border

Trump's veto threat pays off: House approves $5.7B for border wall

The House voted Thursday to give President Trump $5.7 billion for a border wall, hours after Trump warned Republicans that he would veto the spending bill if it didn't boost border security.

The bill passed 217-185, and while Democrats were predicting a GOP split would prevent it from passing the House, only eight Republicans voted against it.

But the victory will likely be short-lived, as Democrats in the Senate are expected to reject the bill. That rejection looks increasingly likely to lead to a partial government shutdown after Friday.


 

After Trump rallied his party on the need for a border wall in a White House meeting, Republicans said the $5.7 billion is needed to secure the border and keep out dangerous migrants.

“It is common sense to secure our borders and know who is entering our country,” said Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, adding that drugs moving across the border has devastated rural Maine. “The greatest Christmas gift for America is securing our borders.”

Democrats objected and said Republicans were setting up a shutdown of several federal agencies just before Christmas.

“House Republicans have caved once again to Trump’s political whims,” said House Appropriations Committee ranking member Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is expected to take up the House-passed bill Friday. Senate Democrats will block it, and House Republican leaders suggested Thursday they will negotiate a compromise with Democrats.

If no agreement is reached, the lack of new spending authority will force several agencies to start furloughing workers after Friday.

But the bill is a win for Trump, who faced pressure from well-known conservatives all week to reject any bill that doesn't include wall funding. Several Republicans warned that Trump would face a difficult re-election in 2020 had he caved in.

Earlier in the week, Republican leaders told House lawmakers they believed Trump would sign a bipartisan bill that excludes wall funding. But Trump, under pressure from his conservative base, called Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on Thursday, and summoned Republicans to the White House to tell them he would not sign a bill without the wall money.

The funding bill as passed by the House would keep funds flowing for about 25 percent of the federal government, including the Justice Department and Homeland Security. A temporary measure that's currently in place expires Friday.

The rest of 2019 government funding, including military spending, was signed into law earlier this year and will continue uninterrupted, regardless of how this week's fight ends.

Democrats say they’ll only agree to a fiscal 2018 level of $1.3 billion for border security but nothing for a wall.

The House-passed bill also includes another $7.8 billion in disaster aid to states hurt by wildfires and hurricanes.

  Read more about Trump's veto threat pays off: House approves $5.7B for border wall

Immigration expedites the deadly drug trade; border wall necessary

Media reports often blame U.S. doctors and pharmaceutical companies for the opioid crisis, while knowingly or unknowingly, ignoring the main source.

We’ve been hearing this for years from people who’ve worked at the border with Mexico.  In a current analysis by Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, he gives details about the operation of drug runners and how they’ve been able to build up a huge business delivering cheap, powerful drugs to customers in the U.S.  

Here are excerpts from Gosar’s article, which is online at:  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/19/immigration-the-hidden-driver-of-the-opioid-epidemic/

“…The overwhelming source of the problem is cheap but powerful drugs coming in from Mexico by way of China.

“There is another core contributor to the problem that isn’t as widely known: the river of illegal aliens surging across our porous borders. As former LA Times reporter Sam Quinones’ award-winning book, Dreamland: The True Story of America’s Opioid Epidemic recounts, just as standards for the prescription of oxycodone and other painkillers were being tightened, a group of largely illegal Mexican immigrants from Xalisco, in the Mexican state of Nayarit, pioneered a new model of heroin distribution. It was in essence Uber for drug dealers, involving small franchises, with a nonviolent approach, carrying small amounts of drugs directly to addicts in their homes and neighborhoods, using a customer-first mentality and lots and lots of delivery drivers.

“From Dreamland, ‘The delivery drivers did tours of six months and then left. If they were arrested they were deported, not prosecuted, because they never carried large amounts of dope.’ With hundreds of new illegal aliens from the state entering the country every day, the police could arrest as many street-level dealers as they liked. As a DEA agent tells Quinones in another part of the book, ‘We arrest drivers all the time and they send new ones up from Mexico. They never go away.’ There would always be new dealers, and the model could continue. An essential part of the process was the dealers returning home, where their ill-gotten gains provided them with status in their rural, poor homeland. …

“There is also, of course, the fact that a porous border allows drugs to flow across the border, but people are much easier to interdict than fentanyl. That is why we must also deliver on the president’s border wall–providing $5 billion in unrestricted funding this year, immediately.  …” Read more about Immigration expedites the deadly drug trade; border wall necessary

U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons: Criminal Alien Report November 2018

The United States having a significant foreign national population residing within the nations boundaries, be they legally or illegally present in the country, unfortunately includes those who commit crimes.

