national legislation

Supreme Court: Arizona law requiring citizenship proof for voters is illegal

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states cannot require would-be voters to prove they are U.S. citizens before using a federal registration system designed to make signing up easier.

The justices voted 7-2 to throw out Arizona's voter-approved requirement that prospective voters document their U.S. citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal "Motor Voter" voter registration law.

Federal law "precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself," Justice Antonia Scalia wrote for the court's majority.

The court was considering the legality of Arizona's requirement that prospective voters document their U.S. citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal "motor voter" registration law. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which doesn't require such documentation, trumps Arizona's Proposition 200 passed in 2004.

Arizona appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.

The case focuses on Arizona, which has tangled frequently with the federal government over immigration issues involving the Mexican border. But it has broader implications because four other states -- Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee -- have similar requirements, and 12 other states are contemplating such legislation.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the court's ruling.

The Constitution "authorizes states to determine the qualifications of voters in federal elections, which necessarily includes the related power to determine whether those qualifications are satisfied," Thomas said in his dissent.

Opponents of Arizona's law see it as an attack on vulnerable voter groups such as minorities, immigrants and the elderly. They say they've counted more than 31,000 potentially legal voters in Arizona who easily could have registered before Proposition 200 but were blocked initially by the law in the 20 months after it passed in 2004. They say about 20 percent of those thwarted were Latino.

But Arizona officials say they should be able to pass laws to stop illegal immigrants and other noncitizens from getting on their voting rolls. The Arizona voting law was part of a package that also denied some government benefits to illegal immigrants and required Arizonans to show identification before voting.

The federal "motor voter" law, enacted in 1993 to expand voter registration, requires states to offer voter registration when a resident applies for a driver's license or certain benefits. Another provision of that law -- the one at issue before the court -- requires states to allow would-be voters to fill out mail-in registration cards and swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but it doesn't require them to show proof. Under Proposition 200, Arizona officials require an Arizona driver's license issued after 1996, a U.S. birth certificate, a passport or other similar document, or the state will reject the federal registration application form.

Arizona can ask the federal government to include the extra documents as a state-specific requirement, Scalia said, and take any decision made by the government on that request back to court.
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Special Delivery: A Trojan horse

Michelle Bachmann spells it out for anyone laboring under the illusion that there is no way an amnesty bill will actually pass.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/13/bachmann_ruling_class_will_pass_a_trojan_horse_immigration_bill_in_house.html
  Read more about Special Delivery: A Trojan horse

Bachmann: "Ruling Class" Will Pass A "Trojan Horse" Immigration Bill In House

"Don't count on the House stopping this bill," retiring Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) warns about the immigration reform proposal in the Senate. "Because this is what's going to happen: The Senate is going to pass a very bad bill. The House will pass what will sound like a pretty good bill. But I’m just here to tell you, it's a Trojan horse."

"It will be a Trojan horse bill that says 'we're here to secure the borders.' So all the Republicans will vote for this bill -- for securing the border. Those bills will go to what's called a conference committee," Bachmann told World Net Daily.

"The good guts of the Trojan horse bill will be pulled out. The very bad amnesty provisions will be put in the bill. The bill will go to the House floor and it won’t be Republicans that pass it. It will be Nancy Pelosi leading all the House Democrats to vote for it. And just enough Republicans, probably committee chairs and subcommittee chairs will be voting for the bill, and you'll have amnesty and it will all be done in six weeks," she said.

Hear Bachmann explain her idea.

 

 

 


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Immigration Reform Clears First Senate Hurdle In 82-15 Vote

The Senate’s “Gang of Eight” immigration bill took a significant step forward Tuesday afternoon, when the Senate voted 82-15 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed on the measure. The Senate will now begin formal debate on the bill, with the goal of holding a final vote on the compromise measure by the July 4th holiday.

Despite weeks of heated debate over the bill, just 15 senators voted against moving it forward: John Barrasso (R-WY), John Boozman (R-AR), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jim Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Tim Scott (R-SC), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), and David Vitter (R-LA). All 15 are Republicans.

