illegal aliens

Democrats and Republicans in bluer-than-blue Oregon strongly backed a referendum on Election Day to eliminate a 2013 law that would have provided drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants.

The small band of Republican politicians and activists who put the referendum on the ballot say national Republican politicians should learn that if they oppose amnesty, the public will support them.

On Nov. 4, 66 percent of the state’s voters backed the referendum and eliminated the illegals’ licenses.

Those 908,682 voters included many Democrats who also reelected the state’s Democratic establishment, led by Gov. John Kitzhaber and Sen. Jeff Merkley.

“It is only at the state legislature and at Congress that [illegal immigration] becomes a partisan issue,” said state Rep. Kim Thatcher, who sponsored the referendum, dubbed Measure 88.

“In real life, people appreciate the importance of the laws, and they appreciate people who come here legally and they don’t want to support people who come here illegally,” she told The Daily Caller.

People would come up and say to me, ‘I am a lifelong liberal, but this is going too far. Please let me sign your petition,’” said Cynthia Kendoll, the president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform.

“They were adamant that people who are in our country have gotten way too much and that we’ve got to fix this problem,” she told TheDC.

Since it was first publicized in late 2013, the referendum “polled two-to-one from day one. … That needle didn’t move at all,” said GOP state Rep. Sal Esquivel. ”People are pretty much set … and they want to see their federal government go ahead and take care of the situation instead of moving their lips and doing nothing.”

“Doggone it, a lot of Democrats feel the same way as Republicans,” Esquivel said.

That judgment is backed up by national polls, including recent surveys by Paragon Insights and the bipartisan battleground series of polls.

Measure 88 also helped GOP candidates who championed it, said Esquivel. “People who campaigned on this issue did quite well, an the ones that did not, didn’t do very well.”

The GOP gubernatorial candidate ignored the issue, and lost his race, 600,300 votes to Kitzhaber’s 668,816 votes.

But Rep. Thatcher, a Measure 88 sponsor, won a seat in the state Senate, even though GOP turnout sagged, and the state’s voters increased the Democratic advantage in the Senate from 16:14 to 18:12.

The referendum was also championed by Bill Post, a conservative talk-show host who was elected to take Thatcher’s seat in the state House.

During his campaign, Post won support from the major trade association that backed the award of drivers’ licenses to illegals, the Oregon Association of Nurseries. The association’s member companies use many migrants to plant and trim trees.

In a meeting with the association’s members, “I said ‘No, it’s really simple, you can’t break the law’ … [and] they endorsed me and gave me money,” Post told TheDC. “On 99 percent of the issues, they and I see eye-to-eye,” Post said.

Other employers are investing in machinery instead of relying on migrant workers. For example, the state’s growing win industry had designed its vineyards so that grapes can be harvested by machines instead of migrants.

Measure 88 was so popular that the organizers won with a budget of only $50,000 for the campaign. The group spent only 18 cents per vote to win 35 of 36 counties in the state.

In contrast, Kentucky GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell and his supporters paid 278 times as much, at $50 per vote.

The activists were actually outspent roughly five-to-one by pro-license group, Yes on Oregon Safe Roads.

The pro-license group was funded by the state’s Latino lobbies and immigration lawyers, by Hollywood liberals, and by progressive unions, churches and legal groups. It was also backed by landscaping and agricultural companies who prefer to hire cheap migrant labor instead of investing in machinery. These groups supported the Democrat-drafted 2013 license law because it incentivized more illegals to work and live in the state.

But the business and progressive groups only won the ballot in a single district, Portland, by a narrow 55-to-45 split.

“Moscow on the Willamette is very liberal, very left wing. … We didn’t even campaign there,” said spokesman Jim Ludwick, communications director at Oregonians for Immigration Reform.

The referendum’s backers tried to avoid any hint of ethnic tension or anti-immigrant attitudes in their campaign.

Instead, they focused their criticism on the unfairness of the 2013 law’s lax treatment of illegal drivers, and the unfairness of the state’s support for companies’ use of low-wage migrant labor.

“Nobody wants to break up families, nobody wants to be the meanie, but we do need to make sure that the people coming to the U.S. contribute and become part of the positive fabric,” said Thatcher, who owns a road construction firm.

