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Mexican Presidential Candidate Holds Anti-Trump Rally in L.A.

Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Mon, 02/20/2017

Imagine if a stranger came to your home and criticized you to your family. That’s what happened in Los Angeles last Sunday, Feb. 12, when Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador held a rally and criticized President Trump’s plans to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.

López Obrador, who represents the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said, “I think the wall and the demagoguery of patriotism are no match for the dignity and humanity of the American people.” He went on to praise California as “a refuge and blessing for immigrants,” and exclaimed “long live California,” to the cheers of the crowd.

Many recognize that most Mexican politicians suffer a deep inferiority complex toward Texas and the America. Toward Texas because they defeated Santa Ana and won their independence, and toward the U.S. because they beat them and won half of their territory, all in an attempt to win Texas back.

The current border and immigration problems the U.S. has are a reflection that Mexico has never truly accepted or respected the international border. Legal and illegal commerce and immigration have flowed back and forth with little to no restraints since 1848.

After the Mexican revolution of 1910, Mexican nationalism went into high gear. In the 1920s and 30s politicians and artists coupled the hyper nationalism with socialism and anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, and anti-American rhetoric. In 1926, Pres. Plutarco Calles initiated a fierce backlash against Catholics which led to the Cristero War. In 1938, Pres. Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the Mexican oil industry which was owned and managed by American, British and Dutch companies.

Lopez Obrador represents PRI, a Mexican political party that was founded in 1929, and that held power uninterruptedly in the country for 71 years until 2000. The PRI participates in the Socialist International, but they are not considered a true social democratic party because they have done more to loot the people and nation of their wealth, than to redistribute the wealth. In 1990, Peruvian Nobel Prize laureate for literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, called the Mexican government under the PRI “la dictadura perfecta” ("the perfect dictatorship").

While superficially Mexican politicians show a friendly face toward the U.S., they are actually very insecure and envious of their neighbor to the north. Mexican politicians routinely criticize American policies toward their nation, but heaven forbid if an American politician, particularly a president like Trump, ever criticizes Mexico.

The idea of a Mexican presidential candidate criticizing an American president on American soil is repugnant. Furthermore, the American national media and the United Nations ignored this national affront. We can also assume that California leftist arranged the visit to embarrass or provoke Trump. You can bet Lopez Obrador would not have had the same reception in Texas.

Typical of all insecure and dishonest governments, Mexican politicians see themselves and their country’s failures as faultless victims of “Yankee imperialism”. But it is ominous when foreigners are being bold enough to come to the U.S. to verbally attack us, and dangerous when fellow citizens are foolish enough to host them, and destructive when the Mainstream Media ignores or downplays the incident.

George Rodriguez

El Conservador

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Appeals Court Rejects Immigrants’ Right to a Lawyer in Expedited Cases

Immigrants who are caught entering the U.S. illegally have no right to legal representation, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled on Tuesday.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the deportation of a Mexican immigrant who was arrested while crossing into the U.S. in 2012 and returned to his country the following day.

The ruling, from a three-judge panel, came hours before a different Ninth Circuit panel was set to consider an executive order by President Donald Trump that temporary suspended travel from seven countries and halted the admission of refugees.

The ruling Tuesday dealt with whether immigrants caught entering the U.S. illegally have due process rights to legal counsel under the Fifth Amendment, an issue separate from those raised in the executive-order challenge.

Under a 1996 federal law, Customs and Border Protection officers can use a process called “expedited removal” to swiftly deport immigrants who are caught within 100 miles of the border without valid entry documents and who have been in the U.S. fewer than 14 days.

Immigrants subject to expedited removal receive no hearing, see no judge and have no right to appeal. Nearly half of all removals from the U.S. follow this process, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Rufino Peralta-Sanchez, who was caught by U.S. Border Patrol agents a mile inside the U.S. border, had argued for a right to hire a lawyer to assist him during the removal process.

Judge Jay Bybee, writing for a 2-1 majority, said allowing lawyers to take part in expedited removals would defeat their purpose, “exponentially increasing the cost to the government as the government must detain the alien, pay for the government’s own representation, pay for the creation of a longer record, and pay for the increased time the immigration officer must spend adjudicating such case.”

The Trump administration is considering expanding eligibility for expedited removal to include immigrants who have been in the U.S. longer and are arrested farther from the U.S. border.

