jobs

On Wednesday, the House Homeland Security committee rubber-stamped Rep. Michael McCaul's flawed border security bill (HR399) without meaningful improvements. The barely-tweaked bill reportedly is scheduled to be considered by the full House next Wednesday, January 28. In its current form, the bill will preserve the current catch-and-release policies, which were expanded even further by the executive actions announced in late November, rendering pointless much of the new spending and metrics-crunching mandated in this bill.

The main change to the bill made in the committee mark-up process was to increase the number of miles of new double fencing from 27 to 48, adding an additional ten miles in the Del Rio sector and another mile in the Tucson sector. This would bring the total length of double fencing up to 84 miles (over 600 miles less than the 700 miles mandated by the Secure Fence Act of 2006).

The amended product is still obsessed with attaining full Situational Awareness and Operational Control in five years, and oblivious to the fact that the current catch-and-release policies and newly expanded "prosecutorial discretion" policies that spare most illegal aliens from deportation would remain in place. Not only that, it gives oversight authority to an appointed commission that has little accountability to anyone.

To address catch-and-release, the bill should have heeded the recommendations of career Border Patrol and ICE personnel to specify and toughen the penalties that should generally ensue for illegal border crossers and authorize the tools, such as detention space, to enable this to be implemented. But the bill is silent on what kinds of consequences illegal crossers should face.

At a minimum, it would have been easy for the committee to tack on language from the Carter-Aderholt bill passed by the House last summer to address the border surge (analyzed by my colleague Dan Cadman here). GOP leaders seem to have completely forgotten this successful exercise in sound policymaking and party unification in response to a crisis. That was good governing that was well received by the public, and should have been a no-brainer to resurrect, along with the Goodlatte-Chaffetz bill on asylum reform.

In addition, the bill should have included among the dozens of metrics that DHS agencies will be required to collect at least one or two metrics that would reveal to the public how it is handling new illegal arrivals such as information on case disposition, whether the alien is detained or released, whether the new illegal arrival appears for court hearings, and whether the new arrival is granted a work permit.

In fact, the bill should prohibit the issuance of a work permit to new illegal arrivals, or anyone in deportation proceedings.

The bill should restore and expand Operation Streamline, a highly effective program that significantly reduced illegal crossings in certain sectors by efficiently detaining and prosecuting new illegal arrivals for the criminal offense of entry without inspection.

The Homeland Security Committee accepted this weakening of the mandate that DHS establish a biometric entry-exit system, which has been on the laundry list of must-do national security improvements since the first World Trade Center attacks in 1993. For example, the bill's loose language calls for biometrics to be collected at land ports of entry, but fails to specify that biometrics should be collected from all foreign visitors who enter at the land ports of entry.

And, it fails to synchronize the deportation process for legal entry overstays with the way illegal border crossers are treated both are recent illegal arrivals, and there is no good reason that overstays should be harder to deport than those who came over the land border.

Finally, in the section that supposedly intends to give the Border Patrol access to federal land within 100 miles of the border, from which it is currently blocked, the language of the bill appears to actually reverse a critical provision in current law that provides agents with the authority to access and patrol on public and private lands within 25 miles of the border (Section 13(e)(2). This could be a drafting error, but it urgently needs to be examined.

The pace at which this bill is being rammed through the House suggests that the leadership is eager to pass a token bill and then inform the public that the border problem has been solved, while leaving the president's executive amnesty intact and his abuse of authority unchallenged. If the rest of Congress goes along, they will have squandered the political momentum gained from their response to the border surge crisis not to mention wasting an opportunity to restore some integrity to our immigration laws and their sole authority to craft them. Not only would this fulfill a key campaign promise, it would begin to ameliorate the fiscal and security burden that the current policies have imposed on American communities. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Contact: Marguerite Telford
202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org Read more about House Border Bill Advances Without Improvement

Brief submitted by 12 states counters lawsuit filed by 25 other states in federal court.

Oregon has joined Washington and 10 other states in defense of President Obama’s executive action shielding up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation...

The statement, initiated by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, was filed in connection with a lawsuit brought by 25 other states against Obama’s Nov. 20 action.

The case is pending in U.S. District Court in Texas. A hearing is scheduled Thursday.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum issued a statement Wednesday explaining her reasoning to intervene:

“The president used his full legal authority and discretion to address critical immigration issues facing our country...

Judges and courts can use arguments submitted in friend-of-the-court briefs to bolster their reasoning in writing their decisions.

The judge in this case, Andrew Hanen, is more likely to side with the challenge brought by Attorney General Greg Abbott of Texas — soon to be that state’s governor — and other states that filed the suit on Dec. 3. The initial list of 17 has grown to 25.

But it’s likely that the proceedings will end up in the federal appellate courts....

In addition to Oregon and Washington, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Vermont and the District of Columbia have joined to defend Obama’s action.

Decisions to intervene in such cases are made by attorneys general, who are popularly elected in 43 states.

Of the 25 states challenging Obama’s action, 21 have Republican attorneys general; all 12 states supporting his action have Democratic attorneys general...

If Obama’s authority for executive action is upheld, Oregon and other states will consider whether work permits issued to these immigrants will constitute legal presence in the United States, a status enabling them to apply for driver’s licenses in many states.

Under a similar program created by Obama under a 2012 executive order, immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children qualified for work permits. Virtually all states, including Oregon, considered them proof of legal presence for issuance of licenses.

Oregon voters Nov. 4 rejected a 2013 law granting driver’s licenses to those who met driving knowledge and skills tests but cannot prove legal presence. Ten states have such laws, which are permitted under the federal Real ID Act if the licenses are clearly marked as invalid for federal purposes.

  Read more about Oregon joins legal support of Obama's immigration action

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