the vast majority would be judged like people from Mexico, Honduras, or anywhere else, and denied entry if they don’t have visas, or deported if they manage to sneak in. Don’t take my word for it that the Cubans coming today are just like other migrants fleeing Third World poverty; they freely admit it. Sergei Acosta was in the first batch flown out of Costa Rica, and spoke to a reporter upon reaching Mexico: “I’m very excited to have arrived,” Acosta told The Associated Press. He said he left Cuba in search of economic opportunity, and was optimistic about landing a job in the United States and then sending for his wife and daughter to join him. “It’s the need to have a better life.” Likewise for Arnaldo Rodríguez del Rio. Still in Costa Rica, he was asked by a Mexican newspaper why he left Cuba: “In search of economic improvement and family reunification.” The Central American governments agree. Costa Rica affirmed that “the Cubans are voluntary economic migrants,” while Guatemala said, “these people are not political refugees . . . the characteristics of the Cuban migration are economic and/or for family unification, as with Guatemalan migration to the United States.” Today’s Cuba is just another poor Third World country ruled by dictators. The Cold War ended a generation ago, so the issue of Soviet encroachment in our sphere of influence no longer exists. And Jeane Kirkpatrick’s distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian regimes applies here; the Castro brothers’ regime still calls itself Communist, but it is no longer totalitarian, any more than the gangster regimes of China, Russia, or Vietnam are.
This doesn’t mean President Obama’s Hollywood pals are right about their adulation of the Castros. Fidel and Raul and their minions deserve to hang from lampposts — but so do Robert Mugabe and Nursultan Nazarbaev and Ilham Aliyev, and we don’t give their subjects automatic access to permanent residence in the United States. If we’re to assume that every single person who manages to escape a country is, by definition, a refugee, that country had better have a uniquely oppressive regime, such as that of North Korea. Cuba does not. Cuba’s status as a poor, corrupt, misgoverned, but unexceptional source of emigration is abundantly clear. When Ecuador announced in November that it would again require visas for Cubans to visit, hundreds of people staged an unprecedented protest at the Ecuadorean embassy in Havana. This wasn’t one of the fake protests staged by the regime’s thugs, nor was it a gathering of courageous dissidents. These were ordinary Cubans angry that they might be out a lot of money because of plane tickets they purchased under the visa-free policy. Cuban police secured the embassy but took no steps to disperse or punish the protesters, despite the implicit rebuke to the regime — the new visa policy was intended, in the words of Ecuador’s foreign minister, “to discourage the flow of people seeking to reach the United States,” a decision it made under pressure from the Castro regime. I spent two years as a student in a real totalitarian society — the Soviet Union — and, believe me, there were no public protests about anything.
What’s more, significant numbers of Cubans are returning to Cuba — to set up businesses. A record number came back last year, mainly from Europe and Latin America, to open restaurants and other small establishments, which have been permitted for several years, the result being that one-quarter of the labor force now works for private employers. Pyongyang it isn’t. Cubans are returning from the United States too. But as a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation found last fall, many of them sign up for welfare upon arrival in the U.S., then go back to live in Cuba. They arrange with friends or relatives to send them the cash they’re essentially stealing from American taxpayers, which goes much farther on the island. This is possible because Cubans are considered refugees and thus have access to food stamps, disability, and other welfare immediately upon arrival, rather than having to wait five years, like other immigrants. Rather than their coming for freedom, the paper found something else: Outside welfare offices in Hialeah, the Sun Sentinel found Cuban immigrants who had arrived as recently as three days earlier, applying for benefits. They said family and friends told them about the aid before they left Cuba. And they’ve gotten used to it: The sense of entitlement is so ingrained that Cubans routinely complained to their local congressman about the challenge of accessing U.S. aid — from Cuba. Here’s one example of how it works: One woman told Miami immigration attorney Grisel Ybarra that her grandmother and two great aunts came to Florida, got approved for benefits, opened bank accounts and returned to Cuba. Month after month, the woman cashed their government checks — about $2,400 each time — sending half to the women in Cuba and keeping the rest. When a welfare agency questioned the elderly ladies’ whereabouts this summer, the woman turned to Ybarra, a Cuban American. She told Ybarra her grandmother refused to come back, saying: “With the money you sent me, I bought a home and am really happy in Cuba.” If you’re “really happy in Cuba,” you never should have been let in under the special circumstances of the Cuban Adjustment Act in the first place. Cuban Americans are beginning to speak out. Roberto Pizano, a former political prisoner in Cuba who arrived decades ago, says he sees more-recent arrivals “abusing the system”: “I know people who come to the U.S., apply for SSI and never worked in the USA,” he said. They “move back to Cuba and are living off of the hard-earned taxpayer dollars.” Representative Carlos Curbelo and Senator Marco Rubio have introduced legislation to address this abuse. Called the Cuban Immigration Work Opportunity Act, the measure would end automatic welfare eligibility for all Cubans, reserving it only for bona fide refugees. Both were careful to point out that their legislation applied only to welfare eligibility and would not change the open-borders policy for any Cuban who can get here.