“We try to talk about [immigration] in the general sense, because if you get down to specific individuals … you go down a slippery slope, you start denigrating groups based on a few,” Ludwig said.

Many voters were repelled by the 2013 law’s easy treatment of illegals, said Ludwick.

Oregonians must periodically prove their identity with passports and birth certificates as they renew their licenses, but illegals would have been able to get a license by showing an unverifiable “Matrícula Consular” identification document that they can buy from Mexican government officials in Oregon.

That sense of unfairness was also a proxy issue for fear loss of control, said Ludwick. There’s no guarantee that the Mexican ID cards would show the person’s true name, so the process could be gamed by criminals to conceal their identity behind real Oregon licenses said, he said.

“Our sovereignty would be in the hands of the Mexican counsel general’s office,” he said. “They would be the adjudicator of who could stay in the country.”

Voters were also concerned about the impact of illegals on jobs, said Ludwick.

“When we talked about jobs we simply said this — wages are flat, there’s been no increase in wages, millions of Americans are out work and millions are underemployed,” Ludwick said.

People understand that “if you have an oversupply of labor, wages are going to be suppressed,” he said.

“Our economy is in mess, we don’t have jobs” outside Portland, said Post.

People don’t want to blame immigration or immigrants for the problems, but they would talk around the issue of immigration’s impact on jobs, Ludwick said. For example, one woman whom he said she would support the referendum because her two sons couldn’t find good jobs. “One is living at home, and one is sharing an apartment, trying to get on a substitute teacher, the [first] one went back to school because he can’t get a job in his field,” Ludwick said.

But those fairness and jobs issues, however true, important and civic-minded, were also proxy issues for the public’s deeper concerns about the impact of large-scale immigration on their communities, Ludwick said.

“One of the biggest things that’s not really addressed is that the U.S. is so welcoming, and we just keep giving and giving, and we keep including so many people at great cost to us, our society, to our pocket book, to our unemployment,” said Kendoll.

“We’re getting to that tipping point. … People are saying ‘Wait a minute, this is just too much,’” she said.

“It’s the numbers,” Ludwick said, citing the annual arrival of one million legal immigrants, 650,000 guest-workers and many illegal immigrants, who seek jobs sought by the four million Americans who enter the workforce each year.

“It is not that every migrant is bad. … It is that we can’t accommodate all the world’s poor and underprivileged,” he said.

Despite their huge victory in blue Oregon, the Oregon GOP members and activists haven’t gotten any calls from the national GOP apparatus.

“Not a single solitary one,” said Kendoll.

TheDC asked for a comment from Rep. Greg Walden, the sole Republican House member in Oregon, and the chairman of the committee panel that helps GOP legislators win elections.

“Greg opposes amnesty, voted against the drivers’ license referendum, and was glad to see it defeated overwhelmingly,” said a statement from Walden’s press aide, Andrew Malcolm. “In his many town halls and other meetings in Oregon, Greg has heard strong support for securing the border and fixing our broken immigration system,” Malcolm said.

Many Oregon employers hire foreign college grads in place of Americans.

The lesson from Oregon’s referendum is that Washington politicians “should stand up, and yes it would help [the Oregon GOP] because people will start to recognize that the Republicans actually can provide leadership,” said Thatcher.

“If they could stand up, they could pull a lot of people from all parties to recognize at least that part of the GOP as a positive thing, and say, may be the Republicans have backbone after all.”

By pushing his amnesty plan, Obama isn’t learning the lessons that voters are teaching, said Esquivel. “It seems like he would have learned from the last election, but obviously he didn’t. … He keeps taking a meat cleaver and putting it into his forehead to see if it hurts.”

GOP leaders should “wake up, the people are upset right now,” said Post.

“We have to secure the borders and we have to deal with this immigration issue,” he said. “Right now, the wind is at their back. The Nov. 4 election, it was a red wave.” Read more about Deep Blue Oregon Votes To Block Drivers’ License To Illegals

Determined to go it alone, President Obama will head to Nevada on Friday to sign an executive order granting “deferred action” to two illegal immigrant groups- parents of United States citizens or legal permanent residents who have been in the country for five years, and young people who who were brought into the country illegally as of 2010.

