border

(Washington, D.C. April 23, 2014) As the Obama administration edges closer to unilaterally halting all enforcement of U.S. immigration laws, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is staging an elaborate effort designed to create the illusion of public support for this sweeping and unconstitutional exercise of executive authority, charged the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

On Tuesday, Secretary Jeh Johnson met with two dozen immigration policy "stakeholders," all of whom have been part of a campaign to pressure the Obama administration to halt deportations of illegal aliens and implement a de facto amnesty under the guise of prosecutorial discretion. The 24 individuals who met with Johnson represented illegal alien advocacy groups, cheap labor lobbyists, and other outspoken opponents of immigration enforcement.

Since President Obama ordered DHS to review its deportation practices in March, Secretary Johnson has held numerous meetings with political and business advocates for amnesty, but has yet to meet with individuals or organizations representing the interests of the American people.

"The most important stakeholders in U.S. immigration policy are the American people, not the people who break our laws, and not the business interests that want greater access to low-wage foreign labor," declared Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "Yet, for the past five and half years, the Obama administration has consistently refused to acknowledge the interests of struggling American workers and taxpayers who are adversely affected by excessive levels of immigration and lax enforcement.

"While the Secretary’s door is wide open to illegal aliens and their advocates, it has been slammed shut on those who advocate enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the public interest. These include the unions representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) personnel, sheriffs, and pro-enforcement advocacy groups," Stein said.

"No amount of staged meetings with narrow political interests and business lobbyists can alter the fact that President Obama has no constitutional authority to implement the policies these so-called stakeholders demand, as the president himself has conceded. Nor do these staged events obscure the fact that the voices of the true stakeholders in U.S. immigration policy — the American people — are being systematically excluded by a rogue administration determined to pursue its political goals at all costs," Stein concluded. Read more about DHS Stages Meeting with So-Called Immigration Stakeholders

A man arrested Wednesday night for allegedly shooting a BB gun at a car in Oregon City turned out to be an convicted felon who had been deported to Mexico two years ago.

Jiminez-Barragan provided a fake Mexican driver's license. Police searched the truck and said they found a BB gun, $6,600 in cash and about five grams of heroin. Jiminez-Barragan, 28, then gave police a second phony name. After he was fingerprinted, police learned his real identity.

Jiminez-Barragan was deported more than two years ago and had illegally returned about a month ago, police said. He was convicted in Multnomah County on drug charges.

He also is subject to an immigration hold.

  Read more about Convicted felon deported to Mexico 2 years ago, arrested after shooting BB gun at car

Top administration officials have directed 21,000 border patrol officers to retreat whenever illegal immigrants throw rocks at them, and to avoid getting in front of foreign drug-smugglers’ vehicles as they head north with their drug shipments.

“Agents shall not discharge firearms in response to thrown or hurled projectiles… agents should obtain a tactical advantage in these situations, such as seeking cover or distancing themselves,” said the instructions, issued Mar. 7, under the signature of Michael Fisher, chief of U.S. Border Patrol.

Agents were also directed to keep their weapons holstered when drug smugglers drive by.

Agents can’t use guns against “a moving vehicle merely fleeing from agents,” say the instructions.

The new instructions do allow agents to use guns to defend themselves from vehicles that drive at them. “Agents shall not discharge their firearms at a moving vehicle unless the agent has a reasonable belief that… deadly force is being used against an agent,” the new instructions say.

However, the instructions also suggest that officers be penalized if they don’t step back. Agents “should not place themselves in the path of a motor vehicle or use their body to block a vehicles’s path,” according to new instructions.

The new curbs were praised by advocates for greater immigration, including Juanita Molina, director of the Border Action Network. New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, and Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Menendez is one of the drafters of the June 2013 Senate immigration bill, which would boost the inflow of legal immigrants and guest workers up to 40 million over the next decade. During the same period, roughly 40 million Americans will turn 18.

  Read more about DHS tells American border guards to run away from illegal immigrants hurling rocks at them, fleeing in vehicles

Eight Oregon immigrants and allies left Thursday for San Diego, where they will join hundreds more from around the United States to support at least 150 undocumented deportees attempting to cross back into the country from Mexico...

The undocumented immigrants (illegal aliens), whose families live in cities across the U.S., will attempt to cross the border at the Otay Mesa point of entry on March 10. One of those immigrants was deported from Portland....

Wearing a T-shirt that read "UNDOCUMENTED; UNAFRAID; UNAPOLOGETIC," Luna explained the effort Thursday afternoon in front of a small group of supporters in the Latino center at Portland State University...

"I'm not going to wait until legislation tells me when I can reunite with my family," she said. "We're not playing around, so we're going to take justice and we're going to do what we feel is right."..

Now Bring Them Home is attempting its third and largest effort, expanded to include anyone willing to try and cross the border.

  Read more about Oregon immigrants, allies head to California border supporting undocumented group attempting to cross

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities captured the world's most powerful drug lord in a resort city Saturday after a massive search through the home state of the legendary capo whose global organization is the leading supplier of cocaine to the United States.

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, 56, looked pudgy, bowed and much like his wanted photos...

Guzman was arrested by the Mexican marines at 6:40 a.m. in a high-rise condominium fronting the Pacific in Mazatlan....

Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam described an operation that took place between Feb. 13 and 17 focused on seven homes connected by tunnels and to the city's sewer system....

