DACA

Any amnesty encourages further illegal immigration. 

Besides that, the pending DACA amnesty would have an enormous, permanent impact on the U.S. through greatly increased population and expenses for benefits, as explained here:

Excerpt from Amnesty Chain Migration Would Exceed Four Years of U.S. Births, by John Binder, Breitbart.com, December 15, 2017

… As House and Senate Republicans, Democrats, the big business lobby, the cheap labor industry, and the open borders lobby have teamed up to push an amnesty for potentially millions of illegal aliens who are enrolled and eligible for the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the impact the move would have on Americans would be likely unprecedented.

Under the current legal immigration system, immigrants who are given a pathway to U.S. citizenship are eventually allowed to bring extended family members, children, their parents, siblings, and extended family members to the country. This process, which makes up more than 70 percent of the current legal immigration, is what’s known as “chain migration.” 

Research by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) reveals that under a DACA amnesty deal, between about 800,000 and 3.5 million illegal aliens could be eligible for legalization to permanently remain in the U.S. Of those, MPI notes that 1.5 million of the estimated 3.5 million would be allowed to obtain U.S. citizenship.

According to Princeton University researchers Stacie Carr and Marta Tienda, newly naturalized Mexican immigrants in the U.S. bring an average of six foreign relatives with them. Therefore, should all 1.5 million amnestied illegal aliens bring six relatives each to the U.S., that would constitute a total chain migration of nine million new foreign nationals entering the U.S. …   [Read the entire article here.]

FURTHERMORE, fiscal costs for a DACA amnesty would add huge amounts to government debt.  See report on official estimates  here.

Do we owe DACA registrants anything?  They were never promised permanent legal status by President Obama, and he did not have the authority to grant it.

  Read more about DREAM Act amnesty would have huge impact on U.S.

Top Democrats and business allies invited reporters to a Capitol Hill event to watch illegal immigrants demand amnesty and smear Republicans as racist, in Spanish and broken English.

“I’m here representing all the immigrant mothers like myself, will not allow the government to tear down our sons’ and daughters’ dreams while they try to separate our families,” said Lenka Mendoza, an unskilled illegal alien - saying:

The president does not care about our children and our families. Trump and his government supposed priorities are nothing else but an anti-immigrant and white-supremacist agenda that don’t solve anything … need clean act now.”

Mendoza was welcomed to the podium by Todd Schulte, a Democratic political activist who is president of FWD.us, a lobbying group formed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg...

In his October 8 letter to Congress, Trump said:

These findings outline reforms that must be included as part of any legislation addressing the status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.  Without these reforms, illegal immigration and chain migration, which severely and unfairly burden American workers and taxpayers, will continue without end.

Immigration reform must create more jobs, higher wages, and greater security for Americans — now and for future generations.  The reforms outlined in the enclosure are necessary to ensure prosperity, opportunity, and safety for every member of our national family.

Instead of urging compromise, Schulte’s speakers upped their demands, saying they want an amnesty for young ‘dreamer’ illegals plus an amnesty for their parents...

The escalating demands and aggressive rhetoric from Schulte’s illegals were much sharper than the prior soft-spoken claims...

A second illegal, Ingrid Vaca, said she arrived in the United States from Bolivia in 2000. “I came to this country with dreams to protect my sons and to give them a better future,” she said in heavily accented English, adding: I would not let anything stand in their way.”

Vaca continued:

DACA away was taken away by Trump and his racist advisors, Jeff Sessions and Steven Miller … We will not let racist men negotiate with our kids’ lives … We will not allow our families to be broken up … A mother’s love is stronger than the racists from the White House.

The escalated demands from the illegal aliens are compatible with Schulte’s goals...

The RAISE Act is a problem for Schulte’s investors because it would halve the inflow of new customers and workers, and –worse — it would prevent the investors from pushing Congress to pass the so-called “staple” green card proposal.

The proposed “staple” visa program would allow foreign students at U.S. universities to receive a green card stapled to their graduate degree. It is very popular among business groups because it would create a huge wave of salary-cutting white-collar competition in the skilled job sectors where young Americans hope to earn a good living. The salary-cutting competition would be intensified by the government’s offer of the very valuable prize of citizenship to foreign graduates who take jobs sought by the 800,000 Americans who graduate from college each year with skilled degrees in business and medicine, engineering, architecture and science, technology, math and chemical engineering.

