border

The issue for some was simply about respect for U.S. laws, the nation's sovereignty and secure borders.

For others, it was a rejection what they saw as hatred. What seemed clear even before the rally started was that few would find any middle ground.

About 100 people gathered on the steps of the state Capitol on Saturday for a rally to hear Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, speak about immigration, drugs, gun laws, taxes and getting tough on crime.

The event was sponsored by the Oregon Republican Party.

Also in front of the Capitol, but across the street, about three times as many people gathered in protest of Arpaio, who is known for his conservative stances on immigration and hard-line policing.

Now 81, Arpaio has been sheriff for 23 years of the county that contains Phoenix and the 13th-largest metropolitan area in the nation.

During his 40-minute speech, Arpaio spoke of illegal immigration as an economic, diplomatic, and political problem. He joked about how the crowd across Court Street could have arrived at Capitol, prompting laughter from those crowded onto the steps.

While the counter-ralliers waited for the speech to start, they chanted "no hate in our state," and "love your neighbor."

Yrma Hernandez, a "40-something" Salem resident was among the counter-rally crowd and said she attended the event in the 90-plus-degree weather to support farmworkers.

"I'm here to support all the people who work hard for us in the fields," Hernandez said. "They deserve a chance to work, too — a chance to have work permits and green cards."

Arpaio, who is known as "America's Toughest Sheriff," has implemented some controversial programs and regulations — like chain gangs, two daily meals in jails instead of three, and a "tent city" where inmates reside in military surplus tents.

Hillsboro resident Brad Toman stood on the Capitol steps holding a full-sized American flag.

"I'm here today because I support the sovereignty of our nation and a secure border," Toman said. "The government doesn't seem to support us in enforcing immigration laws."

Toman said he became politically active when Oregon driver cards became an issue and said he was happy that 66 percent of Oregonians were against it.

"It showed me that there's a big silent majority here in Oregon," Toman said. "And I'm a bit disappointed in the number here on this side of the street, and the tact of those across the way.

"The signs they're holding refer to race. Immigration isn't about race at all. They play the race card because it's inflammatory."

Ruben Zamora, 25, was one of the few who crossed Court Street and ascend the steps.

"They called me a terrorist," Zamora said, who was wearing a plastic mask. "I said, 'Jesus commanded us to love one another.' All this hate creates a gut-wrenching feeling for me."

As part of the rally, three pairs of pink underwear were raffled as prizes. The garments' significance relates to Arpaio's tactic after several pairs of white underwear were stolen from the Arizona jail.

After the thefts, Arpaio had jail underwear dyed pink, reasoning that those who turned up wearing the pink underwear in release sweeps could be identified as thieves.

Hernandez said she didn't appreciate Arpaio's presence in Oregon.

"Joe needs to take his pink underwear back home with him," Hernandez said. "We don't need them here."

As Arpaio stepped away from the podium, he reminded the crowd of why he was there and chants from across the street continued.

"This is the greatest country in the world," Arpaio said. "Some things I do are controversial, and that draws a lot of national attention, but the most important thing is to remember that this greatest country in the world."
  Read more about 'Toughest Sheriff' Joe Arpaio draws supporters, foes in Salem

Oregonians for Immigration Reform Press Release,

Join the patriotic crowd Saturday, June 27 from 3:00 – 5:00pm on the steps of the Oregon State Capitol.

Known as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” and the “Pink Underwear Sheriff”, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Maricopa County, Arizona will be in SALEM, OR – Saturday, June 27 and will be the keynote speaker at the rally!

Several state legislators, leaders and grassroots activists have been invited to speak, including OFIR’s President.
Arpaio has been profiled in over 4,000 national and foreign newspapers, magazines, and TV news programs. His leadership and the excellent work of his staff have catapulted the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office into the ranks of elite law enforcement agencies.

Invite your friends and bring your children. Bring along an American flag – large or small and a patriotic sign, if you can!

You won’t want to miss it! Let us know if you plan to attend. Drop by the OFIR booth and say hello!

To help offset costs of this event a special raffle will be held. $5 gets a door prize ticket for the cool and even collectible items described below (multiple tickets can be purchased).

DOOR PRIZES

1. A pair of Maricopa County’s PINK inmate shorts – signed by Sheriff Arpaio
2. Book written and signed by Sheriff Arpaio.
3. Sheriff Arpaio personal coin.
4. Book written and signed by Sheriff Arpaio
5. Private Dinner with Sheriff Arpaio at Representative & Mrs. Greg Barreto’s home in Keizer, OR.NOTE:

While OFIR is a non-partisan, single issue organization, we appreciate the ORP’s focus on the immigration issue and the arrangements they have made to organize this rally and to bring Sheriff Arapio to SALEM!

