enforcement

A coalition of liberal states defended President Obama’s new immigration policies against a major lawsuit in a legal brief filed on Monday.

Washington state joined 11 other states and the District of Columbia in submitting a legal analysis in federal court that counters a lawsuit seeking to undo Obama’s plan to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and give them work permits.

Obama’s program, announced in November, faces a court challenge from 25 conservative states who believe it exceeds the power of the executive branch and causes states “irreparable harm.”

In response to the lawsuit, Washington state filed an amicus brief on Monday explaining why they believe the president has the authority to grant sweeping deportation relief to undocumented immigrants and how the new policies will benefit states economically.

A host of blue states (and at least one purple) signed onto Washington’s legal brief: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and the District of Columbia. Police chiefs of the 50 largest cities in the U.S. also filed a separate amicus brief on Monday.

The show of support comes as the legal challenge is set to reach the court within days. On Thursday, Hanen is scheduled to preside over a hearing to consider whether a preliminary injunction should be granted against Obama’s new policies. If that happens, the implementation of the deportation relief program could be delayed, Ferguson said...

“Allowing immigrants to work legally and increase their wages has far-reaching, positive impacts on state and local economies,” the brief says.

Updated on Jan. 13, 9 a.m.: This piece was updated with information about an amicus brief filed by police chiefs in major U.S. cities. Read more about 12 states defend Obama’s immigration plan against lawsuit

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will veto funding for the Department of Homeland Security if Republicans curbs spending on the president’s award of work permits to roughly five million foreign migrants, according to a White House spokesman.

“We’ve made clear, dating back to last fall, that the president would oppose any legislative effort to undermine” the president’s Nov. 20 announcement, press secretary Josh Earnest said Jan. 12.

“Yes,” he responded when a reporter asked if he would veto a spending curb.

A veto would not close the agency.

Most DHS employees are law enforcement officials, and they would continue to work, although their would not receive paychecks until the Congress passes and the president signs an appropriations bill.

Within DHS, the department that would award the work permits to the illegals would continue to operate. That’s because it is funded by fees paid by legal immigrants, and the illegal immigrants who are being offered work permits.

The loss of appropriated funds might slow down Obama’s amnesty, but likely won’t stop it completely.

The amnesty may be blocked by a pending lawsuit in Texas.

In the House, Republican leaders are assembling a bill to curb Obama’s amnesty, following intense voter and base pressure in November, December and January.

That’s a difficult task because the GOP only has 54 seats in the Senate, which isn’t enough to overcome the Senate’s usual 60-vote threshold for action in the Senate.

However, several Democratic senators are facing election in two years, and numerous polls shows that many Democratic voters oppose Obama’s loose immigration policies. In Oregon, for example, 66 percent of voters voted for a ballot that denied drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants.

  Read more about Obama Will Veto Homeland Security Funding

A California newspaper will continue to use the term "illegals" to describe people who enter the U.S. without permission, despite an attack on its building by vandals believed to object to the term.

The Santa Barbara News-Press's front entrance was sprayed with the message "The border is illegal, not the people who cross it" in red paint...

The attack came amid wider objections to a News-Press headline that used the word "illegals" alongside a story on California granting driver's licenses to people in the country illegally.

"The vandalism and the damage speak for itself, as well as the motivation behind it," Santa Barbara Police Officer Mitch Jan said...

In addition to the writing on the building, graffiti espousing a no-borders mentality was scribbled on the walkway through Storke Placita and the sidewalk near Santa Barbara City Hall. Police were braced for a protest in front of the paper later this week...

"There is a plan underway," he said. "There is extra staffing on board for it."

In a statement, the newspaper said it has no plans to drop its style in describing illegal immigrants.

"It has been the practice for nearly 10 years at the Santa Barbara News-Press to describe people living in this country illegally as “illegals” regardless of their country of origin," the statement read.

"This practice is under fire by some immigration groups who believe that this term is demeaning and does not accurately reflect the status of “undocumented immigrants,” one of several terms other media use to describe people in the Unites States illegally.