Obama will sign the executive order at the same Las Vegas high school where he unveiled his sweeping blueprint for a national immigration overhaul nearly two years ago.

During a 15-minute primetime speech Thursday, Obama said his administration will start accepting applications from illegal immigrants who seek the deferred actions.

Those who qualify will be granted protections for three years, Obama said, as he laid out his sweeping plan to the public Thursday night from the East Room of the White House.

“Mass amnesty would be unfair,” Obama said during the primetime address. “Mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character.”

Obama, who pitched his plan as a “commonsense, middle ground approach,” said “if you meet the criteria, you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law” but warned “if you’re a criminal, you’ll be deported.”

The president did not specify how many in each "deferred action" group would be granted the new status. According to recent reports, the parental group could involve upwards of 4.5 million immigrants, with those brought into the country illegally making up close to 300,000 new applications. There are an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally.

But Republicans have been quick to criticize and say the executive action is an example of Obama stretching his powers as president.

Even before the speech, conservatives said they were willing to do whatever was necessary to stop Obama’s plan.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who will become the majority leader in January when the new congressional class is sworn-in, said Obama would regret choosing to ignore the will of the American people.

McConnell, who made his statements from the Senate floor Thursday morning, has led the charge against the president and has promised a legislative fight when Republicans take full control of Congress in 2015.

“If President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act,” McConnell said.

Utah Rep Jason Chaffetz, who will replace Rep. Darrell Issa as chair of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News that the president’s timing on announcing the plan was “crystal clear.”

“It’s all about politics,” Chaffetz said. “He just got slaughtered in an election.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in an op-ed in Politico Wednesday that if Obama acts, the new GOP majority in the Senate should retaliate by not acting on a single one of his nominees – executive or judicial – “so long as the illegal amnesty persists.” Read more about Obama heads to Vegas to rally support for immigration overhaul

Voters in deep-blue Oregon overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure on Nov. 4 to give drivers' licenses to the state's illegal immigrants — a judgment that President Barack Obama should consider when contemplating executive amnesty, nationally syndicated radio talker Lars Larson told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on Newsmax TV on Tuesday.
 

Watch the video of Lars Larson's interview. Read more about Lars Larson: Even Liberal Oregonians Oppose Immigrant Amnesty

Will Democrats ever realize that increased immigration is not only bad policy, but a political loser as well?

“We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists” said Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural. It was a gracious touch, a rhetorical olive branch to his vanquished foes. Too bad he didn’t mean it.

Jefferson immediately went about killing off the party of his longtime nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, while his vice president, Aaron Burr, went about killing Hamilton.

After last week’s midterm election, President Obama and Senate Majority Leader-elect Mitch McConnell offered similar rhetorical olive branches. While it’s unlikely the president and the senator from Kentucky will face off on the dueling grounds of Weehawken, their words of equanimity were about as sincere as Thomas Jefferson’s back in 1801.

In his post-debacle presser, President Obama told the nation “I hear you.” But while the president said all the right things about working with the new Republican reality in Washington, he also offered two thorns for every rose pedal.

Once again President Obama threatened executive action on immigration if “Congress won’t act.”

But Congress did act on immigration. The House refusal to pass the Senate’s 2013 Pathway to Citizenship bill was an action. The Senate bill was rejected as a byzantine mess presenting a logistical nightmare at best and at worst yet another incentive for millions to migrate to this country illegally.

The president and supporters of “comprehensive immigration reform”—Washington-speak for amnesty for illegal immigrants—might not like the action Congress took, but act they did.

On Nov. 4, the American people validated Congress’s action by re-electing anti-amnesty candidates and adding to their numbers. Senate Democrats who supported the immigration bill went down hard: Arkansas’ Mark Pryor, North Carolina’s Kay Hagan, Alaska’s Mark Begich. And when Louisiana holds its runoff in December, Mary Landrieu will likely join the club despite her recent flip on the Keystone XL pipeline and just about every other issue she had previously supported. If the new edition of Mary Landrieu shows up in the Senate, the Republicans win either way.