Kara Hartzler, who represents Mr. Peralta-Sanchez, said such changes, combined with Tuesday’s ruling, would mean that a vast number of immigrants living in the U.S. could be summarily deported without counsel.

Judge Harry Pregerson used his dissent to condemn what he called a “flawed” and “cruel” system of expedited removals that can result in the improper deportation of asylum seekers who express a credible fear of persecution back home.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego, which represented the federal government, declined to comment.

Write to Joe Palazzolo at joe.palazzolo@wsj.com Read more about Appeals Court Rejects Immigrants’ Right to a Lawyer in Expedited Cases

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Why Trump must end DACA

Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Sun, 02/05/2017

The Hill

By opinion contributor Dale Wilcox

Published January 29, 2017

The rule of law is all about deterrence. So when we fail to follow it, we squander its deterring effects. With President Obama’s DACA program apparently still up and running (handing out amnesty, work permits, etc.), it’s sincerely hoped this most basic of principles hasn’t fallen victim to the left’s emotional blackmail campaign.

Ending DACA and turning off the amnesty-magnet is now more important than ever.

Obama created DACA in reaction to Congress’s “gridlock” over the DREAM Act, an amnesty bill for illegal aliens under 30 rejected no less than 24 times since 2001.

DACA replicated the main elements and criteria of the insipidly titled act, from its sentimental focus on “children” to the requirement that applicants have a GED.

While the DREAM Act granted “legal status” or permanent legalization, DACA purports to offer “legal presence”, or “temporary” legalization. The distinction’s without a difference. Obama’s strategy with the program, to use a phrase from George W. Bush about Israel’s West Bank settlements, was to create “facts on the ground” and make it as difficult as possible to reverse course in future.

When you reward bad behavior, you get more of it. Following Obama’s DACA announcement, radio and print ads began appearing south of the border selling the services of cartel-controlled “coyotes” to teenaged would-be illegal aliens. In a matter of months, the thousand or so apprehensions of unaccompanied juveniles we’d previously been seeing every year surged into the tens of thousands.

A year later, the surge reached the hundreds of thousands (not including an equal jump in “family units”). Despite Obama’s efforts to divert the flood by creating a program to fly alien minors straight from their home countries, the level of illegal entries failed to taper off and it remains at record highs today.

Now, thanks to DACA, taxpayers spend hundreds of millions annually to reunite the (mostly) uneducated minors with their (mostly) illegal alien parents in the U.S. That’s money that should have gone to support schools, hospitals, and job-training for American youth.

Should the new administration signal that it too is unwilling to enforce our immigration laws fairly, equally, and without an ageist-bent, the flood over our borders will become a torrent.

Take Mexico’s poor economic prospects. Average wages in that country are a mere 10 percent of American levels, a gap that’s likely set to jump. Why? Mexico’s rapidly dwindling Cantarell oil field, traditionally the source of 30 percent of the country’s total government expenditures. Once classified as a ‘supergiant’ alongside Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar deposit, the Cantarell field, and the well-paid union jobs it supported, is credited with finally establishing a Mexican middle-class.

But with production declining from 2.5 million to 400,000 barrels per day over the last decade or so, Mexico’s biggest GDP-contributor is no longer oil exports, but US-based remittances.

Assuming the economic effects to Mexico of Trump’s promised NAFTA readjustments turn out to be banal (some critics say it’s actually been a net negative to Mexico’s poor), the drawdown of Mexican oil revenues will almost certainly push up its levels of illegal economic migration.

As for the main source countries for “unaccompanied alien minors” — El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras — development economists have all but given up on understanding why they can’t even come close to the achievements of neighboring Nicaragua, Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama. Without shutting off the magnet of amnesty, their mass illegal entries will also stay at flood-levels.

Instead of demanding that the federal government assist these countries with better tailored aid and grants conditioned on rooting out corruption, open-borders activists simply call for more amnesty and more illegal alien “rights.” Their lack of systematic analysis is stupefying.

While “protecting” illegal aliens from the consequences of breaking the law may make them feel good and virtuous, if they get their way on DACA the incentives for further law-breaking at our border will only increase. Economists call this the “moral hazard” problem.

Given the economic and social pressures here and across the border, we need to ensure against amnesty and the moral hazard it creates, now more than ever.

Dale Wilcox is executive director and general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative and predatory effects of unlawful immigration and ungoverned legal immigration.