But the welfare scam is merely a symptom of the immigration scam that is the Cuban Adjustment Act. If welfare access is to be limited to those Cubans fleeing persecution, what’s the rationale for admitting the others? Rubio’s statement last week upon introducing the Senate version of the bill referred to “individuals who claim to be fleeing repression in Cuba” — but they’re not claiming any such thing, and don’t have to. They’re simply regular illegal aliens taking advantage of a sweetheart deal left over from the Cold War. It’s time to end the scam. Repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act.
Return to Top
********
********
5.
DHS Reports Huge Number of Visitors Overstayed in 2015
By Jessica Vaughan
CIS Immigration Blog, January 20, 2016
. . .
Lawmakers and the public should be tremendously concerned that DHS identified more than 400,000 foreign visitors who did not depart in 2015 as required and who apparently have joined the huge population of illegal aliens in the United States. More than 12,000 came from countries associated with terrorism. Clearly, our immigration controls are not sufficient to protect Americans. These scofflaws are encouraged by the Obama administration's appalling neglect of interior enforcement and overly generous visa policies.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/vaughan/dhs-reports-huge-number-visitors-overstayed-2015
Return to Top
********
********
6.
What, if Anything, Has Marco Rubio Learned About Immigration Reform?
By Stanley Renshon
CIS Immigration Blog, January 20, 2016
. . .
Rubio, in his new role as senator, understandably wanted to accomplish something given that his first job on the five-person city commission of West Miami ended in frustration and disappointment.
Sponsoring a major immigration "reform" bill must have seemed liked an obvious and attractive vehicle by which to accomplish something big. Unfortunately, either Rubio didn't perform political due diligence before he lent his name and office to support the bill or he agreed with its basic premises, such as that more immigration is always better and that legalization should come first and then one can deal with the border.
It makes a difference whether Rubio's error was a matter of being in too much of a rush to get something done that he didn't take the time to know the details of this large, crucial issue he put his name to or whether he made an error in believing what then was, and still is, touted as conventional wisdom, or both. In the first case, it's a matter of ambition's impatience. In the second, it's a matter of making a mistake and learning from it. The question there is: Has he?
. . .
http://www.cis.org/renshon/what-if-anything-has-marco-rubio-learned-about-immigration-reform-pt-1
+++
Part 2
. . .
Rubio starts out with his toughest stance: "If you're a criminal alien, no, you can't stay." Of course, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends what you mean by "criminal alien". Todd asks precisely that question and begins by asking "Isn't anybody who's here ...", but he never got to finish that thought before Rubio cut off its obvious conclusion that any illegal alien could be considered to have broken the law and is thus criminal.
"A felon. A felon--", Rubio insists, and then goes on to clarify, "but I've said that before, Todd. That's been convinced [sic? Convicted?] ... I mean, a felon, someone who's committed a crime, a non-immigration-related-- and that's what I've talked about in the past."
This muddled answer either reflects a deliberate strategy or a lack of immigration knowledge on the senator's part that would be surprising at this late date.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/renshon/what-if-anything-has-marco-rubio-learned-about-immigration-reform-pt-2
Return to Top
********
********
7.
