illegal aliens

The strategists who base their political advice on public opinion polls have just had a surprise. A new poll reports that the American people are now more likely to trust Republicans to handle immigration and less likely to trust Democratic plans to offer illegals a path to citizenship (a.k.a. amnesty).

The new survey is decisive; 35 percent say the Republican Party would do a better job on immigration while only 27 percent say the Democrats would. That’s a dramatic reversal from the previous year.

The Wall Street Journal poll also revealed another change in public opinion that should get the attention of candidates. Support for the much-discussed “pathway to citizenship” has dropped significantly from 64 percent in April to 53 percent today.

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Obama was saying all summer that his plan was to bypass Congress and the Constitution and issue an “executive amnesty” for millions of illegal aliens. His amnesty plan has since changed to be issued only after the 2014 elections so as not to defeat Democrats up for election in November.

His planned amnesty will include work permits, photo IDs, and Social Security numbers for millions of people who entered the U.S. illegally, overstayed their visas, or defrauded U.S. immigration authorities.

As Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said, “Never in recent memory has the divide between the everyday citizen and the political elite been as wide as it is now.” He says the immigration debate comes down to several major questions:

Does our country have the right to decide who comes to live and work here? Do we have the right to demand that our representatives enforce our laws? Should American workers get priority for jobs?

If your answer is Yes, it is essential to block Obama’s planned executive amnesty and demand that Harry Reid call this up for a vote.

As Sessions said, “Let this sink in. The majority leader of the Senate is bragging that he knows the president will circumvent Congress to issue executive amnesty to millions.” Read more about Immigration Chicanery

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — An upscale hotel chain has agreed to pay about $2 million to settle allegations that 43 Utah employees working in the country illegally had returned to work after they were flagged by an immigration audit and fired, according to federal authorities...

...43 workers returned to their jobs within days using false names and documents...

The employees were hired before the hotel used the federal E-Verify system to check the eligibility of its workers, authorities said.

The U.S. attorney's office said that while the hotel and its executives helped investigators, the hotel is paying a fine because the employees involved in the scheme were acting on the hotel's behalf.

The hotel chain will pay nearly $2 million to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and spend another $500,000 to adopt new hiring policies, such as retraining corporate lawyers on immigration practices and retooling labor contracts.

"All industries, regardless of size, location and type are expected to comply with the law," said Kumar Kibble, a Denver-based Homeland Security agent overseeing Utah investigations. "As this significant settlement demonstrates, there are real consequences for businesses that employ an illegal workforce."

  Read more about Utah hotel settles case with immigration officials

The current ongoing immigration surge, call it an invasion, across the United States of America’s border with Mexico by persons who have illegally entered the country is really old news revisited to those who have been victimized of foreign national criminals in Oregon.

An unpublished July 1, 2014 report from the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) indicated there were 1,099 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) incarcerated in the state’s prison system...

What follows is a list of 15 Oregon counties whose County Circuit Courts adjudicated cases that sent the most criminal aliens (95.4 percent) to serve time in DOC prisons:

- 267 Multnomah, 24.3 percent of alien prisoners;
- 264 Marion, 24.0 percent of alien prisoners;
- 186 Washington, 16.9 percent of alien prisoners;
- 76 Clackamas, 6.9 percent of alien prisoners;
- 57 Lane, 5.2 percent of alien prisoners...

The types of crimes, the level of violence, being committed by aliens who have illegally entered the country against the state’s residents are the type crimes one might read about in an international newspaper or view on a television news program covering Mexico or third-world counties located in Central and South America or the Caribbean.

Here is how the 1,099 criminal aliens currently in the DOC prison population violently, brutally and mercilessly victimized the residents of this state:

- 199 sex abuses, 18.1 percent of alien crimes;
- 172 rapes, 15.6 percent of alien crimes;
- 161 drugs, 14.6 percent of alien crimes;
- 145 homicides, 13.2 percent of alien crimes;
- 103 assaults, 9.4 percent of alien crimes;
- 93 sodomies, 8.5 percent of alien crimes;
- 68 robberies, 6.2 percent of alien crimes;
- 44 kidnappings, 4.0 percent of alien crimes...