But Schulte’s investors won’t get their staple proposal — or any increase in white-collar H-1B outsourcing — if Trump and the voters pressure Democrats to accept Trump’s popular immigration principles in exchange for a limited amnesty.

The third illegal alien introduced by Schulte was Luis Condorimay, who migrated to the United States from Peru at age 13 and earned a 2016 degree in chemical engineering. 

An amnesty for just younger illegals is unacceptable if it does not also include their parents, he insisted.  “This is just not something I can do. Would you accept a law where you protect yourself … but hurt your father and mother?”

He also spoke against any border and enforcement upgrades, and described the illegal-alien communities as the victims........

But business groups have used their political power to tilt the labor market in their favor,  via the federal policy of importing 1 million consumers and workers each year...

That Washington-imposed economic policy of mass-immigration floods the market with foreign labor, spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees. It also drives up real estate prices, widens wealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high-tech careers, and sidelines at least 5 million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.

The cheap-labor policy has also reduced investment and job creation in many interior states because the coastal cities have a surplus of imported labor...

Americans tell pollsters that they strongly oppose amnesties and cheap-labor immigration, even as most Americans also want to favor legal immigrants, and many sympathize with illegals.

Because of the successful cheap-labor strategy, wages for men have remained flat since 1973, and a growing percentage of the nation’s annual income is shifting to investors and away from employees. Read more about Illegal Aliens Escalate Amnesty Demands, Claim Racism

 A group of illegal aliens calling themselves the “Immigration Liberation Movement” crashed a press conference by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Monday, warning the Democratic Party not to “sell [us] out.”

The group shouted down Rep. Pelosi, who struggled to maintain control of the meeting, and unfurled a large banner calling for all illegal aliens to be legalized.

Others held up signs, including: “Fight 4 All 11 Million,” referring to the estimated total of all illegal aliens in the U.S.

In the “mic check” call-and-response style popularized by the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, the activists declared:

We remember all too well how for eight years the Democrats laid siege to our communities, raiding and deporting nearly three million people, of our family members and loved ones. Where was your resistance then? Ms. Pelosi, did you think we would forget? We send a clear message to our fellow undocumented youth and community: We are the resistance to Trump! Not the Democrats!

The activists also chanted “Brown power!” In a show of “intersectionality” — solidarity among left-wing groups — they also chanted “Trans lives matter!” and other slogans, while Pelosi stood silently behind the throng.

“You met with Trump, and you call that resistance?” they shouted in unison.

Earlier, Pelosi had spoken at the podium with community leaders and fellow members of Congress from the Bay Area in support of her legislative push for a bill that would legalize the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

President Donald Trump canceled DACA earlier this month, but left Congress a six-month window in which to find a legislative solution for the roughly 800,000 DACA beneficiaries. Pelosi said that she wanted the “DREAM Act,” a long-dormant Democratic Party bill that goes much further than DACA, “to be the basis of how we go forward.”

“We’re not giving up our fight to protect America’s dreamers,” she said.

However, she could not speak over the protests. “It’s clear you don’t want any answers,” she said.

As if to support her point, activists chanted: “All of us — or none of us,” meaning that they would only accept full amnesty for all illegal aliens, not just DACA beneficiaries. Read more about Illegal Aliens Crash Nancy Pelosi’s DACA Press Conference: ‘All of Us or None of Us!’

As a middle school student, Hugo Nicolas made a vow to himself.

“I told myself that even if people reject me or deny me things, I will still do my best to uphold the values of this country. I would like to help this nation be better because it gave me so many opportunities and helped me see the world in a different way,” Nicolas said. “Right now, it’s hard because I love this country. It’s just so bittersweet. My emotions are mixed.”

In August 2012, two months after graduating from McNary High School, Nicolas enrolled in a then-new program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), authorized through executive action by President Barack Obama. DACA did not confer or create a path to citizenship for undocumented children brought to the United States before their 16th birthdays, but it was a huge shift for Nicolas. At age 11, he walked across a desert hand-in-hand with his mother, through a barbed wire fence and into the United States.