Read the full article and comments. Read more about Why Trump must end DACA

Curious? Read the full text of Trump's border security executive order

Alert date:

January 25, 2017

Alert body:

BORDER SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.) (INA), the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (Public Law 109‑367) (Secure Fence Act), and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (Public Law 104‑208 Div. C) (IIRIRA), and in order to ensure the safety and territorial integrity of the United States as well as to ensure that the Nation's immigration laws are faithfully executed, I hereby order as follows:

Section 1. Purpose. Border security is critically important to the national security of the United States. Aliens who illegally enter the United States without inspection or admission present a significant threat to national security and public safety. Such aliens have not been identified or inspected by Federal immigration officers to determine their admissibility to the United States. The recent surge of illegal immigration at the southern border with Mexico has placed a significant strain on Federal resources and overwhelmed agencies charged with border security and immigration enforcement, as well as the local communities into which many of the aliens are placed.

Transnational criminal organizations operate sophisticated drug- and human-trafficking networks and smuggling operations on both sides of the southern border, contributing to a significant increase in violent crime and United States deaths from dangerous drugs. Among those who illegally enter are those who seek to harm Americans through acts of terror or criminal conduct. Continued illegal immigration presents a clear and present danger to the interests of the United States.

Federal immigration law both imposes the responsibility and provides the means for the Federal Government, in cooperation with border States, to secure the Nation's southern border. Although Federal immigration law provides a robust framework for Federal-State partnership in enforcing our immigration laws ‑‑ and the Congress has authorized and provided appropriations to secure our borders ‑‑ the Federal Government has failed to discharge this basic sovereign responsibility. The purpose of this order is to direct executive departments and agencies (agencies) to deploy all lawful means to secure the Nation's southern border, to prevent further illegal immigration into the United States, and to repatriate illegal aliens swiftly, consistently, and humanely.

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the executive branch to:

(a) secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border, monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism;

(b) detain individuals apprehended on suspicion of violating Federal or State law, including Federal immigration law, pending further proceedings regarding those violations;

(d) remove promptly those individuals whose legal claims to remain in the United States have been lawfully rejected, after any appropriate civil or criminal sanctions have been imposed; and

(e) cooperate fully with States and local law enforcement in enacting Federal-State partnerships to enforce Federal immigration priorities, as well as State monitoring and detention programs that are consistent with Federal law and do not undermine Federal immigration priorities.

Sec. 3. Definitions. (a) "Asylum officer" has the meaning given the term in section 235(b)(1)(E) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(1)).

(b) "Southern border" shall mean the contiguous land border between the United States and Mexico, including all points of entry.

(c) "Border States" shall mean the States of the United States immediately adjacent to the contiguous land border between the United States and Mexico.

(d) Except as otherwise noted, "the Secretary" shall refer to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

(e) "Wall" shall mean a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous, and impassable physical barrier.

(f) "Executive department" shall have the meaning given in section 101 of title 5, United States Code.

(g) "Regulations" shall mean any and all Federal rules, regulations, and directives lawfully promulgated by agencies.

(h) "Operational control" shall mean the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.

Sec. 4. Physical Security of the Southern Border of the United States. The Secretary shall immediately take the following steps to obtain complete operational control, as determined by the Secretary, of the southern border:

(a) In accordance with existing law, including the Secure Fence Act and IIRIRA, take all appropriate steps to immediately plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve complete operational control of the southern border;

(b) Identify and, to the extent permitted by law, allocate all sources of Federal funds for the planning, designing, and constructing of a physical wall along the southern border;

(c) Project and develop long-term funding requirements for the wall, including preparing Congressional budget requests for the current and upcoming fiscal years; and

(d) Produce a comprehensive study of the security of the southern border, to be completed within 180 days of this order, that shall include the current state of southern border security, all geophysical and topographical aspects of the southern border, the availability of Federal and State resources necessary to achieve complete operational control of the southern border, and a strategy to obtain and maintain complete operational control of the southern border.

Sec. 5. Detention Facilities. (a) The Secretary shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately construct, operate, control, or establish contracts to construct, operate, or control facilities to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico.

(b) The Secretary shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately assign asylum officers to immigration detention facilities for the purpose of accepting asylum referrals and conducting credible fear determinations pursuant to section 235(b)(1) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(1)) and applicable regulations and reasonable fear determinations pursuant to applicable regulations.