Despite the overwhelming support for the motion to proceed, the ultimate fate of the compromise bill is still very much in question. Many of the Republicans who voted in favor of the motion to proceed may ultimately oppose the bill after it undergoes a contentious amendment process. Specifically, Senator John Cornyn’s (R-TX) amendment to add strict border security requirements before any immigrants can obtain permanent residence — a proposal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has called a “poison pill” — and Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) amendment to add language protecting same-sex couples could divide the fragile coalition that supports the bill. Leahy has not yet announced whether he will offer the amendment, which he declined to offer in committee in the face of Republican threats that it would scuttle the deal.

As Jamelle Bouie points out in The Plum Line, Democratic senators such as Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Max Baucus (D-MT), Mark Pryor (D-AR), and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) could ultimately oppose the bill as well.

Senate leaders from both parties hailed Tuesday’s vote as a critical step toward fixing the nation’s broken immigration system.

“There are 11 million reasons to pass common-sense immigration reform that mends our broken system — 11 million stories of heartbreak and suffering that should motivate Congress to act,” Senator Reid said ahead of the vote. “The bipartisan proposal before the Senate takes important steps to strengthen border security. It also makes crucial improvements to our broken legal immigration system.”

Similarly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — who has threatened that the bill would need “major changes” to ultimately win his vote — voted to invoke cloture, arguing on the floor that the Senate “deserves a chance to debate it” and “the opportunity to amend it.”

Even if the bill does survive the Senate, there are no guarantees that it will advance through the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. House Speaker John Boehner expressed his concerns with the “Gang of Eight” compromise during a Tuesday morning interview with ABC News, telling host George Stephanopoulos that “especially in the area of border security, and internal enforcement of this system, I’m concerned that it doesn’t go far enough.”

“I would expect that a House bill will be to the right of where the Senate is,” Boehner added.

Were the House to pass the Senate bill, it would almost certainly be with a minority of the Republican House majority — in violation of the so-called “Hastert Rule.”

Earlier Tuesday, President Barack Obama had pushed the Senate to move forward with the bill. The president stressed that the compromise bill contains several elements for which Republicans have pushed — such as $6.5 billion in new border security, and harsher penalties for businesses that employ undocumented workers — and insisted that “no one is going to get everything they want. Not Democrats. Not Republicans. Not me.” Read more about Immigration Reform Clears First Senate Hurdle In 82-15 Vote

Border apprehensions wildly exaggerated in formula behind Senate bill, say critics

The 90 percent apprehension goal set by Senate and House bills seeking to rein in illegal immigration while establishing a path to citizenship for those crossing into the U.S. from Mexico is based on fuzzy math, according to critics.

The goal, which is supposed to give teeth to legislation some view as amnesty, would depend on a Department of Homeland Security formula for determining the success rate of catching illegal border crossers. That formula requires visual or physical evidence for determining someone got past the border patrol, evidence that simply isn’t left behind in most cases. The result, say critics, is a wildly exaggerated success rate for catching illegal border crossers.

“To calculate it, border patrol officers go out and look for physical evidence of crossings… you know, ‘I saw this person cross and I didn't get him.’ Or, ‘I saw footprints in the sand,’” John Whitley, an economist who analyzed such statistics while he served as the director of the DHS’s Program Analysis & Evaluation department under President Bush, told FoxNews.com.

The problem is that, no matter how hard border patrol officers try to find physical evidence of successful illegal crossings, they can’t find everything.

“We know that this method of calculation understates the number of successful crossings, because you're excluding anyone you don't have physical evidence for,” Whitley said.

Using that method, Department of Homeland Security data already indicate a border security effectiveness rate of 84 percent -- close to the 90 percent target.

Some congressmen are concerned about the numbers.

“To just look for footprints and have a guesstimate – that would be outrageous,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told FoxNews.com.

“We can't go along with a bill that says, ‘Hey, we have a 90 percent requirement for security’ – when there is no way to verify whether or not the 90 percent is accurate.”

In addition to not being accurate, the DHS methodology presents other problems, according to critics. For instance, an administration looking to artificially inflate the border effectiveness rate could simply call Border Patrol officers off from looking for signs of successful crossings and assign them to other tasks.