The OPT Case: What's Next?
By John Miano
CIS Immigration Blog, January 19, 2016
. . .
I last reported on the status of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security STEM OPT case here. On August 12, 2015, the D.C. District vacated the regulations put in place under Bush that were designed to circumvent the H-1B quotas by allowing aliens to work on student visas instead, but stayed the vacatur until February 12, 2016, so that aliens working on STEM OPT extensions would not have to immediately leave the country.
Both parties have taken the case to the next step on two fronts, battling in parallel.
First, the D.C. District held that the STEM OPT program was within DHS authority. Washtech appealed the District Court's holding that the STEM OPT program was within DHS authority to the D.C. Circuit back in August. So now the case is in the D.C. Circuit in the briefing processes before oral arguments and a decision. DHS is scheduled to file a response on January 20 as the next step in that process, but has filed an unopposed motion for an extension until January 27 that will likely be granted.
If Washtech is successful on appeal, DHS would not be able to put in place a regulation to replace the one being vacated. In addition, the entire OPT program would likely go away.
Second, DHS used the six-month grace period the court gave it to try to put in place a new regulation by February 12 to replace the one being vacated. The agency published a proposed regulation, but was not able to get a final regulation in place by February 12.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/miano/opt-case-whats-next.
Return to Top
********
********
8.
On Equitable Distribution of Migrants Arriving in Europe
By Dan Cadman
CIS Immigration Blog, January 21, 2016
. . .
Meanwhile, Turkey is squawking loudly that, having lived up to its part of the bargain, the EU now needs to fulfill its promise to provide over three billion euros in aid in return for Turkey's clampdown on smugglers sending migrants across the Aegean Sea into Greece, where they move onward by land. This assertion is beyond hilarious; it would be like watching a bad Punch and Judy show, but for the fact that it is rife with death and tragedy. Both sides have dealt in bad faith and with unrealistic expectations of one another.
The same BBC segment showed undercover reporters filming the movement of dozens of migrants to the coast on a large, tourist-size bus driven by smugglers, and from there into several rafts. The journalists were seen by the smugglers and threatened at gunpoint, but not before they had videotaped Turkish police arriving on scene, observing events passively, and then climbing back into their vehicles and departing so that the migrants could make their perilous three-hour journey across choppy winter waters. Record numbers have arrived so far this January. So much for Turkey's side of the bargain.
And in other news fronts, Austria has announced that it will be sharply curtailing its asylum and refugee program while Norway has announced that it will begin deporting illicit migrant arrivals to Russia. Sweden has declared that it has reached its breaking point where acceptance of migrants and refugees is concerned. Other nations are also shoring up their borders and taking measures to limit arrival — all of them seem disinclined to agree with the notion of "equitable sharing". Does anyone seriously wonder why?
. . .
http://cis.org/cadman/equitable-distribution-migrants-arriving-europe
Return to Top
********
********
9.
Immigration Implications of the U.S.-Iran Prisoner Swap
By Dan Cadman
CIS Immigration Blog, January 19, 2016
. . .
Oddity No. 3: The deal is more accurately described as a trade rather than a swap because most of the individuals benefiting from the clemencies will be staying in the United States, despite the damage they've done to U.S. national security. How can this be? Why, supreme irony of ironies, it's because they're "American citizens". If I were physically present in the room with you speaking those words, you'd see me using air quotes, something I usually detest, because the notion is so laughable. And just to rub a little salt in the wounds, the lawyers for these folks are now saying it vindicates the innocence they maintained all along — something clearly out of whack with the facts in their cases, which involved such things as setting up dummy corporations and transshipment points in foreign countries where the illegal technology and equipment transfers could take place in order to facilitate ultimate movement onward to Iran.
A few weeks ago, I blogged about Iran's objections to new restrictive U.S. rules for the visa waiver program (VWP), in which I mentioned what was then a rumor about a pending swap, one that has now taken place and pretty much accords with my speculations that, on our end, it would involve releasing spies.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/cadman/immigration-implications-us-iran-prisoner-swap
Return to Top
********
********
10.