In Oregon, one of the bluest of blue states, a state ballot measure may be the canary in the coal mine President Obama ignores at his own peril.

Yet, a draft of a 10-point executive order leaked to Fox News indicates the president plans to grant as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants permission to stay in the country by extending DACA immunity (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) to the parents of the so-called DREAMers—kids who were brought to this country illegally by their parents. The president’s action would also apply to the parents of children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.

To mute the blowback, action could come next week. The first howl you’ll hear will come from Mary Landrieu, who will have a hard time spinning her way past this one.

If President Obama goes down this road, he will be issuing a slap in the face to Senate Republicans that might not result in pistols at 20 paces, but guarantees a political duel to the death once the new Congress convenes in January.

While issues other than immigration contributed to the electoral disaster inflicted on the president’s party, to turn a deaf ear to the anti-amnesty message delivered at the polls is to deny reality.

Case in point: Oregon, one of the bluest of blue states, where a state ballot measure may be the canary in the coal mine President Obama ignores at his own peril.

On May 1, Gov. John Kitzhaber signed Senate Bill 833, granting undocumented immigrants the right to drive in his state.

But a funny thing happened in the Pacific Northwest: More than 70,000 Oregonians signed a hastily organized petition drive and qualified Measure 88, which would repeal Senate Bill 833, for the November ballot.

Sponsored by Oregonians for Immigration Reform, an anti-amnesty group, the “Save Oregon’s Driver’s License” campaign scored the most significant anti-amnesty victory ever, beating the pro-driver’s license forces 66 percent to 33 percent. It got more votes, in fact, than either Gov. Kitzhaber or incumbent Democratic Senator Jeff Merkely, who both easily won re-election. It even outpolled a successful pro-pot measure.

In total, 941,042 Oregonians voted to deny driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

Does President Obama hear this?

“The public supports a pathway to citizenship” is repeated with the regularity of a metronome by Democrats and the corporatist wing of the Republican Party determined to keep a steady supply of cheap labor flowing into this country. But if you ask the American public a straight up question—“Do you support amnesty for illegal immigrants?”—you get a very different response.

According to an April 2013 ABC News/Washington Post poll, 80 percent of American adults support “stricter border control to try to reduce illegal immigration.” This includes 93 percent of Republicans, 76 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, 74 percent of blacks, and a whopping 61 percent of Hispanics.

Polls are only as good as the poll question, and I’m skeptical of nearly every immigration-related poll. But this can be said with certainty: The public clearly supports a secure border, and it’s impossible to just brush off the Oregon vote.

Then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano assured the nation “the border is secure” before leaving to become chancellor of the University of California. President Obama continues to make the irrelevant claim “the border is more secure than ever.” But the truth revealed itself this year when thousands upon thousands of unaccompanied children simply walked to this country. How secure could the border possibly be if 5-year-olds can penetrate it?

We need meaningful immigration reform and we can get it quickly if only the pro-amnesty forces will separate border security from the pathway to citizenship. Secure the border first, as well as America’s ports, harbors, and especially airports—where one-third of undocumented immigrants enter.

Once the administration has demonstrated effective control of the border, then Congress will resolve the myriad other issues related to immigration, starting with normalizing the status of the millions of DREAMers caught in legal limbo through no fault of their own.

But we’ll never have a solution as long as the two parties try to sell both simultaneously.

In 1986 Congress passed the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, the so-called Reagan Amnesty that promised border security in exchange for a “one time only” amnesty for 3 million undocumented immigrants.

The immigrants got their amnesty and the United States got 12 million to 20 million more undocumented immigrants.

We cherish the notion that this country is a nation of immigrants and understand the American Dream is regenerated by new arrivals from all over the globe. It’s maybe the most American thing of all.

But Americans also overwhelmingly support the rule of law—and understand a nation that doesn’t control its own borders is a nation in name only.

Thomas Jefferson also warned in his first inaugural that not “every difference of opinion is a difference of principle.” But for millions of Americans, the border debate is matter of principle and won’t be burned a second time on the altar of Democratic Party political expedience or multinational corporate profits. Read more about Didn't Obama Hear Oregon’s Warning Shot on Immigration?