(c) The Attorney General shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately assign immigration judges to immigration detention facilities operated or controlled by the Secretary, or operated or controlled pursuant to contract by the Secretary, for the purpose of conducting proceedings authorized under title 8, chapter 12, subchapter II, United States Code.

Sec. 6. Detention for Illegal Entry. The Secretary shall immediately take all appropriate actions to ensure the detention of aliens apprehended for violations of immigration law pending the outcome of their removal proceedings or their removal from the country to the extent permitted by law. The Secretary shall issue new policy guidance to all Department of Homeland Security personnel regarding the appropriate and consistent use of lawful detention authority under the INA, including the termination of the practice commonly known as "catch and release," whereby aliens are routinely released in the United States shortly after their apprehension for violations of immigration law.

Sec. 7. Return to Territory. The Secretary shall take appropriate action, consistent with the requirements of section 1232 of title 8, United States Code, to ensure that aliens described in section 235(b)(2)(C) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(C)) are returned to the territory from which they came pending a formal removal proceeding.

Sec. 8. Additional Border Patrol Agents. Subject to available appropriations, the Secretary, through the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, shall take all appropriate action to hire 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, and all appropriate action to ensure that such agents enter on duty and are assigned to duty stations as soon as is practicable.

Sec. 9. Foreign Aid Reporting Requirements. The head of each executive department and agency shall identify and quantify all sources of direct and indirect Federal aid or assistance to the Government of Mexico on an annual basis over the past five years, including all bilateral and multilateral development aid, economic assistance, humanitarian aid, and military aid. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the head of each executive department and agency shall submit this information to the Secretary of State. Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary shall submit to the President a consolidated report reflecting the levels of such aid and assistance that has been provided annually, over each of the past five years.

Sec. 10. Federal-State Agreements. It is the policy of the executive branch to empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law.

(a) In furtherance of this policy, the Secretary shall immediately take appropriate action to engage with the Governors of the States, as well as local officials, for the purpose of preparing to enter into agreements under section 287(g) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1357(g)).

(b) To the extent permitted by law, and with the consent of State or local officials, as appropriate, the Secretary shall take appropriate action, through agreements under section 287(g) of the INA, or otherwise, to authorize State and local law enforcement officials, as the Secretary determines are qualified and appropriate, to perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and the supervision of the Secretary. Such authorization shall be in addition to, rather than in place of, Federal performance of these duties.

(c) To the extent permitted by law, the Secretary may structure each agreement under section 287(g) of the INA in the manner that provides the most effective model for enforcing Federal immigration laws and obtaining operational control over the border for that jurisdiction.

Sec. 11. Parole, Asylum, and Removal. It is the policy of the executive branch to end the abuse of parole and asylum provisions currently used to prevent the lawful removal of removable aliens.

(a) The Secretary shall immediately take all appropriate action to ensure that the parole and asylum provisions of Federal immigration law are not illegally exploited to prevent the removal of otherwise removable aliens.

(b) The Secretary shall take all appropriate action, including by promulgating any appropriate regulations, to ensure that asylum referrals and credible fear determinations pursuant to section 235(b)(1) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1125(b)(1)) and 8 CFR 208.30, and reasonable fear determinations pursuant to 8 CFR 208.31, are conducted in a manner consistent with the plain language of those provisions.

(c) Pursuant to section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(I) of the INA, the Secretary shall take appropriate action to apply, in his sole and unreviewable discretion, the provisions of section 235(b)(1)(A)(i) and (ii) of the INA to the aliens designated under section 235(b)(1)(A)(iii)(II).

(d) The Secretary shall take appropriate action to ensure that parole authority under section 212(d)(5) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1182(d)(5)) is exercised only on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the plain language of the statute, and in all circumstances only when an individual demonstrates urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit derived from such parole.

(e) The Secretary shall take appropriate action to require that all Department of Homeland Security personnel are properly trained on the proper application of section 235 of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (8 U.S.C. 1232) and section 462(g)(2) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 279(g)(2)), to ensure that unaccompanied alien children are properly processed, receive appropriate care and placement while in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, and, when appropriate, are safely repatriated in accordance with law.