Feds Should Use "Blackie's Warrants" to Challenge Sanctuary Cities
By Dan Cadman
CIS Immigration Blog, January 18, 2016
. . .
When ICE agents know that filing a detainer against an incarcerated felon is wasted time and effort — especially in notorious sanctuary jurisdictions like San Francisco and Cook County, Ill. — would they not be better served by seeking a Blackie's warrant authorizing and directing them to seize the alien from the sanctuary authorities? It seems to me pretty straightforward: They have affirmatively identified the alien thanks to biometric matching of fingerprints; they can prove he is deportable based on already-collected documents and file materials; and they have no doubt about where he is located.
Finally, the justification to seek the civil search/seizure warrant is embedded in the county's own sanctuary policies — they are proof positive than any step by the agents to enforce the immigration laws short of the Blackie's warrant is doomed to failure.
My sense of the great potential of Blackie's warrants in sanctuary jurisdictions was heightened after seeing an article from the Texas Tribune, "Jails Refused to Hold Thousands of Immigrants for Feds". According to the article, state and local enforcement agencies have refused to hand over criminal aliens to ICE more than 18,000 times in the past two years, despite having immigration detainers filed against them.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/cadman/feds-should-use-blackies-warrants-challenge-sanctuary-jurisdictions
Return to Top
********
********
11.
Supreme Court to Hear Administrative Amnesty Case
By Jon Feere
CIS Immigration Blog, January 19, 2016
. . .
Additional proceedings and orders are available on ScotusBlog. A reporter for that site notes that there is a "rather unusual aspect of the case" in that, although the lower courts "had not decided a constitutional question the states had raised", in taking the case the Supreme Court justices added a constitutional question on their own, namely "whether the [DAPA] policy violates the constitutional clause that requires the president to 'take care' that the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed."
So though the administration may be pleased that the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case, the Court is now likely going to look at the constitutional question, something that the administration did not necessarily want — they would have preferred that the Court strike down the lower court ruling based on the narrow question of whether the states had standing to sue in the first place.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/feere/supreme-court-hear-administrative-amnesty-case
Return to Top
********
********
12.
Can an Alien Legally Get a Green Card by Marrying Her U.S. Citizen Step-Brother?
By David North
CIS Immigration Blog, January 20, 2016
. . .
Yes, it could happen, because in the state where they all live (and in many others) there is no legal bar to step-siblings marrying, as there is for siblings or half siblings marrying. But, as you might expect, there are some caveats. (I am assuming that E is 18 or older, is unmarried, and living in the home country.) In their state, as in many, you can marry at 16 with your parents' permission, and you can marry at 18 with no permission needed, so Mr. A could block the marriage, but only for a while.
Then there is the federal requirement that the alien and the citizen must have met before immigration papers will be approved, but that could be arranged by having either D or E do a bit of traveling.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/north/can-alien-legally-get-green-card-marrying-her-us-citizen-step-brother
Return to Top
********
********
13.
Remembering Barbara Jordan and Her Immigration Legacy
By Jerry Kammer
CIS Immigration Blog, January 2016
. . .
Jordan assumed leadership of the commission at a time of growing national alarm about illegal immigration. The mood was especially tense in California, where voters the following year would approve Proposition 187, which sought to deny benefits to persons not authorized to be in the United States.
Jordan was alarmed at the tone of much of the debate. So was the commission’s executive director, Susan Martin, now the director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. “The situation had become so heated that I thought it would take someone with her gravitas and credibility to get past the emotion and bring people together with a reasonable solution,” Martin said. “She was exactly the right person for that.”16
Jordan was critical of Proposition 187, saying in an appearance at the National Press Club that it “goes too far” by seeking to deny public school education to the children of illegal immigrants. Once again, the Constitution was her guide star. Referring to a Supreme Court decision regarding a similar attempt in Texas, she noted that the children were “entitled under constitutional decision to education benefits.”