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the state of Nebraska for denying driver’s licenses to Dreamers who have received temporary authorization to stay and work in the United States.

The plaintiff suing the state is Mayra Saldana, a 24-year-old Dreamer born in Mexico who has been residing in Nebraska since she was 2 years old. Last years, she was authorized by the U.S. government to remain in the U.S. for a renewable two-year period under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. She was also granted a work permit and a Social Security number.

The latest government statistics show 2,250 Dreamers living in Nebraska have been approved for the DACA program. A total of 521,815 Dreamers have been approved nationwide.

Saldana sued the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles Director Rhonda Lahm in June after the agency denied her a driver’s license even though she had a Social Security number and was authorized to live and work in the U.S. She argued that the DMV policy denying her a driver’s license violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.

But on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp ruled that the state had not violated Saldana’s equal-protection rights in denying her a driver’s license.

Smith Camp wrote in her ruling that there was “uncontroverted evidence” that the Nebraska DMV was following the state’s statute and issuing driver’s licenses and state identification cards only to people with a lawful status, as determined by the federal government and verified through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.

“Saldana is not similarly situated to persons having lawful status in the United States with respect to her qualification for a Nebraska driver’s license, and Lahm has not denied Saldana equal protection of the law,” Smith Camp wrote.

The Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, who defended the state’s denial of driver’s licenses to Dreamers who’ve been approved for the DACA program, praised Wednesday’s ruling.

“We’re pleased the court dismissed the case and recognized illegal immigrants don’t qualify for Nebraska driver’s licenses,” Bruning said Wednesday. “Today’s ruling validates the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicle’s denial of applications from those without lawful status.”

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund represented Saldana in the lawsuit. Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF’s president and general counsel, once referred to the Nebraska DMV’s policy denying driver’s licenses to DACA recipients as a “blatantly discriminatory policy.”

Alonzo Rivas, an attorney for MALDEF in Chicago, is not ready to give up on the case. He is considering other options in response to the judge’s ruling on Wednesday, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Nebraska and Arizona are the only two states denying driver’s licenses to Dreamers who’ve been approved for the DACA program. Like in Nebraska, Dreamers in Arizona also filed a lawsuit last year, challenging the state for denying driver’s licenses to DACA recipients. That case is still pending in court.

  Read more about Judge tosses lawsuit over driver’s licenses for Dreamers in Nebraska

President Barack Obama will introduce 10 executive actions that could suspend deportations for and legalize more than 5 million illegal immigrants as early as next week, news reports say.

The plan was part of a draft proposal to a federal agency that was leaked to Fox News, the network reported on Wednesday.

Obama's announcement could come as early as Nov. 21 or shortly thereafter, a White House source told Fox.

The president was briefed on the plan by the Department of Homeland Security before he left on his trip to Asia and the Pacific last week, Fox reports. One of the architects of the plan was Esther Olavarria, the top immigration lawyer on the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's staff.

Among the plan's most controversial elements include orders that would expand deportation deferrals not only to illegals who came to the U.S. as children, but to the parents of U.S. citizens — those who were born in this country — and those who have become legal permanent residents.

The parental expansion could allow as many as 4.5 million illegal adults with U.S.-born children to remain in the country, Fox reports.

Obama's orders also would expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program he created in June 2012.

DACA affected millions of illegals who were brought to the United States as children before June 2007 and who were under 31 years old as of June 2012, when the program started.

With the new order, Obama would expand DACA to cover anyone who entered the United States before age 16 — and would move the cutoff date back to Jan. 1, 2010.

This is expected to affect nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants, Fox reports.

In addition, a State Department immigrant visa program involving technology jobs would offer another half-million immigrants a path to citizenship, according to Fox. Spouses also would be helped by the program.

According to Fox, the DHS plans to "promote" the new naturalization process by giving a 50 percent discount on the first 10,000 applicants who come forward, with the exception of those whose incomes are above 200 percent of the national poverty level.

Other planned executive actions would increase pay for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — an effort to "increase morale" within the agency, Fox reports — and the administration would revise its priorities to target only serious criminals for deportation, while replacing its current "Secure Communities" program with a new effort.