Sec. 12. Authorization to Enter Federal Lands. The Secretary, in conjunction with the Secretary of the Interior and any other heads of agencies as necessary, shall take all appropriate action to:

(a) permit all officers and employees of the United States, as well as all State and local officers as authorized by the Secretary, to have access to all Federal lands as necessary and appropriate to implement this order; and

(b) enable those officers and employees of the United States, as well as all State and local officers as authorized by the Secretary, to perform such actions on Federal lands as the Secretary deems necessary and appropriate to implement this order.

Sec. 13. Priority Enforcement. The Attorney General shall take all appropriate steps to establish prosecution guidelines and allocate appropriate resources to ensure that Federal prosecutors accord a high priority to prosecutions of offenses having a nexus to the southern border.

Sec. 14. Government Transparency. The Secretary shall, on a monthly basis and in a publicly available way, report statistical data on aliens apprehended at or near the southern border using a uniform method of reporting by all Department of Homeland Security components, in a format that is easily understandable by the public.

Sec. 15. Reporting. Except as otherwise provided in this order, the Secretary, within 90 days of the date of this order, and the Attorney General, within 180 days, shall each submit to the President a report on the progress of the directives contained in this order.

Sec. 16. Hiring. The Office of Personnel Management shall take appropriate action as may be necessary to facilitate hiring personnel to implement this order.

Sec. 17. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

President Trump moves to build border wall, block funding to ‘sanctuary cities’

WASHINGTON — President Trump moved aggressively to tighten the nation’s immigration policies Wednesday, signing executive actions to jumpstart construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall and block federal grants from immigrant-protecting “sanctuary cities.”

“We’ve been talking about this right from the beginning,” Trump said during a brief signing ceremony at the Department of Homeland Security.

...Trump cast his actions as fulfillment of his campaign pledge to enact hard-line immigration measures, including construction of a wall paid for by Mexico.

While Trump has repeatedly said the border structure will be a wall, his spokesman Sean Spicer said more generally Wednesday the president was ordering construction of a “large physical barrier.”

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has insisted his country will not pay for a wall, is to meet with Trump at the White House next week.

The orders Trump signed Wednesday also increase the number of border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to be hired. And the president ordered the end of what Republicans have labeled a catch-and-release system at the border...

Later in the week, Trump is expected to sign orders restricting the flow of refugees into the United States...

Trump campaigned on pledges to tighten U.S. immigration policies, including strengthening border security and stemming the flow of refugees. His call for a border wall was among his most popular proposals with supporters, who often broke out in chants of “build that wall” during rallies.

In response to terrorism concerns, Trump controversially called for halting entry to the U.S. from Muslim countries. He later turned to a focus on “extreme vetting” for those coming from countries with terrorism ties.

To build the wall, the president may rely on a 2006 law that authorized several hundred miles of fencing along the 2,000-mile frontier. That bill led to the construction of about 700 miles of various kinds of fencing designed to block both vehicles and pedestrians.

The Secure Fence Act was signed by then-President George W. Bush, and the majority of that fencing in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California was built before he left office. The last remnants were completed after President Obama took office in 2009.

The Trump administration also must adhere to a decades-old border treaty with Mexico...

Trump’s order to crack down on sanctuary cities — locales that don’t cooperate with immigration authorities — could cost individual jurisdictions millions of dollars....

It appeared as though the refugee restrictions were still being finalized. ...

There is also likely to be an exception for those fleeing religious persecution if their religion is a minority in their country. That exception could cover Christians fleeing Muslim-majority nations.

As president, Trump can use an executive order to halt refugee processing. Bush used that same power in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Refugee security vetting was reviewed and the process was restarted several months later.

———

Zoll reported from New York. AP writer Alicia Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report. Read more about President Trump moves to build border wall, block funding to ‘sanctuary cities’

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Arrest Made In Death Of Marion County Deputy Kelly Fredinburg Nearly A Decade Later

On January 20, 2017, it was learned that Alfredo De JESUS ASCENCIO, age 29, was arrested in the Mexican state of Puebla on an arrest warrant for the death of Marion County Deputy Kelly Fredinburg and another man in June of 2007.

On June 16, 2007 Deputy Fredinburg was enroute to an emergency call southbound on Highway 99E north of Gervais when his patrol car was struck head-on by a northbound vehicle driven by Alfredo De JESUS ASCENCIO. Deputy Fredinburg's patrol car caught fire and he was pronounced deceased at the scene. Deputy Fredinburg joined the Marion County Sheriff's Office in August 2006 after working the previous six years for the Polk County Sheriff's Office. He was 33 years old when he died.