The extent and impact of foreign national crime on the U.S. citizens and residents of this country is clearly revealed by a simple search on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) inmates statistics website under the heading of inmate citizenship.

Here are the countries of origin, moreover, the number and percentage of those countries citizens recently incarcerated in the U.S. BOP prison system (Note: The most recent BOP crime numbers available were from November 24, 2018.).

Inmate Citizenship:

- México 21,821 inmates, 12.1 percent;
- Colombia 1,662 inmates, 0.9 percent;
- Dominican Republic 1,423 inmates, 0.8 percent;
- Cuba 1,169 inmates, 0.6 percent;
- Other / unknown countries 8,740 inmates, 4.8 percent;
- United States 145,602 inmates, 80.7 percent;

Total Inmates: 180,417 inmates.

To explain the meaning of these preceding criminal alien inmate numbers and percentages, I will translate them into words:

Combining November 24th BOP criminal alien inmate numbers, there were 34,815 criminal aliens in the BOP prison system. Alien inmates were 19.3 percent of the federal prison population.

With 21,821 Mexican nationals being incarcerated in the BOP prison system, at 62.7 percent, they were the vast majority of criminal aliens in federal prisons.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons breaks down the federal prison population into 13 types of offenses. One of the top five offenses, the reason inmates are serving time in federal prisons is for immigration crimes. There were 10,906 inmates in the BOP prison system incarcerated for immigration crimes; they were 6.5 percent of the federal prison population.

David Olen Cross of Salem, Oregon is crime researcher who writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. The preceding report is a service to federal, state, county and city elected and non elected governmental officials to help them assess the impact of foreign national crime in the United States of America. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. His past crime reports can be found at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/.
  Read more about U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons: Criminal Alien Report November 2018

Why the extra mileage in caravan route?

Little attention has been paid by the media to the planning of the caravan, but examination of the chosen route shows deliberate strategy in selection of the route.  Besides prolonging maximum publicity, the chosen route brought migrants to the state most likely to welcome them, California.

Coming from Guatemala, they could have reached the U.S. much more quickly had they headed for McAllen TX, as Kris Kobach points out in his article, Understanding the caravan – the map says it all.

“… The path to McAllen is approximately 1,300 miles long; whereas the path to San Diego is approximately 2,700 miles long. So the caravan travelled more than twice as far as it needed to.

“Why in the world would they do that? They didn’t have their own vehicles, and they weren’t carrying enough food or resources to justify the longer journey.

“…Travelling the extra 1,400 miles to Tijuana/San Diego would take the migrants to the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, with its numerous judges willing to minimize the President’s statutory authority to restrict entry of aliens into the United States. And the presence of similar federal judges at the district level in California would increase the probability that the migrants’ attorneys would obtain an initial ruling in their favor.

“… The second reason for travelling twice the distance is that California is a sanctuary state with dozens of sanctuary cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Those jurisdictions will actively seek to protect the migrants who enter illegally from deportation.

“…  In contrast, in Texas, law enforcement agencies like the Texas Department of Public Safety cooperate with federal officials to improve border enforcement. To be sure, there are some sanctuary cities in Texas too; but it’s nothing like California.

“In short, the migrants’ attorneys made sure that the caravan went the extra mile—or extra 1,400 miles—to arrive where the rule of law is the weakest in the United States. And their advice appears to be paying off. Federal immigration enforcement personnel can still prevail, but the playing field is tilted against them.”

Read the entire article here: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/05/kris-kobach-understanding-the-caravan-the-map-says-it-all/

Article’s i.d. for author:  “Kris W. Kobach is the elected Secretary of State of Kansas. An expert in immigration law and policy, he coauthored the Arizona SB-1070 immigration law and represented in federal court the 10 ICE agents who sued to stop Obama’s 2012 DACA executive amnesty. During 2001-03, he served as U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration and border security at the U.S. Department of Justice. His website is kriskobach.com.”  Read more about Why the extra mileage in caravan route?