The Fox report comes as Obama vowed last week to act unilaterally on immigration in the absence of congressional action.

He was attacked by House Speaker John Boehner, who said any such move would "poison the well" with Republicans, and by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who likened it to "waving a red flag in front of a bull."

McConnell, who will become majority leader when the new Congress convenes in January, reiterated his opposition to Obama's acting alone on immigration in a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday.

"President Obama has a duty to help build the trust we all need to move forward together, not to double-down on old ways of doing business," McConnell said. "That's why I think moving forward with the unilateral action on immigration he's planned would be a big mistake." Read more about Report: Obama Will Soon Announce 10-Point Plan for Illegals

On Election Day Americans across the United States voted to turn control of the United States Senate over to Republicans and increase the number of Republicans in the House of Representatives. Additionally, many supposed “Blue” (Democratic) states elected Republican governors.

About one week before the elections, President Obama admitted that the elections would be, in essence, a referendum on the policies of his administration. One of the most contentious and controversial policy decisions of his administration was to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” to grant lawful status to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens (DREAMERs) who may be as old as 31 years of age who claim to have entered the United States prior to their 15^th birthday.

Clearly the majority of American voters oppose the president’s agenda – his policies and his actions.

Yet, incredibly, during his first news conference held just after Election Day, President Obama said that he would not attempt to read the “political tea leaves” but would leave it to the journalists and pundits to do that. He might as well have stuffed his fingers in his ears and made it clear that he will not listen to the voices of the citizens of the United States, who had just spoken loud and clearly on this issue. It is beyond belief that any politician would not be concerned about interpreting the results of elections or political polls.

Where immigration and other issues are concerned, the President has, in effect, stated, “Damn the will of the American people, full steam ahead!”

The Washington Post published the transcript of the presidential news conference. Here is one of many key sentences from his prepared statement:

All of us have to give more Americans a reason to feel like the ground is stable beneath their feet, that the future is secure, that there is a path for young people to succeed, and that folks here in Washington are concerned about them.

Our immigration laws were enacted to protect American lives and the jobs of American workers. How would providing millions of illegal aliens with lawful status provide Americans with that which the President claimed should be provided to Americans? Virtually every political candidate promises to “create jobs.” However, each month the number of foreign workers entering the United States is greater than the number of new jobs that are being created. Legalizing unknown millions of heretofore illegal aliens would put these aliens into direct competition with unemployed and underemployed American workers. Even Americans who don’t lose their jobs to foreign competitors will likely suffer wage suppression. It is time for the government to liberate jobs by effectively enforcing the immigration laws. This would, overnight, free up millions of jobs for Americans.

The contradictions in his prepared statement and his responses to questions posed by reporters at that news conference were obvious and disturbing. On the one hand he talked about the need to enable American workers to find good jobs and for American students to be able to afford college educations so that they can get attain their goals and not have to worry about paying off massive student loans. On the other hand, however, he talked about the need to go forward with what he deemed would be “lawful” actions to provide millions of illegal aliens with pathways to lawful status provided that they paid their taxes, learned English and would be put on the infamous “end of the line.” “Beauty,” as the saying goes, “is in the eye of the beholder.” These previous issued executive orders are of questionable legality and raise many questions that have, thus far gone unanswered. This time he may well over-reach and could face many legal challenges.

Of course no one ever asks, where is the end of the line or where the line leads. The point is, that while waiting on the “end of the line,” these aliens would be granted lawful status, giving them an equal standing in the labor pool as lawful immigrants and even, United States citizens. Although the presence of these aliens in the United States represents a violation of law, yet they would be provided with official identity documents and because of the huge number of aliens who would be eligible to participate, there would be no capacity to conduct in-person interviews or field investigations to verify that the information contained in their applications is accurate and truthful. There would be no way to verify when or how they entered the United States, or what is in their backgrounds or their possible affiliations with criminal or terrorist organizations.

The administration appears hell-bent on wielding the President’s infamous phone and pen to undermine America and American workers by undermining the integrity of the immigration system.

However, what remains to be seen is what, if anything, the Congress will do. We need to be concerned about what the “Lame Duck” congress may do and we also need to be just as concerned about what both the Senate and House of Representatives may do when they re-convene in January.