De JESUS ASCENCIO, who was 20 years of age at the time of the crash, was treated for critical injuries at a Portland-area hospital. De JESUS ASCENCIO had two passengers one of which died the next day at a Portland area hospital. He was identified as nineteen year old Oscar ASCENCIO AMAYA.

Oregon State Police investigated the crash and received an indictment on August 3rd, 2007 for two counts of Criminally Negligent Homicide on De JESUS ASCENCIO. It was learned he fled the US to Mexico to avoid prosecution around the time of the indictment.

De JESUS ASCENCIO was believed to be hiding in Mexico and there was no chance of him being returned to the US due to the limitations in the extradition treaty. In 2010 Oregon prosecutors sought an Article 4 prosecution which allows certain crimes committed in the US to be prosecuted by the Mexican judicial system.

In 2010, OSP investigators traveled to Mexico and filed the Article 4 paperwork in front of the Procurador General de la República (PGR), which is the equivalent of the Attorney General's Office in the US, and presented them with all police reports translated into Spanish. The case went to a Mexican federal judge for review. In 2011, OSP learned that the judge had approved the Article 4 paperwork and a warrant was issue for De JESUS ASCENCIO's arrest. Since that time, OSP, the Marion County District Attorney's Office, the Marion County Sheriff's Office and FBI have collaborated in efforts in locating De JESUS ASCENCIO.

Interpol, in coordination with FBI agents working in Mexico and in Salem, determined De JESUS ASCENCIO's location. On January 20, 2017, Interpol confirmed the arrest to the FBI. He is currently being held in custody while the Article 4 process continues.

Marion County Sheriff Jason Myers commented today saying, "It has been nearly 10 years since the tragic loss of Deputy Kelly Fredinburg. While no one has ever given up hope that the individual responsible for this tragedy would be apprehended, it has been an emotional, trying and difficult journey to reach this point. I would like to thank the Marion County District Attorney's Office and the Oregon State Police for their tenacity with this investigation. I also express my heartfelt condolences to the Fredinburg family, as this capture may bring relief, but also a renewed sense of loss. My sincere hope is for justice and healing as this case proceeds ahead."

This is a preliminary release. More information will be released as it becomes available. Read more about Arrest Made In Death Of Marion County Deputy Kelly Fredinburg Nearly A Decade Later

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ICE Deportations Hit 10-Year Low

WASHINGTON (January 12, 2017) – The Center for Immigration Studies new report analyzes the FY 2016 enforcement statistics from the Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS), released by Department of Homeland Security on the last work day of the calendar year, on the eve of a holiday weekend. The deportation numbers credited to ICE are the lowest since 2006.

Aliens removed from the interior in 2016 have declined 73 percent from 2009, the year President Obama took office; and, unfortunately for community safety, there has been a 60 percent decline from the peak in interior criminal alien removals in 2010.

Unlike in past years, the annual enforcement reports contain only a fraction of the important statistics that traditionally have been published on the work of the immigration agencies. Past numbers allowed observation of historical trends and comparisons that are more difficult to make now.

View the full report at: http://cis.org/ICE-deportations-hit-10-yr-low.

Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s director of policy studies and author or the report, lamented, “DHS discloses few actual statistics now, and even fewer trends. Instead they claim success because most of those removed were 'priorities,' not because the agencies made any headway on the illegal immigration problem. The new reports are of interest only to those who believe that enforcement should be constrained as much as possible. They are of no use to the rest of us who want to know what the DHS agencies actually did all year with taxpayer funds.”

Key Findings

Deportations credited to ICE in 2016 increased by two percent. All of the increase was in cases of aliens arrested by the Border Patrol, not interior enforcement.
Interior deportations fell from 69,478 in 2015 to 65,322 in 2016, out of a population of illegal aliens now estimated at 12 million.
Deportations of criminal aliens fell from 63,127 in 2015 to 60,318 in 2016, out of an estimated population of 2 million criminal aliens.
The number of deportations under the Obama administration is not easily comparable to prior administrations because of the number of border cases included, but it certainly is not record-breaking, as Obama has claimed. The most deportations occurred under the Clinton administration.
DHS maintains that CBP arrests have always been a large share of ICE deportations, but in fact this is a new development under the Obama administration. In prior administrations only one-third of deportations credited to ICE were border cases; now about two-thirds are border cases.