Jordan often talked of the need to strike a balance between two immigration policy values. “The Commission decries hostility and discrimination against immigrants as antithetical to the traditions and interests of the country,” she said. “At the same time, we disagree with those who would label efforts to control immigration as being inherently anti-immigrant. Rather, it is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.”
Jordan made a particularly pointed assertion of the need to stop illegal immigration in 1994 when she said, “Our patience is growing thin toward those attempting to overwhelm the will of the American people by acts that ignore, manipulate, or circumvent our immigration laws. Unless this country does a better job in curbing illegal immigration, we risk irreparably undermining our commitment to legal immigration.”
. . .
http://cis.org/Kammer-Remembering-Barbara-Jordan-and-Her-Immigration-Legacy
Return to Top
********
********
14.
Jeb Bush's Struggles and Poetic, Political Justice
By Jerry Kammer
CIS Immigration Blog, January 19, 2016
. . .
Proposition 187, which passed with 57 percent of the vote, was an ill-considered expression of legitimate anger at the federal government's failure to stop the mass influx of illegal immigration. In the eyes of many Republicans, Jeb Bush represents the political class that has allowed that failure and the economic class that has profited from it.
The fact that Bush is the brother of a former president who embraced illegal immigrants with the declaration that "family values don't stop at the border" has only added to the anger of the Republican base. So have Jeb Bush's flip-flops on the issue.
So the public anger at illegal immigration that Torres called a "last gasp" now takes expression in a presidential race in which Jeb Bush represents "the last, wheezing gasp" of those who are deemed responsible for the mess. To many Republicans, that seems to be a form of poetic as well as political justice.
. . .
http://www.cis.org/kammer/jeb-bushs-struggles-and-poetic-political-justice
Return to Top
********
********
15.
In the Wall Street Journal, Two Immigration-Boosting Economists Make a False Statement, Duck Debate
Guest post by Jason Richwine
CIS Immigration Blog, January 19, 2016
. . .
Peri and Yasenov also make an interesting claim at the end of their op-ed: "Earlier research by one of us [Peri] has shown that native workers do not suffer the negative impact of arriving immigrants because they take different jobs." There is a relevant back story here. Peri initially published a result that implied immigrants and natives with the same education are not "substitutes" for each other, meaning they do not compete for the same jobs. But Peri had to retract that result when critics discovered he had accidentally included high school kids with part-time jobs as "dropouts." In the revised paper, Peri found only minor departures from the normal assumption that immigrants and natives with the same education are substitutes.
So the first error was fixed, but, as Borjas notes, it inexplicably resurfaced in Peri's Mariel paper, where he again counts high school kids with part-time jobs as "dropouts." The op-ed gives no explanation for this. In fact, as noted above, Borjas's entire rebuttal is left unmentioned. I will not try to rehash the entire debate here – see my backgrounder for a detailed discussion – but Borjas points out significant problems with broadening the sample the way Peri and Yasenov do, even aside from the issue of labeling high school kids as dropouts. As I explained in Real Clear Policy:
. . .
http://www.cis.org/cis/wall-street-journal-two-immigration-boosting-economists-make-false-statement-duck-
Return to Top
********
********
16.
Marco Rubio’s Second Worst Immigration Bill Premium Content
By Michelle Malkin
Conservative Review, January 18th, 2016
. . .
The Hatch-Rubio-Microsoft legislation would increase the H-1B quota from 65,000 to 115,000. In addition, the bill automatically adds up to 50,000 additional visas a year whenever the quota is reached, using a convoluted system similar to the Gang of Eight plan (the quota can be lowered by up to 20,000 if the quota is not reached). The effect is that the annual limit immediately rises to 165,000. The bill allows annual limits to rise up to 245,000 per year in the future.
The I’m Screwed Act exempts anyone with a masters’ degree or higher from a U.S. school from the H-1B quota. It would give employers a twofer by allowing H-1B spouses to work. The irony here is that, for the H-1B worker, the employer would have to comply with minimal labor protections. However, the spouse could work without any American worker protections whatsoever. The bill also exempts 6,800 treaty visas set aside as a result of trade agreements with Singapore and Chile from the quota. This sets a precedent for future treaty visas to be exempt as well.