Guzman faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U.S. and is on the DEA's most-wanted list. His drug empire stretches throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia. His cartel has been heavily involved in the bloody drug war that has torn through parts of Mexico for the last several years....

Vigil said Mexico may decide to extradite Guzman to the U.S. to avoid any possibility that he escapes from prison again, as he did in 2001 in a laundry truck — a feat that fed his larger-than-life persona...

Guzman's play for power against local cartels caused a bloodbath in Tijuana and made Juarez one of the deadliest cities in the world...

In 2013, he was named "Public Enemy No. 1" by the Chicago Crime Commission...

An estimated 70,000 people have been killed in drug violence since former President Calderon deployed thousands of soldiers to drug hotspots upon taking office on Dec. 1, 2006. The current government of Pena Nieto has stopped tallying drug-related killings separately.

  Read more about World's most powerful drug lord, 'El Chapo' Guzman, captured in Mexico

On Tuesday, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters immigration is just not in the cards in 2014. Last Thursday, rank-and-file House members sent a loud message that President Obama is not the partner for legislation, spooking even top proponent Paul Ryan...

However, since the GOP retreat last week, Boehner has just kept marching along...

“I wouldn't be surprised” if immigration legislation came to the House floor as early as this spring, one well-connected GOP member said....

"What has surprised me is how few people in House Republican caucus have stood up and opposed the policy," said Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America's Voice and one of the nation's leading proponents for immigration reform. "Now maybe the concern about timing, and Obama's trustworthiness are excuses, ways to get to 'no' without seeming to be in league with the hard-liners. For us, watching it from our somewhat distant perspective, it's the dog that didn't bark," he continued...

For example, the push back from conservatives has caused significant tremors of doubt within Boehner's leadership team...

After raising serious doubts about whether immigration could come to the floor this year in a Sunday television interview, Ryan was more optimistic in remarks to reporters Tuesday.

“It wasn't really bad,” Ryan said about the immigration showdown in Cambridge, MD. “The substance of our document people really appreciated. It's just, like I said, the lawlessness of the White House makes us lose confidence that the President will enforce the laws,” Ryan said...

The issue is complicated because some of the lawmakers who spoke in favor of the substance of the principles were not in favor of moving forward on legislation. In many cases, members only implied their stance on the underlying question rather than explicitly stating it. They also mostly only had one minute to speak each.

Still, conservative heavyweights like Reps. Tom Price and Jeb Hensarling came out strongly against moving forward, and the result of the meeting seemed to change Ryan's tone in the days afterward....

Senator Marco Rubio, another Gang of Eight member, was more pessimistic. Asked if the House should move forward in 2014, Rubio said, “That's not my role to give them advice on. They're working on what is a very difficult issue. The resistance they're running into is a lack of confidence that this president and the federal government will enforce the security measures no matter what they're written as.” Read more about Boehner, Undeterred, Moves Forward on Immigration

...Republicans may once again come to the rescue of the Democrats, by discrediting themselves and snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory.

The latest bright idea among Republicans inside the Beltway is a new version of amnesty that is virtually certain to lose votes among the Republican base and is unlikely to gain many votes among the Hispanics that the Republican leadership is courting...

Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them...

...why do the American people not have a right to the protection that immigration laws provide people in other countries around the world — including Mexico, where illegal immigrants from other countries do not get the special treatment that Mexico and its American supporters are demanding for illegal immigrants in the United States?...

What in the world is wrong with Congress taking up border security first, as a separate issue, and later taking responsibility in a congressional vote on whether the border has become secure? Congress at least should come out of the shadows.

The Republican plan for granting legalization up front, while withholding citizenship, is too clever by half. It is like saying that you can slide halfway down a slippery slope.

Republicans may yet rescue the Democrats, while demoralizing their own supporters and utterly failing the country.

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2014 Creators Syndicate Inc.

Read more about Republicans’ Comprehensive Immigration Folly

Republicans will be unlikely to compromise on immigration reform unless U.S. borders are first secured, and the possibility of a broad immigration bill reaching President Barack Obama's desk this year is "clearly in doubt," Representative Paul Ryan said on Sunday.

"Security first, no amnesty, then we might be able to get somewhere," Ryan said on ABC's "This Week."...

Last June, the Senate passed a comprehensive bill that would provide a path to citizenship for the approximately 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally and tighten border security.

The bill stalled in the House, and some conservative Republicans in both chambers remain staunchly opposed to offering legal status for millions of adults who live in the United States unlawfully.

Obama last week hinted in an interview that he might be open to a plan that would first give undocumented workers legal status, as long as they were not permanently barred from becoming citizens....

"This is not one of those issues that has a deadline," he said in the ABC interview. Ryan emphasized that securing the U.S.-Mexico border was a crucial first step before changing rules around legal residency.

"We don't know who's coming and going in this country. We don't have control of our borders," he said. "Doing nothing on the security side of this isn't the responsible thing to do."

House leaders must contend with several conservatives who are suspicious of Obama's agenda and are reluctant to give the president a long-sought legislative victory....

Incumbents facing a primary challenge or a close general election in this year's campaign season may have an incentive to oppose the plan's path to citizenship.

Still, many lawmakers agreed to revamp U.S. policy on immigration after exit polling showed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012. The Republican National Committee made it a priority to reach out to minority voters after the election.

Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that Republicans should go ahead with immigration reform since it remains the right thing to do and not "because of what some pollster tells us." Read more about U.S. immigration bill 'in doubt' this year, Republican Ryan says