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Trump team seeks agency records on border barriers, surveillance

...President-elect Donald Trump's transition team asked the Department of Homeland Security last month to assess all assets available for border wall and barrier construction.

The team also asked about the department's capacity for expanding immigrant detention and about an aerial surveillance program...

The requests were made in a Dec. 5 meeting between Trump's transition team and Department of Homeland Security officials... for securing the U.S. borders and reversing polices put in place by the Obama administration.

Trump's transition team did not comment in response to Reuters inquiries. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to comment.

In response to the transition team request, U.S. Customs and Border Protection staffers identified more than 400 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border, and about the same distance along the U.S.-Canada border, where new fencing could be erected, according to a document seen by Reuters.

Reuters could not determine whether the Trump team is considering a northern border barrier. During the campaign, Trump pledged to build a wall and expand fencing on parts of the U.S.-Mexico border but said he sees no need to build a wall on the border with Canada.

One program the transition team asked about, according to the email summary, was Operation Phalanx, an aerial surveillance program that authorizes 1,200 Army National Guard airmen to monitor the southern border for drug trafficking and illegal migration.

The program once deployed 6,000 airmen under President George W. Bush but was downsized by Barack Obama...

POLICY SHIFT

The transition team also asked for copies of every executive order and directive sent to immigration agents since Obama took office in 2009, according to the memo summarizing the meeting.

Trump has said he intends to undo Obama's executive actions on immigration, including a 2012 order to allow children brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents to remain in the country on temporary authorizations that allow them to attend college and work.

The program, known as DACA, collected information including participants' addresses that could theoretically be used to locate and deport them if the policy is reversed. Another request of the transition team was for information about whether any migrant records have been changed for any reason, including for civil rights or civil liberties concerns, according to the internal memo seen by Reuters.

A Department of Homeland Security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agency interpreted the request to mean the transition team wanted to make sure that federal workers were not tampering with information to protect DACA recipients and other migrants from deportation.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to deport more undocumented immigrants...

The internal memo summarizing the meeting between Trump's transition team and U.S. Customs and Border protection said the team had requested a comprehensive picture of border security as well as resources available for walls and barriers...

Reuters reviewed a copy of the report, which estimated the cost of building fencing along the northern border fence would be $3.3 billion and cover 452 miles along border of Canada and the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Adding 413 miles of fencing on the southwest border would be more expensive, according to the estimate of $11.37 billion, because it would be aimed at keeping pedestrians as well as vehicles from crossing.

Pedestrian fences require more staff and would cost $11.2 million per mile versus $4.1 million per mile to build to build, according to the report.

In fiscal year 2015, the latest year for which data is available, border patrol agents apprehended 2,626 illegal migrants on the U.S.-Canada border compared to 331,333 apprehended on the U.S.-Mexico border. Read more about Trump team seeks agency records on border barriers, surveillance

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Fix Immigration. It’s What Voters Want.

Posted by Cynthia Kendoll on Wed, 12/28/2016

An excellent opinion piece by Republican Senator from Arkansas - Tom Cotton

New York Times

DEC. 28, 2016

Donald J. Trump smashed many orthodoxies on his way to victory, but immigration was the defining issue separating him from his primary opponents and Hillary Clinton. President-elect Trump now has a clear mandate not only to stop illegal immigration, but also to finally cut the generation-long influx of low-skilled immigrants that undermines American workers.

Yet many powerful industries benefit from such immigration. They’re arguing that immigration controls are creating a low-skilled labor shortage.

“We’re pretty much begging for workers,” Tom Nassif, the chief executive of Western Growers, a trade organization that represents farmers, said on CNN. A fast-food chain founder warned, “Our industry can’t survive without Mexican workers.”

These same industries contend that stricter immigration enforcement will further shrink the pool of workers and raise their wages. They argue that closing our borders to inexpensive foreign labor will force employers to add benefits and improve workplace conditions to attract and keep workers already here.

I have an answer to these charges: Exactly.

Higher wages, better benefits and more security for American workers are features, not bugs, of sound immigration reform...

Photo

A day laborer from Honduras waiting for work in Kansas City. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

It’s been a quarter-century since Congress substantially reformed the immigration system. In that time, the population of people who are in this country illegally has nearly tripled...