In noting the “Lame Duck” Congress, it is remarkable that when employees are terminated they are almost invariably divested of their access to the computer databases at work before they are handed their “pink slips” to make certain that they not take any retaliatory action against their employer.

Where Congress is concerned, members who have lost their positions have several weeks during that dreaded “Lame Duck” period when they continue to have full authority to act, even though they know that they are no longer going to be held accountable by the electorate. This is an open invitation to a disaster! The time has come to end this lunacy. At the very least, the day after Election Day, members of Congress who were either defeated or decided to not run for re-election should not be able to take official action. Votes on critical issues should not be cast by those who are on their way out the door.

Here is a cautionary note to all members of Congress. The American people have spoken loudly. In just two years every seat in the House of Representatives will be up for election again. One third of all Senate seats will be up for election and the White House will be up for grabs. Clearly the citizens of the United States have awakened from their slumber. Americans, irrespective of political orientation, are angry and are very much paying attention. Immigration is rarely portrayed as it should be. It is not a single issue but a singular issue that impacts virtually every challenge and threat America and Americans face. As I noted in my PFIR policy brief, “The Liberal Case for Effective Immigration Law Enforcement” this is not about “Left” or “Right” but about right or wrong.

When Obama was asked about the nuclear aspirations of Iran and negotiations with the United States, he said that it would be better to not make any deal than make a bad deal. This perspective must be applied to any immigration proposals as well. Read more about Obama Promises (Threatens?) to Take Executive Action on Immigration

A career attorney with top ratings at Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that she faced retaliation from superiors for refusing to drop cases pending against illegal aliens guilty of DUI, identity theft, and other crimes.

Patricia Vroom, 59, made the claims in a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court of Appeals in Arizona against Department of Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson.

The Daily Caller obtained a copy of the complaint.

Vroom, who has worked for ICE and its predecessor for 26 years, alleges that in Feb. 2013 she was contacted by ICE deputy director Sarah Hartnett and was “instructed to look favorably for prosecutorial discretion on immigration removal cases involving the lowest level of felony convictions for identity theft under Arizona law.”

“This was a very significant development,” the suit claims. Criminal aliens are generally considered “‘priority cases’ that should be aggressively pursued.”

But Hartnett explained to Vroom that convictions for low-level offenders “could be converted from a felony to a misdemeanor after the defendant successfully completed probation.”

Hartnett’s argument to Vroom, according to the suit, was that “since the typical alien defendant convicted under these provisions of Arizona criminal law had simply been using a fake I.D. to get and keep employment, [Vroom] and her attorneys should look carefully at the individual’s equities and consider their cases for ‘administrative closure.’”

The administrative closure designation would allow Vroom to take such cases off of the docket altogether.

Vroom cited another incident concerning an alien who falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen and registered to vote on two occasions.

As Vroom was pursuing the case, Stoller wrote of her in a Sept. 24, 2013 email to an ICE staffer: “[Vroom] is so wrong on so many levels that I don’t have a response right now…It is abundantly clear that, notwithstanding two years of discussing [prosecutorial discretion], priorities, and efficiencies with the field, Tucson needs comprehensive correction.”

An ICE official named Matt Downer asked Vroom how she would handle the case. She said that she would grant relief by issuing a cancellation for removal.

But Downer issued a ruling even more favorable to the alien: “dismiss with prejudice.”

That designation is significant, the lawsuit claims.

If the subject of the crime were to be charged with a crime in the future “the Department of Homeland Security would have been forever precluded from bringing the removal case against [the subject] again in immigration court on the same, legally sound, charges.”

Vroom also claims that on Nov. 5, 2013, Downer emailed her concerning the case of an individual who was found ineligible for relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was started by President Obama, because of an ID theft conviction.

Unknown to Vroom at the time, top ICE and DHS officials had discussed that individual case on a conference call in Aug. 2013.

An angry Downer emailed Vroom on Nov. 5, 2013, demanding to know why she had been unable to convince her Field Office Director to cancel the Notice to Appear order for the alien.