Focusing on the Americas and Caribbean, 976 of the 1,099 criminal aliens (88.8 percent) in the DOC prison system self-declared their citizenship from the following nations:

- 884 Mexico, 80.4 percent of prisoners;
- 34 Guatemala, 3.1 percent of prisoners;
- 15 El Salvador, 1.4 percent of prisoners;
- 11 Honduras, 1.0 percent of prisoners;
- 11 Cuba, 1.0 percent of prisoners...

Another element of foreign national crime that has affected the residents of this state is the cost to incarcerate criminal aliens in the state’s prisons; 1,099 alien prisoners cost the state’s taxpayers $34,930,835.80 per year.

Unfortunately for Oregonians, this seemingly unchecked wave of foreign national crime and violence has gone on in the state under watch of recalcitrant Washington D.C. politicians like Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden along with Representatives Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Kurt Schrader, Peter DeFazio and Greg Walden; politicians whose political parties during their elected tenure in office at one time controlled all three elected branches of government (The Presidency, The Senate and The House of Representatives).

These congressional representatives have done nothing legislatively that has been passed and signed into law by President Barack Obama to stop the invasion of criminal aliens preying on the residents of this state.

With leadership comes responsibility, they as a collective group of law makers, it would be fair to say, have the blood of those victimized by alien criminals on their hands.

Oregon’s registered voters during Oregon’s November 4, 2014 General Election will have a chance to replace six of the seven politicians who have failed to protect citizens and resident aliens from the invasion of foreign national criminals, only Senator Wyden is immune from the voters’ wrath during this election cycle.

Along with the possibility of replacing their congressional representation, voters in the state will also have the unique opportunity in the fall to show their members of congress leadership on immigration legislation by voting “No” on Measure 88; legislation that would grant Driver Cards for those who cannot prove legal presence in the United States; legislation if it were to pass that could send a new wave of foreign national criminals into the state.

David Olen Cross of Salem writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. Read more about Oregonians are affected by criminal invasion

Federal authorities and local police have snuffed out a roughly 5,000-plant marijuana grow about six miles south of Ashland in the Neil Creek drainage.

A U.S. Forest Service employee discovered the massive growing operation while hunting in January, according to a complaint filed Aug. 25 in the U.S. District Court of Medford.

Humberto Salgado-Salgado, 36, and Juan Albert Lopez-Moroyoqui, 50, two alleged illegal immigrants from Mexico, were arrested at the grow site when the Jackson County Sheriff's Department SWAT team raided the area on Aug. 18, the complaint states.

Forest Service Special Agent Robert D. Caruthers Jr. led the investigation and filed the complaint.

In the complaint, he said the site appeared to be a "Mexican style Drug Trade Organization grow."

While investigating the area in January, Caruthers found a marijuana drying area, a well-developed campsite, several terraced areas with plant holes, drip irrigation lines, open fertilizer bags and a garbage pit, the complaint states. He also recovered dried marijuana plants with attached buds, the complaint states.

From May until the August raid, Caruthers and county authorities kept tabs on the site, observing as people moved in and its plants grew and matured to about five feet tall, the complaint states.

The site is believed to have been in use since at least 2012, the complaint states.

While observing the site between May and the raid, Caruthers said he saw who he believes was Salgado-Salgado and Lopez-Moroyoqui dressed in camouflage tending to plants at the grow site, the complaint states.

According to an indictment filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of Medford, both men have been charged with conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana.

Lopez-Moroyoqui has also been charged with being an illegal immigrant, having returned to the United States after being deported following a drug-related conviction, according to a press release from the Oregon Department of Justice.

Salgado-Salgado told Caruthers he was from Morelos, Mexico, and that the men had been living at the grow site for about three and a half months after having been transported there from Santa Rosa, Calif., by a person in a van, the complaint states.

"They had been given marijuana seeds in a bag and were initially walked into the grow site location," the complaint states.

Salgado-Salgado told Caruthers the men were expecting to get about a third of the value of the harvested marijuana, the complaint states.

The men are scheduled to be arraigned next week in U.S. District Court in Medford, court records show. Read more about Big illegal marijuana garden busted in forest outside Ashland

WASHINGTON — The federal immigration court system should be separated from the Justice Department and operated independently of federal law enforcement, the top two leaders of the immigration judges' union said Wednesday.