Oregon Department of Corrections: Foreign National Rape Report October 2018

Information obtained from the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) indicated on October 1, 2018 that 170 of 919 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) in the state’s prison system were incarcerated for the crime of rape — 18.50 percent of the criminal alien prison population (Note: The number of criminal aliens incarcerated for rape in DOC prisons does not necessarily equal the number of Oregon residents victimized by the violent crime of rape).

Using DOC U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immigration detainer numbers, the following table reveals the total number of criminal alien inmates along with the number and percentage of those alien inmates incarcerated on October 1st in the state’s prisons for the crime of rape.
 

OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

Month/Day/Year

DOC Total Number Inmates W/ICE Detainers

DOC Number of Inmates W/ICE Detainers Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

DOC Percent of Inmates W/ICE Detainers Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

October 1, 2018

919

170

18.50%

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 October 18.

Significant numbers, the 170 criminal aliens in the DOC prison system incarcerated for rape were 17.29 percent of all inmates, domestic and foreign, in the state’s prisons for the crime of rape.

Using the DOC Inmate Population Profile and ICE immigration detainer numbers from October 1st, the following table reveals the total number inmates incarcerated for rape, the number of domestic and criminal alien inmates incarcerated for rape and the percentage rapes committed by criminal aliens.
 

OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

Month/Day/Year

DOC Total Number of Inmates Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

DOC Number of Domestic Inmates Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

DOC Number of Inmates W/ICE Detainers Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

DOC Inmates W/ICE Detainers as a Percentage of All Inmates incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

October 1, 2018

983

813

170

17.29%

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 October 18 and Inmate Population Profile 01 October 18.

Criminal aliens incarcerated in DOC prisons committed at least one crime of rape in 20 of 36 Oregon counties —55.56 percent of the counties in the state.

Five Oregon counties, Marion (48 alien rapists), Washington (44 alien rapists), Multnomah (25 alien rapists), Lane (13 alien rapists) and Clackamas (9 alien rapists) had 139 of 170 criminal alien inmates incarcerated in DOC prisons for the crime of rape — 81.76 percent of the alien inmates incarcerated for rape.

Using DOC ICE immigration detainer numbers, the following table reveals the number and percentage of criminal alien inmates incarcerated on October 1st that were sent to prison from the state’s 36 counties for the crime of rape.
 

OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

County

DOC Number of Inmates W/ ICE Detainers by County Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

DOC Percent of Inmates W/ ICE Detainers by County Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

Marion

48

28.24%

Washington

44

25.88%

Multnomah

25

14.71%

Lane

13

7.65%

Clackamas

9

5.29%

Yamhill

7

4.12%

Benton

4

2.35%

Jackson

4

2.35%

Coos

2

1.18%

Deschutes

2

1.18%

Hood River

2

1.18%

Malheur

2

1.18%

Clatsop

1

0.59%

Jefferson

1

0.59%

Lincoln

1

0.59%

Linn

1

0.59%

Morrow

1

0.59%

Polk

1

0.59%

Umatilla

1

0.59%

Wasco

1

0.59%

Baker

0

0.00%

Columbia

0

0.00%

Crook

0

0.00%

Curry

0

0.00%

Douglas

0

0.00%

Gilliam

0

0.00%

Grant

0

0.00%

Harney

0

0.00%

Josephine

0

0.00%

Klamath

0

0.00%

Lake

0

0.00%

Tillamook

0

0.00%

OOS (Not a County)

0

0.00%

Sherman

0

0.00%

Union

0

0.00%

Wallowa

0

0.00%

Wheeler

0

0.00%

Total

170

100.00%

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 October 18.

Criminal aliens from 21 identified countries incarcerated in DOC prisons have raped Oregon residents.

Foreign nationals who declared their country or origin as being Mexico were 139 of 170 criminal aliens convicted of rape incarcerated in the DOC prison system — 81.76 percent of the alien rapists in the state’s prisons.

Using DOC ICE immigration detainer numbers, the following table reveals the self-declared countries of origin of the 170 criminal alien inmates by number and percentage incarcerated on October 1st in the state’s prisons for the crime of rape.
 