In exchange for registering under DACA, the federal government agreed not to deport Nicolas and allowed him to apply for a renewable two-year work permit. The permit came with a social security number that meant he could be paid above-the-table and enjoy the protections afforded other American workers.

“I was excited about the things I could do like being able to go to college, being able to drive, being able to travel within the United States, being able to contribute and really get involved. I felt empowered to basically have no obstacles,” Nicolas said.

Last week, President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions slapped an expiration date on Nicolas’ American dreams. DACA privileges will be rescinded for Nicolas and 800,000 other undocumented youths, collectively known as Dreamers, registered through the program. Their best hope now is Congress coming up with an alternative by March 5, 2018. In the wake of the action by the Trump administration, Oregon joined 14 other states and the District of Columbia in a lawsuit to block the termination of the program. Another suit to stop the DACA wind down was filed by three additional states on Monday, Sept. 11.

While those lawsuits travel through the judicial system, Nicolas and his younger brother and sister, who are also registered through DACA, are recalibrating their plans.

Last year, Nicolas decided to take time off from earning his degree at the University of Oregon to focus on saving money if Trump’s campaign promises to end DACA ever came to fruition. With some of the money he and his brother were socking away, they planned to purchase their father a new car, maybe even a new home for their parents. His family sold their car to afford the fees and attorney costs associated with Hugo’s initial DACA application.

“All that’s kind of on-hold now,” Nicolas said.

But, truthfully, the impact of Trump’s words began having an effect on Nicolas long before it was announced DACA would be rescinded.

“I feel like he is trying to paint a picture of immigrants as bad people who are only bringing crime and other problems. It’s totally the opposite of what we have done with deferred action,” Nicolas said. Nicolas is currently working as a personal banker with plans to start earning his investment licenses this month. “It has also made me pay more attention to the announcements coming from the administration every week. I have to be aware and more careful with all the changes that are happening.”

Between the president’s words and actions and the vocal support of both from his fans, Nicolas finds himself questioning how others view him and more driven to tell his story, the crux of which is in that middle school vow.

Even then, Nicolas wanted to go to college. He had his sights on a military or Ivy League school. His undocumented status would have stood in the way of both.

“Thinking about college in high school was depressing and I felt so ashamed,” he said. Still, he wanted to prove his value.

At McNary, Nicolas was a star pupil and an athlete. If there was a project that needed volunteers, he would usually be found on the site. He was a Keizer Fire District Explorer, a Keizer Police Department Cadet, and even served as the youth councilor to the Keizer City Council.

“Being undocumented, there is risk in everything you do – even if you are doing something good,” Nicolas said.

It was the last post, in 2012, where things began to unravel a bit. Near the end of his year as youth councilor, someone alerted the city council to Nicolas’ undocumented status. It prompted councilors to propose a policy change that would bar non-citizens from taking on the youth councilor position. Despite public outcry in council chambers, the “Hugo Rule” was approved. The rule still stands, but was tweaked for exchange students to be part of the youth councilor program.

Once he registered for Deferred Action, the college door swung open. He started taking classes at Chemeketa while working three jobs, eventually transferring to the University of Oregon.

“I could finally stand up and show what I could do if people allowed me that opportunity. I also knew that I was following a procedure and didn’t have to worry about what would happen tomorrow,” he said.

Nicolas is altering some of his plans, but he is also feeling a renewed sense of purpose. He bristles at the language used by Trump and Sessions when talking about immigrants.

“The way Jeff Sessions talked about Dreamers made us sound like criminals and not contributing. We’re teachers and nurses and attorneys and bankers. If someone needs representation and can’t afford it or needs tuition assistance, there is a whole group that chips in to help support them,” he said.

He is reconsidering his plans for taking a year off school with the notion that finishing his education is it’s own form of rebelling against the labels some would stick on him.

Deferred Action recipients have also found resilience in numbers.

“We’re more politically involved than we were and we’ve become more united because we can travel and learn from each other,” he said.

For those who want to help prevent DACA from winding down, Nicolas said there are two ways to act locally. First, contact Oregon Rep. Greg Walden, and tell him you support the Dreamers. Oregon’s other representatives and senators have already voiced their support.