As John Miano and I have reported, there are so many exemptions and quota increases in the bill that it is impossible to predict how many foreign guest workers Hatch-Rubio-Microsoft’s bill would add. It would be simpler to just say that the I’m Screwed Act would effectively remove any nominal limit on the H-1B visas. As usual with such bills, Hatch-Rubio-Microsoft would provide Kabuki funding to train Americans for the jobs that won’t exist because of the increases in foreign labor. In practice, these fees just provide a slush fund to dispense political favors.
. . .
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/01/rubios-second-worst-immigration-bill
Return to Top
********
********
17.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Immigration Statistics
By George J. Borjas
National Review Online, January 21, 2016
. . .
Last spring, as I was writing a book that will be published later this year (more on that below), I decided to revisit the Mariel episode to see for myself what the data actually show. To my shock, within an hour of looking at the publicly available data, my computer was showing that Card was simply wrong — the Marielitos had indeed depressed the average wage of comparable workers. The trick to unlocking the puzzle was to account for the fact that nearly two-thirds of the Marielitos were high-school dropouts, increasing the number of low-skill workers in Miami by 20 percent within a matter of weeks. It seems that if Mariel were going to have an impact, it would have an impact on the low-skill labor market. Remarkably, Card did not look at that market and neither did anyone else in the past 25 years.
. . .
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430113/immigration-statistics-mariel-boatlift-low-skill-wages
Return to Top
********
********
18.
President Obama, Meet the ‘Take Care’ Clause
By Josh Blackman
National Review Online, January 20, 201
On four separate occasions, President Obama swore that he would “faithfully execute the Office of President.” Yesterday, the Supreme Court told him to prove it. As expected, the justices voted to review Texas’s challenge to Obama’s executive action on immigration, known as DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans). Critically, the Court ordered the Obama administration to answer a pivotal question: Whether DAPA “violates the Take Care Clause of the Constitution.” In 225 years, the Supreme Court has never had occasion to ask the president whether he has reneged on his oath to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. However, with pens-and-phones replacing checks-and-balances, the Supreme Court is now poised to break new constitutional ground in order to preserve our embattled separation of powers.
. . .
With this decision, the justices directed the president to justify DAPA and prove that his executive action on immigration is consistent with congressional design, not an effort to rewrite the law. Based on my initial research, this is the first time the Supreme Court has ever asked the president to state this constitutional case. Indeed, I could only locate three instances where the Court ruled against the executive branch, finding that the Take Care Clause limits its authority. (In different contexts, it has been cited to bolster the president’s power.)
. . .
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430051/obama-dapa-supreme-court
Return to Top
********
********
19.
Marco, Jeb, and the Immigration Trap
By Byron York
Washington Examiner, January 17, 2016
. . .
They're taking different paths. Rubio is mostly trying to change the subject from the most controversial aspects of immigration reform. When he's been asked, Rubio has deftly changed the subject -- not away from immigration entirely, but away from the increases in immigration levels, near-immediate legalization, and path to citizenship in the Gang of Eight comprehensive reform bill. For his part, Bush, sinking in the polls, is swinging wildly, accusing Rubio of "cutting and running" on immigration reform while he, Bush, remained steadfast. While Bush isn't wrong about Rubio, he is overlooking his own changes on the issue.
. . .
Bartiromo's question touched on a fundamental fact: comprehensive immigration reform, including Rubio's, means more immigration. That's not something the public supports; polling has consistently shown that small minorities support increasing levels of immigration, while large majorities support either reducing it or keeping it unchanged.
. . .
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/marco-jeb-and-the-immigration-trap/article/2580724
Return to Top
********
********
20.
Pete Wilson Did Not Make California Turn Blue: Unraveling a Myth
By Fred Bauer
National Review Online, January 21, 2016
When Donald Trump or Ted Cruz proposes increasing the enforcement of immigration law, outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and NPR run stories warning about the legacy of Pete Wilson, California’s governor from 1991 to 1999. The message is fairly consistent: Strenuously opposing illegal immigration might deliver short-term benefits for Republicans, but it spells death in the long term. Many Republican consultants look to California and dread the prospect of the GOP’s fighting too hard against illegal immigration.