"It is an appropriate term in describing someone as “illegal” if they are in this country illegally," the statement added.

The debate over how to label people who are in the U.S. without permission has raged at news organizations across the nation in recent years. In 2013, both The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times banned the phrase after employing it for decades, saying it "lacked precision," according to Pew Research Center.

The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal all use the phrase, although only The Wall Street Journal uses “illegal immigrant” to refer to people who not only criminally enter the U.S. without the proper documentation, but also those who overstay their visas.

FoxNews.com's policy is to describe immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally as "illegal immigrants." Read more about California newspaper office vandalized over use of 'illegal' immigrant label

WASHINGTON, DC - Only a tiny fraction of the families and children who crossed in the border surge of 2012-14 are being returned to their home countries, despite Obama administration claims that the cases are a priority, according to a Houston television station's investigative report. Only a few of the illegal family or child arrivals are qualified to stay in the United States, and the vast majority (91 percent) have simply absconded from their proceedings after release and joined the resident illegal population, where they are no longer a priority for enforcement under the new, expanded "prosecutorial discretion" policies.

The station’s report focuses on statistics from the immigration courts for the family unit cases that were completed between July 18 and October 28, 2014, which are a sub-set of more than 65,000 total family unit arrivals in 2014.

View the entire CIS article at: http://cis.org/vaughan/contrary-administration-claims-only-tiny-fraction-surge-border-jumpers-deported

From these numbers the Center for Immigration Studies has determined that:
 

• The number of family units arriving illegally was larger than the number of UACs during this time period, although the administration, its allies, and the media typically described the surge as an influx of children.
• At least 92 percent of the family arrivals in this sample of cases were released after apprehension rather than detained in the border area.
• Nearly all of those released (5,575 out of 6,093 total families and UACs, or 91 percent) subsequently failed to appear at their immigration hearings and are now part of the illegal population.
• According to these figures, 43 percent of those family members classified as "detained" (nine people) also failed to appear for their hearings, suggesting that they actually were released at some point.
• Even under the current very generous interpretations of immigration law, only 3 percent of these illegal aliens were found qualified to stay in the United States (204 out of 6,093 completed cases).
• Only 314 of the 6,093 cases completed (5 percent) were present for their hearing and could actually be removed by authorities after receiving the order from the judge.

DHS year-end enforcement statistics show a continued steep drop in deportations, in direct contradiction to administration claims. Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s Director of Policy Studies, writes, “It's not clear to me what is smart or effective about a massive and costly catch-and-release scheme that has resulted in the illegal resettlement of tens of thousands of illegal aliens, with taxpayers now picking up the tab for schooling, health care, housing, public safety, and other expenses, and which has only increased the incentives for more people to try to enter illegally.” Read more about Contrary to Administration Claims, Surge Border-Jumpers Not Being Deported

President Barack Obama told a group of illegal immigrants in Tennessee that his immigration-law rewrite means “you’re not going to be deported.”

Obama’s admission acknowledged that his Nov. 21 declaration provides a de facto amnesty for the 12 million illegals living in the United States.

The confession contradicts his many suggestions, and many media reports, that his Nov. 21 amnesty covers only five million illegal immigrants whose children have citizenship or green cards.

In practice, the president is allowing all 12 million illegals who have not committed major felonies or who are not terrorists, to illegally stay and compete for work against lower-wage Americans and American professionals.

“What we’re saying essentially is, in that low-priority list. … You’re not going to be deported,” Obama told the crowd, including the illegals.

“What we’re also saying, though, is that for those who have American children or children who are legal permanent residents, that you can actually register and submit yourself to a criminal background check, pay any back taxes and commit to paying future taxes, and if you do that, you’ll actually get a piece of paper that gives you an assurance that you can work and live here without fear of deportation,” Obama said.

That “does apply to roughly five million,” he said.

Americans are already competing against the roughly 600,000 working-age immigrants who arrive each year, and the roughly 650,000 blue-collar and white-collar guest workers who arrive for short-term or long-term jobs.