The second is more personal and, potentially, more of a challenge: be vocal in your support of Dreamers wherever you go.

“When Trump is saying things about immigrants that are not true, it makes me hold back more because I don’t know if that’s the way people really see me,” he said. “When I see someone who never supported immigration reform now offering encouragement, that means everything.”
  Read more about President’s actions could end with deportation of MHS grad

The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Cinthya Garcia-Cisneros, denying state prosecutors' Petition to Review a May 3 Court of Appeals decision that threw out Garcia's highly publicized "hit-and-run" conviction of January 2014.

Both sides in the case agreed Garcia, a Forest Grove resident, didn't initially realize she'd accidentally driven over two young stepsisters — Anna Dieter-Eckerdt and Abigail Robinson, ages 6 and 11 — who were apparently lying or hiding in a huge leaf pile on Forest Grove's Main Street in October 2013.

Then 18, Garcia spent three months in jail before going to trial in front of Washington County Circuit Court Judge Rick Knapp. A jury found Garcia guilty of two counts of "failure to perform the duties of a driver toward injured persons," a felony.

At the request of the victims' families, Knapp sentenced Garcia to probation and community service.

But the Court of Appeals ruled last May that she never should have been convicted in the first place because Knapp should have granted defense attorney Ethan Levi's motion for acquittal.

The intent behind the "failure to perform duties" law is to "penalize a driver who attempts to escape his financial responsibility for damage or attempts to escape criminal or civil prosecution by fleeing the scene of an accident without giving the required information to the other party," wrote Appeals Court Judge James C. Egan.

Levi said he requested three times — during pre-trial motions, after the state presented its case, and again after the jury pronounced its verdict — that Knapp dismiss the case or aquit Garcia because she didn't realize she had struck or hurt anyone and therefore was not trying to escape any responsibility when she drove away from the scene.

But the state argued — and Knapp agreed — that a duty to return to the scene of the accident was implicit in the statute.

The Supreme Court today, Sept. 14, upheld the Court of Appeals' finding that the statute actually indicates the opposite — that the required duties would be imposed "only on a driver who knew at the time of the accident that he or she was involved in an accident and thus can 'immediately' take action."

Now Levi needs to file another motion for acquittal. If that motion is granted, he will look into expunging the arrest from Garcia's record.

"I just emailed her and she's very happy about it," Levi said. But the shadow of the tragedy hangs over the news, he added. "We're not like, jubilant, because it was this whole horrible thing." Read more about Leaf-pile driver gets favorable response from Oregon Supreme Court

The recent decision by the federal government to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals causes me to once again reflect on the relationship between our immigrant communities and local law enforcement.

As I am out and about in the greater Woodburn community, I hear of continued confusion, fear and mistrust of government among immigrant communities.

Critical to our mission as local police officers is the notion that people in our community, particularly our immigrant communities, trust us and not fear us. Trust cultivates an environment of cooperation with victims and witnesses of crime, cooperation that we desperately need to keep our community safe.

The ongoing controversies surrounding immigration issues in our country unfortunately plays counter to that mission, resulting in emotions encouraging fear — not trust — and stifling any such cooperation.

Oregon law, which we follow and enforce, guides us in our daily work of keeping our community safe. ORS 181A.820 helps reinforce the goal of mutual trust and respect between local law enforcement and immigrant communities.

This Oregon law specifically prohibits local law enforcement from engaging solely in administrative immigration matters.

The statute does, however, allow for local law enforcement involvement in immigration matters when circumstances of a crime are present, including a person subject to arrest pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal magistrate.

The decisions surrounding immigration policy and its future are mired in politics well beyond the reach of local law enforcement. What is within the reach of both local law enforcement and our immigrant communities are opportunities to continue fostering mutual trust and respect.

Now is the time for us to come together and work hard to overcome any fear and mistrust of local law enforcement.

We can do this together through building and maintaining positive relationships, being transparent, practicing the tenets of police legitimacy and procedural justice, and working in partnership to keep our community a safe place to live, work and visit.

Jim Ferraris is the chief of the Woodburn Police Department. To read the Oregon statues mentioned in this letter, go to www.oregonlaws.org
  Read more about Woodburn police chief aims to build trust after news of DACA repeal