WEATHER ADVISORY: The forecast for Saturday is for very hot weather, so please remember to bring hat, sunscreen, water bottle, fan, umbrella for shade, folding chair, or whatever you need to be comfortable in summer heat. Read more about Sheriff Arpaio to lead Salem rally Sat. June 27

Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a no-frills lawman known nationally for his conservative stance on immigration and hard-line policing, will be the lead speaker at an Oregon Republican Party rally scheduled for the Capitol steps at 3 p.m. Saturday.

“I’ll be talking about the thousands of people we turn over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in my jails, and how 36 percent come back,” Arpaio said. “Most politicians go to the border for a photo-op, but I’ve worked there. I have background.”

Arpaio, known as “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” will also speak in support of “2nd Amendment Rights, limited government, less taxes, getting tough on crime, Official English and E-Verify,” an Oregon Republican Party press release said.

Under Arpaio, Maricopa County maintains controversial programs like chain gangs, two daily meals in jails instead of three, and a “Tent City” where inmates reside in military surplus tents. After white underwear was being stolen from the jail, Arpaio got creative. “During release you check inmates out under the belt, but they had on two or three pairs, so I decided to die them pink since nobody wore pink in those days.”

Now, Arpaio likes pink underwear for a different reason. “My volunteers have sold millions of pairs, which goes to our youth assistance foundation which helps the kids,” he said.

Though controversial, Arpaio is lauded by some conservatives for reducing illegal immigration, a hot button issue in Oregon. “Some people that don’t like me call me racist, this and that. But as soon as I leave Oregon, I’m coming back to make sure everything is OK at the black churches,” he said. Arpaio has increased police presence at black churches in Maricopa County following last week’s shooting at a black church in Charleston that killed nine.

“The goal of the rally is to let activists know there are things we can do as citizens to overcome what happened in the legislature,” said President of Oregonians for Immigration Reform Cynthia Kendoll. “The legislature has decided they can pass bad legislation and their responsibility ends there.”

Attendees are invited to bring children and American flags or patriotic signs. There will be a raffle to support the cost of the event. Tickets are $5 and first prize is a private dinner with Arpaio and Representative Greg Barreto (R-Cove) and his wife Chris.

Kendoll wants someone from the general public to win the dinner, though she has other plans. “Maybe I’ll join the raffle to win the signed pink underwear.”

For more information, contact the Oregon Republican Party at 503-595-8881

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who led the way for police across the country to take up immigration enforcement, is speaking at an Oregon Republican Party rally at the Capitol steps Saturday.(Photo: ROSS D. FRANKLIN / Associated Press)

Story Highlights

- “America’s Toughest Sheriff” Joe Arpaio will speak at an Oregon Republican Party rally

- The rally is at 3 p.m. on the steps of the Capitol this Saturday

- A raffle will be held with tickets costing $5. First prize is dinner with Arpaio

- People are encouraged to bring families, American flags, and patriotic signs Read more about "Toughest Sheriff” Arpaio to speak at rally in Salem

Breitbart Texas has learned that a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) helicopter was shot down or forced to initiate an emergency landing in Laredo, Texas due to receiving gunfire from the Mexican side of the border. The helicopter was interdicting a narcotics load and working alongside agents from the U.S. Border Patrol, who operate under the umbrella of the CBP. The helicopter was operating in the Laredo Sector of Texas, immediately across the border from the Los Zetas cartel headquarters of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

The helicopter was in U.S. airspace and participating in the interdiction of a narcotics load coming from Mexico into the United States.

A federal agent who spoke with Breitbart Texas on the condition of anonymity said, “U.S. Border Patrol agents were attempting to intercept a drug load. A law enforcement chopper was assisting Border Patrol agents. The chopper received gunfire from the Mexican side of the border. The chopper had to do an emergency landing due to the gunfire.”..

UPDATES:

The shooting occurred in an area known as La Bota Ranch, a subdivision of Laredo, Texas....

Another source close to the matter told Breitbart Texas that “at least five shots were fired from Mexico ...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation released this statement to Breitbart Texas:

On June 5, 2015, at approximately 5:00pm during an operational flight near the Rio Grande River in Laredo, Texas, a US Customs and Border Patrol (USCBP) helicopter was struck several times by ground fire.  The rounds penetrated and damaged the aircraft, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing.   The pilot sustained no injuries and no individuals on the ground were affected.   USCBP, FBI, Texas Rangers, Homeland Security Investigations and Laredo Police Department responded to the scene.  The FBI has initiated an investigation and will continue processing the crime scene with the Texas Rangers.  Since this is an ongoing matter, no further details will be provided at this time.  Read more about BREAKING: US CBP Chopper Down at Texas Border, Fired on from Mexico

YAKIMA, Wash. — A federal appeals court upholding an injunction against the President Barack Obama’s controversial executive action on immigration probably means it is dead for the remainder of his term in office, a farm labor leader says.