OREGON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS

Country

DOC Number of Inmates W/ ICE Detainers by Country Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

DOC Percent of Inmates W/ ICE Detainers by Country Incarcerated for the Crime of Rape

 

Mexico

139

81.76%

 

Guatemala

6

3.53%

 

Russia

3

1.76%

 

El Salvador

2

1.18%

 

Honduras

2

1.18%

 

Vietnam

2

1.18%

 

Wales

2

1.18%

 

Burma

1

0.59%

 

Cambodia

1

0.59%

 

Costa Rica

1

0.59%

 

Cuba

1

0.59%

 

Ecuador

1

0.59%

 

Ethiopia

1

0.59%

 

Fiji

1

0.59%

 

India

1

0.59%

 

Jamaica

1

0.59%

 

Laos

1

0.59%

 

Malaysia

1

0.59%

 

Marshall Islands

1

0.59%

 

Republic of Congo

1

0.59%

 

Ukraine

1

0.59%

 

Total

170

100.00%

 

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Report ICE inmates list 01 October 18.

David Olen Cross of Salem, Oregon writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. The preceding report is a service to Oregon state, county and city governmental officials to help them assess the impact of foreign national crime in the state. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. His past crime reports can be found at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/


  Read more about Oregon Department of Corrections: Foreign National Rape Report October 2018

Migrant caravans – refugees or job-seekers?

Many newspapers portray the migrant caravans as refugees escaping rampant crime and corruption in their home countries.   But are these migrants truly refugees?   Here’s a more realistic report from the Dallas News, with commentary from Neil Munro, one the most knowledgeable writers on immigration issues.  The article shows that most of the migrants are job-seekers and will be competing with citizens for jobs, undercutting wage levels in the U.S. and adding to the already-unsustainable population growth that is triggered primarily by immigration.

Dallas News: U.S. Job Offers Pull Caravan Migrants to the Border

By Neil Munro, Breitbart.com, November 14, 2018

https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2018/11/14/dallas-news-u-s-job-offers-pull-caravan-migrants-to-the-border/

Caravan migrants in Mexico told the Dallas News they are migrating towards blue-collar jobs in the United States.

The economic explanations contradict the claims by pro-migration lawyers, progressives and by most reporters that the migrants are helplessly fleeing from crime in their homelands. …

[Following are the concluding 6 paragraphs of the article]

Americans have long assumed that companies and investors who are trying to fill lower-wage jobs in a tight national labor-market would be pressured to offer higher wages and to invest in labor-saving machinery.

But investors do not need to offer higher wages or raise productivity if the government allows them to employ mobile workers from outside the national labor market and also supplements the migrants’ low wages with hidden taxpayer subsidies of aid, welfare and free schooling for their children. Also, the extra inflow of migrants provides investors and government agencies with many extra customers for food, autos, apartments, and government services.

A tacit alliance of progressives and investors, Democrats and Republicans, has largely blocked Trump’s efforts to help ordinary Americans by curbing migration into U.S. workplaces and neighborhoods.

Washington’s economic policy of using migration to boost economic growth shifts wealth from young people towards older people by flooding the market with cheap white-collar and blue-collar foreign labor. That flood of outside labor spikes profits and Wall Street values by cutting salaries for manual and skilled labor offered by blue-collar and white-collar employees.

The policy 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 five million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with opioid addictions.

Immigration also pulls investment and wealth away from heartland states because coastal investors can more easily hire and manage the large immigrant populations living in the coastal states. Read more about Migrant caravans – refugees or job-seekers?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Criminal Alien Report for Fiscal Year 2018 Year to Date

United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is an important element of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who along with other elements of DHS collectively work together in attempting to keep our nations citizens and residents safe from foreign national threats to public safety.

A critical responsibility of U.S. Customs and Border Protection is preventing foreign nationals (criminal aliens) who have been convicted of domestic or foreign crimes and deported from the country from illegally entering or reentering the United States of America.

The U.S. Border Patrol Criminal Alien Statistics webpage is an excellent source for information that indicates the number of criminal aliens CBP caught, interdicted or prevented from entering the country. Moreover, the Criminal Alien Statistics webpage reveals the types of prior criminal convictions that prohibited them by federal law from being legally present in the country.

For Fiscal Year 2018 Year to Date (FY2018YTD), October 1, 2017 – August 31, 2018, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has taken into custody and arrested 6,259 criminal aliens (Note: CBP’s Fiscal Year runs from October 1, 2017 – September 1, 2018).