Some people contend that low-skilled immigration doesn’t depress wages. In his final State of the Union address, President Obama argued that immigrants aren’t the “principal reason wages haven’t gone up; those decisions are made in the boardrooms that too often put quarterly earnings over long-term returns.” Yet those decisions are possible only in the context of a labor surplus caused by low-skilled immigration. In a tight labor market, bosses cannot set low wages and still attract workers.

After all, the law of supply and demand is not magically suspended in the labor market. As immigrant labor has flooded the country, working-class wages have collapsed...

No doubt automation and globalization have also affected wages, but mass immigration accelerates these trends with surplus labor, which of course decreases wages. Little wonder, then, that these Americans voted for the candidate who promised higher wages and less immigration...

America has always offered a basic deal: If you’re willing to work hard and play by the rules, you can make a better life for yourself and your kids. But without good wages, this deal seems impossible...

Yet, as if Mr. Trump’s campaign never happened, companies in labor-intensive industries want to sustain or even increase current immigration flows....

Our country, like any country, needs borders and must decide who and how many can cross those borders...

This policy would resemble the immigration systems of Canada and Australia, countries with similar advanced economies. While our system gives priority to reuniting extended families and low-skilled labor, their systems prize nuclear-family reunification and attributes like language skills, education and work experience. A similar system here would allow in immigrants like doctors to work in rural areas while not pushing down working-class wages.

In some quarters, proposals like these invoke cries of “nativism” and “xenophobia.” But recent immigrants are the very Americans who have to compete with new immigrants for jobs. Far from being anti-immigrant, this proposal would give recent arrivals a better shot at higher wages, stable work and assimilation.

We have an immigration policy today that few Americans support or voted for. It’s allowed legal and illegal immigration at levels divorced from what our economy needs. That has undermined the earning power of those Americans least able to afford it.

But in this election, Americans finally demanded an end to this unthinking immigration system. President-elect Trump and Congress should take that mandate and act on it promptly in the new year.

Read the New York Times full article and comments here.

USE it or LOSE it - Your Political Tax Credit can help OFIR continue our work

Alert date:

December 10, 2016

Alert body:

On Election Day, American immigration patriots won a remarkable victory.

And thanks to our state's generous political tax credit -- explained below -- you can help amplify that victory right here in Oregon.

First, though, consider what we've achieved. For the first time in years, we will have a friend rather than a foe in the White House -- a presidential administration whose immigration policies will put the interests of Americans, and not illegal aliens, first.

President-elect Trump has pledged to secure our border and end the disastrous "catch and release" policy that has unleashed criminal aliens inside our country.

He has vowed to reverse the Obama executive orders that have given de facto amnesties to millions of illegal aliens.

And he'll work to push through Congress a law that will require employers, via E-Verify, to vet their new hires for proof of legal U.S. presence.

In short, he has pledged to take the actions that we at OFIR have urged on our leaders for years -- and worked hard to achieve at the state and local levels.

With your help, OFIR will continue that work -- to, among other things, repeal Oregon's illegal-alien sanctuary law, keep driver licenses out of the hands of illegal aliens, and assure that only U.S. citizens in Oregon register to vote.

But to pursue these goals, we need your financial help. And Oregon tax law gives you an easy way to provide that help without it costing you a dime if you owe Oregon income tax.

In Oregon, when filing their tax returns, taxpayers may contribute a certain portion of their state tax payment to an Oregon political action committee (PAC) -- $50 for those filing an individual return and $100 for those filing a joint return. In other words, you may elect to give money to a political action committee (PAC) that otherwise would go to the state government -- where it would be controlled by Kate Brown and the amnesty-supporting majority in the state legislature.

But here's the catch: To take that state tax credit, you must make the contribution by the end of that tax year -- no later than Dec. 31, 2016. So before then, we hope you'll write a check or make an online contribution to OFIR PAC. If contributing by check, please write the check to OFIR PAC. Contributions to OFIR are not tax-deductible. Mail checks to OFIR PAC, PO Box 7354, Salem OR 97303. Thank you!

Two years ago, by spearheading the successful charge against illegal-alien driver cards, OFIR helped set in motion the great patriotic wave that culminated on Nov. 8. We believe we've earned your trust -- and your ongoing support. During this historic time -- this new dawn for America -- help us continue our efforts with your donation today.

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The Hill

An excellent opinion piece by Republican Senator from Arkansas - Tom Cotton

New York Times

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