. . .
According to conventional wisdom, Wilson won reelection in 1994 in part because of his support for Proposition 187 but his victory was pyrrhic. Proposition 187 and its aftermath caused the electorate to polarize racially and torpedoed Republicans’ chances with Hispanics, an important — and growing — demographic group. And so California’s transition from a solid GOP state in the 1970s and 1980s to a Democratic lock in the 2000s can be attributed to Wilson’s decision to take a hard line on illegal immigration.
. . .
Drilling down into the demographic details of exit polls suggests that Pete Wilson did not cause the Hispanic vote to shift against the Republican presidential candidate in a radical way. Depending on the exit poll, Michael Dukakis beat George H. W. Bush among California Hispanics by between 30 and 40 points. Bill Clinton beat Bush by about 42 points in 1992 (potentially by almost 50 points). Clinton beat Bob Dole by about 48 points in 1996 — an increase from 1992, but not exactly a tremendous one. By the 2004 election, the California Hispanic voter gap was around the mid-30s on the presidential level (Kerry beat Bush by a bit over 30 points within the demographic). So, a decade after Proposition 187 supposedly destroyed the Republican party on a presidential level, the Republican standard-bearer in 2004 scored about as well as, if not a little better than, Republican candidates before 1994 in terms of performance with the Hispanic vote. With 27 percent of the California Hispanic vote, Mitt Romney got a larger portion of Hispanic voters in California than the Republican presidential nominee has managed in any cycle since 1992 (with the exception of 2004).
. . .
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430032/%20immigration-republicans-hispanic-vote-california-pete-wilson
Return to Top
********
********
21.
Dreams from his Father: Steve Jobs and Immigration
By Vernon Roken
American Thinker, January 22, 2016
. . .
Barack Obama clearly felt the absence of his father. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, considered his adoptive parents to be his real family. Having located his real progenitors, he chose to contact only his mother. “When I was looking for my biological mother, obviously... I was looking for my biological father and I learned a little bit about him and I didn't like what I learned,” Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson.
Was Steve ashamed that his father, a non-practicing Muslim, was an immigrant? Probably not. Jobs urged President Obama to allow foreigners who earned an engineering degree in the U.S. to be allowed to stay.
John Jandali, 84, is a successful immigrant. After completing his PhD, he taught in various universities before going into the restaurant business. He eventually became vice-chairman of Boom Town Casino in Reno, Nevada. Jandali had some intellectual capital which he must have passed on to Steve. His family in Syria had financial capital as well.
Steve Job's Syrian grandfather was a self-made millionaire with interests in oil and other businesses. He owned “several entire villages” and “at one point pretty much controlled the price of wheat” in the region. In authoritarian clan-oriented Syria, success is rarely based on marketing genius and democratic management techniques. Did Jobs somehow inherit his well-known abrasiveness and authoritarian executive ways from his paternal grandfather? Perhaps not. John Jandali, who until recently managed 450 workers at the casino, had a quiet leadership style very much unlike his son's.
. . .
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/dreams_from_his_father_steve_jobs_and_immigration.html
Return to Top
********
********
22.
Can’t Pin One Name to Alien of the Week
By Howie Carr
The Boston Herald, January 20, 2016
At least 14 aliases — that’s how many names the Illegal Alien of the Week goes by.
At various times, the accused Dominican drug dealer arrested Monday in Dracut has also given
seven different dates of birth.
As of yesterday afternoon, no EBT cards had been discovered, but the over-under on him is three — the same as his number of fake Social Security numbers.
The name on his ICE detainer is Ramon
Aguasviva-Mejia, and he’s being held on $1 million cash bail.
Eventually he’ll be handed over to the feds, and they’ll deport him — for at least the second time. He’s wanted in the Dominican Republic for murdering a cop in 2013, and wounding two others.
. . .
Jose Ruiz, Jose