“It is my understanding the administration probably will appeal and that could take a couple of years,” said Mike Gempler, executive director of Washington Growers League, a non-partisan association representing agricultural employers on labor issues.

The executive action would defer deportation and provide temporary legal work status for about 5 million of an estimated 12 million people in the U.S. illegally, was scheduled to take effect in May. Many of the illegal immigrants are farmworkers.

On Feb. 16, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, in Texas, ruled in favor of 26 states that sued to overturn the executive order and issued an injunction stopping the programs on grounds that they were implemented without following an administrative procedures act requiring a public comment period.

The injunction was appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. A three-judge panel of that court upheld the injunction on May 26.

“In my opinion, it was productive to push the envelope a little on this,” Gempler said. “It was provocative and made people think and hopefully would trigger action in Congress.”

Comprehensive immigration reform by Congress seems unlikely anytime soon but it is needed because an executive action “is a very temporary measure,” Gempler said.

Tom Roach, a Pasco, Wash., immigration attorney, could not be reached for comment. Previously, he has estimated 90,000 to 100,000 people in Central Washington and northeastern Oregon are eligible under the executive action for Deferred Action for Parents of Americans — known as DAPA — or an expanded 2014 version of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — called DACA.

Thousands of illegal immigrants are eligible in Idaho and California, he said.

Gempler said he believes there’s always been public support for DACA because it makes sense to not deport people who have grown up in the U.S.

“For DAPA, I don’t get a sense that there’s a lot of support in the general public or in the farm community necessarily, but I think there is in the immigrant community,” he said.

United Farm Workers, Keene, Calif., issued a news release denouncing the court ruling. UFW was among more than 100 organizations filing friend of the court briefs and issuing statements in support of the president’s action. UFW expressed optimism that Obama’s executive order eventually will prevail and said it will continue to help prepare illegals for administrative relief under DAPA and DACA.

OneAmerica, a Seattle immigration group, issued a statement calling the decision “disappointing” and saying it believes eventually millions will be given the chance to apply for DAPA and DACA.

Presente.org, a Latino power group, issued a statement saying the court ruling “is part of a continuing and well-orchestrated Republican attack on Latinos and immigrants.”
  Read more about Obama immigration action may be dead, labor leader says

The U.S. is bringing in 100,000 Muslims every year through legal channels such as the United Nations refugee program and various visa programs, but new reports indicate a pipeline has been established through the southern border with the help of the federal agency whose job it is to protect the homeland.

  Read more about DHS caught busing in illegal Somalis from Mexican border

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has admitted that [they] made a grave error in 2013 when it agreed to spare a known gang member from deportation — a man who is now charged with the USCIS Director Leon Rodriguez said in a Friday letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that his agency has a process for checking the criminal background of applicants for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. But he admitted that in the case of Emmanuel Jesus Rangel-Hernandez, that process was not followed.

“Based on standard procedures and protocols in place at the time, the DACA request and related employment authorization should not have been approved,” he wrote.

Rodriguez explained that under policies in place in 2013, known street gang members should be denied DACA benefits “as a matter of discretion.” He also wrote that at the time he applied for DACA, Rangel-Hernandez was in removal proceedings — those proceedings ended when he was approved under DACA.

“Given the fact that the individual was identified as a known gang member, his request should have been denied by the adjudicator,” he wrote. He added that if an adjudicator found a reason to accept a known gang member into the program, that request would have to be elevated to higher level officials at USCIS.

Grassley said the error shows USCIS doesn’t have a good grip on how to review people under DACA.

“It’s no secret that USCIS staff is under intense pressure to approve every DACA application that comes across their desk, and based on this information, it’s clear that adequate protocols are not in place to protect public safety,” he said. “The fact is that this tragedy could have been avoided if the agency had a zero tolerance policy with regard to criminal aliens and gang members.”

“The fact is that this tragedy could have been avoided if the agency had a zero tolerance policy with regard to criminal aliens and gang members,” he added.

“The USCIS needs to immediately start performing detailed criminal background checks to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future,” added Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). Another Republican, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), said USCIS’s admission is “chilling,” and said the incident shows that the government can’t carry out Obama’s immigration plan “without compromising the safety of Americans.”

Rodriguez said USCIS was taking steps to ensure similar errors would not happen again, including “refresher training” for USCIS officials on how to handle DACA requests.

“Officers received DACA refresher training regarding disqualifying public safety and criminality concerns, including but not limited to gang membership, significant misdemeanors, and three or more misdemeanor criminal offenses,” he wrote.