Vroom also alleges in the suit that on Sept. 17 of this year, an ICE official named Jim Stolley told attorneys with the agency’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor at a training session that “they should favorably exercise prosecutorial discretion in some cases involving low-level criminal aliens, including those who had ‘old’ DUI convictions, if they had enough equities.”

When some of the attorneys at the session pushed back against Stolley’s suggestions, he allegedly said “we don’t give a shit about that. Let it go.”

Vroom alleges that she faced sexual and age discrimination from her superiors. And during a mid-year review conducted in May 2013, ICE official Sarah Hartness told her that some had complained that Vroom was giving “a lot of push-back.”

Prior to her recent struggles, Vroom received glowing reviews and won numerous awards, including two for “District Counsel of the Year.”

Vroom’s performance rating for the year 2010-2011 was the highest — a 4.94 on a five-point scale — out of all 26 chief counsels working at ICE.

By Nov. 2013, Vroom had fallen to the bottom of the pack in terms of performance rating. She was scored a 3.53. Read more about Lawsuit: Obama Immigration Officials Pressured Attorney To Overlook Illegal Alien DUIs And ID Theft

Last week's election gave me hope for Oregon.

Not because of the overall results. They were unsurprising.

Rather, I am heartened that thousands of Oregonians voted for individuals and issues, instead of along straight party lines.

If you look at county-by-county election results, you'll see vast differences. For example, Marion and Polk counties voted for Republican Dennis Richardson for governor but Democrat Jeff Merkley for U.S. senator.

Measure 88, which would have made driver cards available to undocumented Oregonians, passed in only one county — Multnomah — and lost overwhelmingly statewide. Meanwhile, Measure 89, the state Equal Rights Amendment, was approved statewide amid support in Northwest, Southwest, Central and Northeast Oregon counties. Measure 90, the open or "top-two" primary, lost in every county.

As for Measure 91, legalizing marijuana, Polk and Marion counties voted against it but it passed statewide. Its support was in the Portland metro area, the coast, and Lane, Deschutes and Jackson counties. The measure barely failed in Josephine County.

I worry about what legalization will mean for Oregon.

But I am reassured that Oregonians displayed individuality and independence on Tuesday.

Other thoughts:

• This election season produced some of the worst-run campaigns I've witnessed.

One was Republican Monica Wehby's ill-fated attempt to unseat the liberal's liberal, Jeff Merkley.

Every candidate, especially a challenger, should learn from Wehby's mistakes:

1. Hire top-notch campaign staff. My sense is that staffers and consultants who understand Oregon do better than outsiders.

2. Know the issues before you even consider running. Wehby displayed a stunning unfamiliarity with most state and federal matters, which was a key reason that the Statesman Journal Editorial Board endorsed Rep. Jason Conger over her in the Republican primary.

3. Have a solid — non-plagiarized — plan for what you would do if elected. That plan must be understandable, significant and pragmatic. Give voters good reasons to vote for you. Opposition to the opponent is an insufficient reason.

4. Practice debating; master the art of debate and of back-and-forth politics, instead of taking criticisms personally. Both Kitzhaber and Richardson generally impressed me in this regard.

5. Expect your personal life to become public, so know your flaws and skeletons and reveal them before your opponent and the media do.

6. Respect the opponent. Set that standard for your campaign staff and volunteers.

By the way, the Merkley campaign's incessant attacks on Wehby bugged the heck out of me. One Merkley aide was even texting me on weekends to complain about Wehby.

• Some pro-Measure 88 campaigners looked down on the opponents, and it showed. The pro campaign got outwitted and outworked. The opponents had dug far deeper into the potential impacts of the driver cards.

• As with other journalists I know, I am basically a-political. I registered with a political party simply so I could vote in primary elections. I cannot afford to get invested in the outcomes, because my job is to deal with whichever side prevails.

So it was surprising to get a nasty, accusatory post-election email from a campaign consultant who's been around long enough that he should know better: Losing one's temper is not the optimum way of building credibility.

Which brings me to this tip, which is suitable for non-election consumption as well: Never put anything in an email that you wouldn't want to see on a billboard.

Or in a newspaper.

More information

To view statewide and county-by-county election results, go to oregonvotes.gov/results/2014G/index.html.
  Read more about Oregonians voted for people and issues, not party lines