Listed below are the total criminal convictions of the 6,259 criminal aliens by types and numbers of crimes for FY2018YTD; the most recent U.S. Customs and Border Protection criminal alien numbers available were posted on the CBP webpage on October 23, 2018 (Note: The preceding CBP number of criminal aliens doesn’t match the actual number of illegal alien criminals because some aliens had more than one criminal conviction.).

Types of Criminal Convictions                                Number Criminal Convictions

- Assault, battery, domestic violence                                                     506;

- Burglary, robbery, larceny, theft, fraud                                               322;

- Driving under the influence                                                              1,062;

- Homicide, manslaughter                                                                          3;

- Illegal drug possession, trafficking                                                      816;

- Illegal entry, re-entry                                                                        3,637;

- Illegal weapons possession, transport, trafficking                                 98;

- Sexual offenses                                                                                      78;

- Other offenses                                                                                  1,298.

Total Number of Criminal Convictions:                                         7,820

Explaining the preceding numbers, U.S. Customs and Border Protection took into custody and arrested for FY2018YTD 6,259 criminal aliens having 7,820 previous criminal convictions.

To help politicians, electronic / hardcopy media outlets or interest persons put a real world face on some of the 6,259 criminal aliens that were arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for illegally entering or reentering the country during FY2018YTD the CBP Newsroom webpage is a starting point to look for local or national media releases on criminal aliens.

Wanting to find out if U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained and arrested any criminal aliens convicted of crimes in the State of Oregon, I clicked on the upper left side of the CBP Newsroom webpage on News Releases and opened the Media Releases webpage.

Near the top of the CBP Media Releases webpage I set the date search criteria to reflect the FY2018YTD time period (October 1, 2017 – August 31, 2018), set the Media Releases box to read Local Media Releases, typed in the Keywords box Oregon, clicked the Apply button and multiple stories that fit the parameters of my search appeared in the form of individual press releases.

Here are excerpts and hyperlinks to five U.S. Customs and Border Protection press releases about criminal aliens with past criminal convictions apprehended by CBP for illegal reentry into the country with a past connection to Oregon:

Yuma Border Patrol Agents Arrest Rapist with Kidnapping and Burglary Convictions

Friday, May 25, 2018 | Local Media Release

YUMA, Ariz. – Border Patrol agents patrolling the area of San Luis, Arizona arrested a Mexican national with previous felony convictions of first-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping, and first-degree burglary early Thursday evening. Photo Courtesy...”
Read More >

Yuma Border Patrol Agents Arrest Convicted Rapist

Thursday, March 29, 2018 | Local Media Release

YUMA, Ariz. – Yuma Station Border Patrol agents arrested a previously deported Mexican national with multiple felony convictions late Tuesday. At approximately 9:30 p.m., agents arrested Jose Arajo-Dominguez, a 50-year-old Mexican national, after he...”
Read More >

Border Patrol Agents Arrest Man Convicted of Manslaughter

Monday, March 12, 2018 | Local Media Release

TUCSON, Ariz. – Tucson Station Border Patrol agents arrested a Mexican man Sunday afternoon shortly after he illegally entered the United States south of Three Points. The agents later learned of his first-degree manslaughter conviction in Oregon....”
Read More >

Border Patrol Agents Arrest Convicted Felon

Friday, January 19, 2018 | Local Media Release

TUCSON, Ariz. – Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Ajo Station arrested a previously-deported Mexican man Thursday afternoon and later discovered he was convicted and incarcerated for Class A felonies in 2007. Agents patrolling near...”
Read More >

Ajo Agents Arrest Illegal Alien Convicted of Rape and Assault

Tuesday, January 16, 2018 | Local Media Release

TUCSON, Ariz. – Border Patrol agents assigned to the Ajo Station arrested a Mexican man Sunday morning with a conviction for rape and assault in Marion County, Oregon in 2012. Agents patrolling in Lukeville, Arizona, arrested five men illegally...”
Read More >

Following the preceding how to instructions, politicians, electronic / hardcopy media outlets or interested persons, if they aren’t already doing so, can now to put a face on some of the 6,259 criminal aliens, possibly with a connection to their state or location, with past criminal convictions who were arrested and detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for illegal entry or reentry into the United State of America.

David Olen Cross of Salem, Oregon is crime researcher who writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. The preceding report is a service to federal, state, county and city elected and non elected governmental officials to help them assess the impact of foreign national crime in the United States of America. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. His past crime reports can be found at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/.
  Read more about U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Criminal Alien Report for Fiscal Year 2018 Year to Date

U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons: Criminal Alien Report October 2018

The United States having a significant foreign national population residing within the nations boundaries, be they legally or illegally present in the country, unfortunately includes those who commit crimes.