Grassley asked the Department of Homeland Security in February whether Emmanuel Jesus Rangel-Hernandez was spared from deportation even though he was a known gang member, after which he was later charged with murdering three people in North Carolina.

The Obama administration has admitted it erred by sparing Emmanuel Jesus Rangel-Hernandez from deportation. The known gang member is now a suspect in the murder of three people in North Carolina. Image: AP Photo/Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office

Read the USCIS letter here:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/21/obamas-tragic-immigration-error-three-dead-at-the-hands-of-a-known-gang-member-who-was-spared-from-deportation/
  Read more about Obama Admin. Admits to Huge Immigration Error That Led to Three Deaths in North Carolina

In a move that could affect tens of thousands of detainees, a federal judge in Seattle has ordered the Department of Justice to obey a law that allows for the release of some undocumented immigrants without posting a bond.

Immigration-rights leaders say the law is routinely ignored in Washington and elsewhere in the United States because of a conflicting Department of Justice (DOJ) policy that requires immigrant detainees to post at least a $1,500 bond regardless of whether they pose a danger or flight risk.

“People should not be locked up while they are in immigration proceedings simply because they do not have money to pay a bond,” said Matt Adams, the legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NIRP).

In ordering that the DOJ follow the law, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik on Monday also certified a lawsuit filed on behalf of one such detainee by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and NIRP as a class-action, sweeping in hundreds of plaintiffs who are being detained on immigration holds solely because they cannot post bonds.

Adams said that while Lasnik’s ruling now only affects undocumented immigrants held in Western Washington — he estimates there are about 500 people in the Seattle and Tacoma areas who fit that scenario — the DOJ’s policy impacts tens of thousands of detainees nationally.

“We are hopeful this ruling will have an impact,” on a practice that has been in place for 15 years, he said. “This is a national problem.”

Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., said the DOJ was “reviewing the judge’s order.”

The lawsuit was filed in October on behalf of Maria Sandra Rivera, a Honduran woman who said she was fleeing torture and domestic slavery when she illegally entered the United States on May 29, 2014. She was picked up by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that same day and sent to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, according to the lawsuit.

Rivera sought asylum and passed a “credible fear interview” with an asylum officer, who referred her case to Tacoma Immigration Court, the lawsuit said. In the meantime, ICE determined she posed no flight risk or threat to the community and recommended bond, which was eventually set by an immigration judge at $3,500, according to court documents.

Rivera could not afford that amount and asked that she be released on her own recognizance — a process called “conditional parole” — which is allowed for in the Immigration and Nationalization Act.

However, conditional parole is routinely denied in Seattle, Tacoma and elsewhere in the country, Adams said, because of a conflicting DOJ policy that requires an immigrant detainee post at least $1,500 bond regardless of whether he or she poses a danger or flight risk, according to court documents.

Rivera had been detained more than four months when the suit was filed in October. She has since been granted asylum and released, according to the court docket.

Adams said hundreds of other immigrant detainees are in the same situation when it comes to posting bond.

“The result of this policy is that Immigration Judges require individuals such as Ms. Rivera to post bond even after determining that neither danger nor flight risk require their detention,” according to the lawsuit. “Thus, indigent or low-income individuals like Ms. Rivera … routinely suffer continued and unnecessary detention, of, if it is even possible, are forced to strain personal, family and community resources in order to gain their release.”

Adams wrote that the policy “unquestionably violates” the immigration act.

The government has fought the lawsuit, attacking the court’s jurisdiction and arguing the case is moot because Rivera has since been released.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Erez Reuveni of the DOJ’s Civil Division in Washington, D.C., argued in pleadings in the Rivera case that the Board of Immigration Appeals is poised to address a similar case on its own and argued that Lasnik should hold off on any decision and let that process play out.

But Lasnik, in the order issued Monday, said that the immigration court’s blanket refusal to consider conditional parole for immigrant detainees potentially impinges on a detainee’s due-process and liberty interests, and that Rivera had standing to challenge the policy.

The government also argued that Lasnik was barred from second-guessing the immigration judge, but Lasnik said the application of the policy wasn’t the point.

“While an [Immigration Judge’s] discretionary judgment in how it applies the statute is not subject to review, this Court has found no authority supporting the notion that [an immigration judge] has the discretion to misinterpret the statute under which he operates,” Lasnik wrote.

He ruled that the Immigration and Nationalization Act “unambiguously states that an immigration judge may consider conditions for release beyond a monetary bond,” and found that the agency’s policy violates the law.

“The court thus finds that aliens who are detained following defective bond hearings … may immediately challenge their hearings for legal error on the grounds that their continued detention is an unnecessary harm,” Lasnik wrote.
  Read more about Many immigrants may be released without bond after judge’s ruling