Companies favor Obama’s huge increase to the supply of new workers, because many want to hire foreign workers. Those workers will work for low wages, in part, because they need to be employed while they’re waiting to receive the very valuable prize of U.S. citizenship.

A large proportion of the five million illegals are former guest workers, who work as professionals in financial, medical and technology jobs sought by Americans.

Obama also said citizenship should be given to more foreign professionals who compete for jobs sought by American graduates. “We should be stapling a green card to the [foreign] graduates of top schools in fields that we know we need,” he said.

So far, the GOP leadership — which is allied to major business groups — has not tried to block Obama’s amnesty, despite many polls showing deep public opposition to immigration and foreign workers. GOP leaders say they’d like to pass their own amnesty law and foreign-worker law in 2015.

Obama’s policy also puts some illegals on a fast-track to citizenship, boosts the inflow of foreign blue-collar and white-collar guest workers, and dismantles Secure Communities program that repatriated illegals who were caught by local police for minor or severe crimes.

The new policy also directs border police to release border-crossers who claim to be eligible for the Nov. 21 amnesty, and it effectively bars agents from repatriating the many tourists and guest-workers who overstay their visas and try to get jobs in the United States.

The Nov. 21 policy is an extension of Obama’s unstated policies.

In the 12 months up to October 2014, Obama deported less than one percent of the 12 million illegals living in the country. He is awarding work permits to roughly 600,000 younger illegals, and to roughly 300,000 additional migrants and guest workers. He also repatriated only about 2,000 of the roughly 130,000 Central American migrants who flooded over the border this year. His deputies released 129,000 arrested illegals back into American communities, including roughly 30,862 convicted foreign criminals. Read more about Obama Admits Amnesty Is For Many More Than 5 Million

ARTESIA, N.M. (AP) — The majority of an estimated 1,200 Central American immigrants held at a southeastern New Mexico detention center over the last six months have been released, authorities said Monday...

Those more than 800 people face follow-up court appointments before an immigration judge. An additional 370 immigrants were deported, and 15 remaining people will be relocated to a new family detention center in Karnes, Texas, ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said.

American Civil Liberties Union officials in New Mexico say most of the immigrants plan to seek asylum, while some want to argue their cases in court.

Immigration advocates say immigrant families are often fleeing drug or gang violence in Central America and should be released to relatives already in the U.S. rather than being locked up. To qualify for asylum, immigrants must prove "credible fear of persecution" in an interview and before a judge.

...The number of families caught at the south Texas border this year spiked to more than 52,000. That is a 600 percent increase, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Stephen Manning, a Portland, Oregon-based attorney, organized more than 330 lawyers to represent detained families pro bono in Artesia last July.

  Read more about Majority of migrants at New Mexico center released

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California prosecutors said Tuesday they will seek the death penalty for a Utah man charged with killing two deputies during an hour-long rampage that also left a motorist and another deputy wounded.

Prosecutors in Placer and Sacramento counties decided after consulting with the victims' families that the death penalty is appropriate for defendant Luis Enrique Monroy Bracamontes, Placer County Supervising Deputy District Attorney David Tellman said...

No inmates have been executed in California since 2006, and no executions are currently scheduled because of ongoing legal challenges...

Bracamontes' wife, Janelle Marquez Monroy, also is charged in the case but does not face the death penalty. Prosecutors allege her husband fired the fatal shots.

Her attorney, Peter Kmeto, declined comment after a separate hearing. The pair is scheduled to return to court Feb. 4.

Neither has entered pleas to multiple charges of murder, attempted murder, carjacking and attempted carjacking. They also face counts involving weapons violations...

The couple appeared to be living quietly in the Salt Lake City area until their arrest in California.

Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones released a YouTube video last month chastising President Barack Obama and Congress for their lack of progress on illegal immigration, a problem Jones linked to Bracamontes because the Mexican national has a long criminal history and was in the U.S. illegally.

Jones said Bracamontes had been deported four times before he was charged with killing the two deputies.
  Read more about Death penalty sought in California deputy killings