The extent and impact of foreign national crime on the U.S. citizens and residents of this country is clearly revealed by a simple search on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) inmates statistics website under the heading of inmate citizenship.

Here are the countries of origin, moreover, the number and percentage of those countries citizens recently incarcerated in the U.S. BOP prison system (Note: The most recent BOP crime numbers available were from October 27, 2018.).

Inmate Citizenship:

- México 21,969 inmates, 12.1 percent;
- Colombia 1,644 inmates, 0.9 percent;
- Dominican Republic 1,403 inmates, 0.8 percent;
- Cuba 1,165 inmates, 0.6 percent;
- Other / unknown countries 8,820 inmates, 4.9 percent;
- United States 145,831 inmates, 80.6 percent;

Total Inmates: 180,832 inmates.

To explain the meaning of these preceding criminal alien inmate numbers and percentages, I will translate them into words:

Combining October 27th BOP criminal alien inmate numbers, there were 35,001 criminal aliens in the BOP prison system. Alien inmates were 19.4 percent of the federal prison population.

With 21,969 Mexican nationals being incarcerated in the BOP prison system, at 62.8 percent, they were the vast majority of criminal aliens in federal prisons.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons breaks down the federal prison population into 13 types of offenses. One of the top five offenses, the reason inmates are serving time in federal prisons is for immigration crimes. There were 10,934 inmates in the BOP prison system incarcerated for immigration crimes; they were 6.5 percent of the federal prison population.

David Olen Cross of Salem, Oregon is crime researcher who writes on immigration issues and foreign national crime. The preceding report is a service to federal, state, county and city elected and non elected governmental officials to help them assess the impact of foreign national crime in the United States of America. He can be reached at docfnc@yahoo.com. His past crime reports can be found at http://docfnc.wordpress.com/. Read more about U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons: Criminal Alien Report October 2018

Trump moves to limit asylum; new rules challenged in court

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump issued a proclamation Friday to deny asylum to migrants who enter the country illegally, tightening the border as caravans of Central Americans slowly approach the United States. The plan was immediately challenged in court.

Trump invoked the same powers he used last year to impose a travel ban that was upheld by the Supreme Court...

“We need people in our country, but they have to come in legally,” Trump said Friday as he departed for Paris.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other legal groups swiftly sued in federal court in Northern California to block the regulations, arguing the measures were illegal.

“The president is simply trying to run roughshod over Congress’s decision to provide asylum to those in danger regardless of the manner of one’s entry,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt.

The litigation also seeks to put the new rules on hold while the case progresses.

The regulations go into effect Saturday...

Trump’s announcement was the latest push to enforce a hard-line stance on immigration through regulatory changes and presidential orders, bypassing Congress, which has not passed any immigration law reform. But those efforts have been largely thwarted by legal challenges and, in the case of family separations this year, stymied by a global outcry that prompted Trump to retreat.

Officials said the asylum law changes are meant to funnel migrants through official border crossings for speedy rulings instead of having them try to circumvent such crossings on the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) border...

But the busy ports of entry already have long lines and waits, forcing immigration officials to tell some migrants to turn around and come back to make their claims...

“The arrival of large numbers ... will contribute to the overloading of our immigration and asylum system and to the release of thousands ... into the interior of the United States,” Trump said in the proclamation, calling it a crisis.

Administration officials said those denied asylum under the proclamation may be eligible for similar forms of protection if they fear returning to their countries, though they would be subject to a tougher threshold. Those forms of protection include “withholding of removal” — which is similar to asylum, but doesn’t allow for green cards or bringing families — or protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

Homeland Security officials said they were adding staffing at the border crossings ...

The U.S. is also working with Mexico in an effort to send some migrants back across the border. Right now, laws allow only Mexican nationals to be swiftly returned and increasingly those claiming asylum are from Central America.

Trump pushed immigration issues hard in the days leading up to Tuesday’s midterm elections, railing against the caravans that are still hundreds of miles from the border.

He has made little mention of the issue since the election, but has sent troops to the border in response. As of Thursday, there were more than 5,600 U.S. troops deployed to the border mission, with about 550 actually working on the border in Texas.