Judge Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said immigration judges act as arbiters in deportation cases being argued by Homeland Security Department lawyers but judges also are treated as attorneys for the government.

As employees of DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review, Marks said, the judges' dual roles can potentially blur the lines for judges who are supposed to act as neutral arbiters in a complicated court system.

"Our goal is to serve as a neutral court, but paradoxically we are housed in a law enforcement agency," Marks said.

And often, decisions about how the court is run are made beyond the court system.

Marks said an example of this is the recent decision by the Obama administration to have immigration courts start hearing cases of newly arrived immigrant children caught crossing the border alone before all other pending cases.

She said there is no other court system in which the government would be allowed to order a total overhaul of the docket, placing particular cases at the top. Marks, a judge in San Francisco, spoke Wednesday at the National Press Club with Denise Noonan Slavin, a Miami-based judge who is the union's executive vice president.

In a statement, the DOJ agency said the immigration court system is designed to be handled within the Justice Department and separating it "would take significant resources."

The type of civil administrative adjudications that EOIR conducts are designed to be handled within the structure of the Department and it would take significant resources to create an agency separate from an executive branch cabinet officer.

Beyond potential conflicts of interest, the judges said the DOJ agency and the court system have been underfunded for many years, which has contributed in part to the backlog of more than 375,000 pending cases.

Because of the backlog it can take several years for an immigration cases to be resolved.

Slavin said investing more money in the court system would solve many problems. Just under 2 percent of immigration enforcement spending goes toward immigration courts, Marks said.

And while creating a new, independent immigration court system might be costly initially, she said it would ultimately be more efficient.

"If your gas tank has a leak do you keep filling it up with gas or do you fix it first?" Slavin asked. Read more about Immigration judges' union advocates for independent, stand-alone court to rule on deportations

A 35-year-old man pleaded guilty to the delivery of heroin that resulted in the death of a 21-year-old Laurin Putnam, of Keizer.

Sergio Quezada-Lopez, of Mexico, appeared before a U.S. District Judge Monday and entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute heroin that resulted in death, according to the Department of Justice.

Quezada-Lopez is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 1. The maximum sentence is life in prison and there is a mandatory minimum of 20 years.

Putnam's father Ron said after his daughter's death that he would see things through until the end. Now he is one step closer.

"I'm glad to see that it's finally coming to fruition," Ron Putnam said.

The investigation into Putnam's death began in April 2012 when police officers found her dead inside her Keizer residence. The Oregon State Medical Examiner confirmed her death was caused by a heroin overdose.

In the four days following her death, officials made a number of arrests and held searches in Marion, Washington and Multnomah counties, and Vancouver, Wash.

An investigation allowed authorities to identify the final suspect in the distribution chain. From there, investigators continued to identify people involved and eventually moved six levels up through the chain of distributors to Quezada-Lopez, the DOJ said.

He is charged with large-scale conspiracy regarding distribution of heroin in Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Nevada. He was in charge of a network of houses in Portland and Vancouver, Wash. that were used to stash drugs and received orders for heroin, then direct its delivery.

Others involved in the conspiracy collected payments in cash and then transferred money to Quezada-Lopez, the DOJ said.

When officials searched the house, they found large quantities of heroin, along with methamphetamine and cocaine. They also found documentation, drug ledgers, weapons, packaging material and $20,000. In one location, a drug ledger contained Quezada-Lopez's fingerprints and a document had his picture. Officers listened to a phone conversation in which he described an amount of heroin to be delivered.

He was arrested April 20, 2012, less than a week after Putnam died.

Also arrested around the same time as Quezada-Lopez were Braulio Acosta Mendoza, Jose Romo Gonzalez, Jose Aldan Soto and Julian Hernandez Castillo.

Court records during early proceedings of the defendants said that the operation "yielded a yearly gross profit of over one hundred thousand dollars."

"It's nice to get some closure. I do feel a sense of relief that things are finally starting to falling in"to place," Ron Putnam said. "Ultimately I'll never have her back."

The Drug Enforcement Administration led the investigation, mainly through its Salem task force, along with Salem and Keizer police departments, the Marion County Sheriff's Office, Oregon State Police and other agencies around Oregon and Washington. Read more about Man guilty of delivering heroin that killed Keizer woman