Trump also suggested he’d revoke the right to citizenship for babies born to non-U.S. citizens on American soil and erect massive “tent cities” to detain migrants. Those issues were not addressed by the regulations. But Trump insisted the citizenship issue would be pushed through.

“We’re signing it. We’re doing it,” he said.

The administration has long said immigration officials are drowning in asylum cases partly because people falsely claim asylum and then live in the U.S. with work permits. In 2017, the U.S. fielded more than 330,000 asylum claims, nearly double the number two years earlier and surpassing Germany as highest in the world.

Migrants who cross illegally are generally arrested and often seek asylum or some other form of protection ... Generally, only about 20 percent of applicants are approved.

It’s unclear how many people en route to the U.S. will even make it to the border. Roughly 5,000 migrants — more than 1,700 under the age of 18 — sheltered in a Mexico City sports complex decided to depart Friday for the northern city of Tijuana, opting for the longer but likely safer route to the U.S. border.

Similar caravans have gathered regularly over the years and have generally dwindled by the time they reach the southern border, particularly to Tijuana. Most have passed largely unnoticed.

___

Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Nomaan Merchant in Houston and Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

  Read more about Trump moves to limit asylum; new rules challenged in court

Trump Administration Returns To Supreme Court, Seeking End To DACA

The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review its decision to rescind the Obama-era DACA program Tuesday night.

The request is unusual, because legal challenges to DACA’s termination are still underway in the lower courts.

The Justice Department said the Court must act now to resolve the dispute this term, but left-leaning civil rights groups called the petition a political student ahead of Tuesday’s election. 

The Trump administration returned to the U.S. Supreme Court Monday night seeking to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an Obama-era amnesty initiative that extends protected status to illegal aliens brought to the U.S. as children.

The move is aggressive and unusual, as decisions on Trump’s efforts to rescind DACA are still pending in several federal appeals courts, and the justices seldom take up cases before those judgments issue. But the U.S. Department of Justice told the Supreme Court Monday that action is needed in the near term.

The Trump administration previously sought the Supreme Court’s review of its efforts to phase out DACA. After two federal judges issued injunctions requiring the government to continue administering the program, the Justice Department bypassed normal appellate procedure and went directly to the Supreme Court on Jan. 18 to vindicate its right to terminate the program.

The justices rejected that request on Feb. 26, but asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to quickly process the case so it could return to the high court in a reasonable timeframe. Other challenges to DACA repeal efforts are currently before appeals courts in New York and Washington, D.C.

“It is assumed that the Court of Appeals will proceed expeditiously to decide this case,” the Supreme Court’s February order read. No decision has since come from the circuit courts.

In a letter attending the government’s petition, Solicitor General Noel Francisco explained that the high court should take the cases now — even though the appeals courts have yet to render decisions on the matter — to ensure the justices can resolve the dispute during the current term.

“As this Court’s previous order recognized, prompt consideration of these cases is essential,” the letter reads. “By virtue of the district courts’ orders, DHS is being required to maintain a discretionary policy of non-enforcement sanctioning an ongoing violation of federal law by more than half a million individuals.”

“Yet, absent prompt intervention from this Court, there is little chance this dispute will be resolved for at least another year,” the letter adds.

On the merits of the dispute, the Trump administration contends that its decision to terminate DACA cannot be reviewed in court, since the program exists entirely at the executive branch’s discretion. Even if its termination decision is reviewable, they continue, it is still reasonable and lawful.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights denounced the move as an “election eve stunt.”

“The day before an election that will have huge implications for this administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his Department have shamelessly asked the Supreme Court to bypass the appellate courts in their quest to end DACA,” said Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference. “This administration is in a rush to pull the rug out from under Dreamers and subject them to deportation. This extraordinary move is blatantly cruel to immigrant youth who call this country their home and contribute to their communities.”

“The Supreme Court must reject this politically motivated and unnecessary request,” she added.

But Sessions said that the 9th Circuit left the administration with little choice.

“The Department of Justice should not have been forced to make this filing today — the 9th Circuit should have acted expeditiously, just as the Supreme Court expected them to do,” the AG said Monday night. “But we will not hesitate to defend the constitutional system of checks and balances vigorously and resolutely.”

DACA extends temporary legal status to approximately 700,000 migrants, and allows them to obtain work permits.

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