“There is no way we could trust this Department of Homeland Security to verify,” Gohmert said. “And there are independent sources that we could trust. We could have drones and other monitoring where we can find out exactly how many make it across without being apprehended.”

Other methods of estimating border crossings show a much lower apprehension rate.

“Survey data, recidivism data, and press reports about the Vader radar system all put it in the 50 percent range,” Whitley said, referring to the DHS’s new airborne Vader radar system which, during a test last winter in the Sonora Desert, indicated that the Border Patrol caught 1,874 people but missed 1,962 who successfully crossed.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

But groups that support more immigration said that border enforcement should not be a priority in the first place.

“Government obsession with the particulars of border enforcement metrics misses the point,” said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration analyst at the CATO institute. “We know from experience that increasing legal immigration opportunities, especially for lower-skilled guest workers, is the best way to eliminate unlawful immigration. Border Patrol should operate as a funnel to channel would-be unlawful immigrants into the legal market rather than an agency that separates willing workers from willing employers.”

Policy questions aside, the formula some say is flawed makes the pending Senate bill being touted by Marco Rubio R-Fla., and others problematic, according to sources on Capitol Hill.

“It doesn’t make sense if you’re allowing the Department of Homeland Security to judge themselves,” a GOP Senate staffer told FoxNews.com. “They can game the system, game the statistics, and then end up meeting the requirements.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced Tuesday that he would introduce an amendment that would put Congress, not the DHS, in charge of making the determination about whether the border is 90 percent secure.

“My amendment requires Congress to vote every year on border security. If Congress votes that the border is not secure, elements of immigration reform will cease to go forward and visa programs will be slowed," Paul said in a press release.

As of now, the 90 percent goal remains only that, a goal – and the path to citizenship provisions for illegal aliens would be implemented even if the 90 percent target were not met. The only consequence of not meeting the target is the creation of a government committee that would issue a report with recommendations for meeting the target.

Gohmert says he does not want the bills to pass.

“Let's secure the border. And then we can get a deal worked out very, very quickly after that. But not until the border is secure.”

The writer of this piece can be reached at maxim.lott@foxnews.com or on twitter at @maximlott
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Evangelicals Mislead on Funding of Immigration Ads

The Evangelical Immigration Table, a coalition supporting immigration reform, has launched a six-figure ad campaign pushing Congress to enact immigration legislation. The ads, urging evangelicals to "pray" for a path to citizenship, include the disclaimer that they were "paid for" by the Table. This is odd, because the group doesn't legally exist. It is a highly misleading claim.

Breitbart News confirmed on Monday that the actual purchase of the ads was made by the National Immigration Forum (NIF). The Table told Breitbart News on Friday that it wasn't an incorporated entity or non-profit organization and had selected NIF to "facilitate" its work. A source at a media buying firm in DC told Breitbart News that NIF did not take the traditional commission on the ad purchase, which was described as "very odd." It suggests NIF was making its own purchase of the ads, rather than simply acting as a "facilitator" of the buy.

This likely isn't illegal. Because the ads don't involve an election or candidates, there are no rules on disclosing who paid for an ad. I, for example, could pay for ads supporting tort reform and say the ads were "paid for" by Virginians for Civil Justice, even though I just made up that organization.

Legal isn't necessarily ethical, however.

The National Immigration Forum, which, again made the actual purchase of the ads, has received millions of dollars in grants from George Soros' left-wing Open Society Institute. It has also received considerable funding from the Ford Foundation, another prominent funder of leftist organizations.

Saying an ad is "paid for" by the Evangelical Immigration Table is very different than saying the ads were paid for by an organization with considerable funding from the institutional left. Viewers of the ad might be drawn to different conclusions about the legislation if they knew the actual source of funding. Read more about Evangelicals Mislead on Funding of Immigration Ads

Rubio raises the possibility of jumping off immigration reform push

In a video to constituents, Sen. Marco Rubio has raised the possibility that he could abandon the immigration reform bill he’s been pushing if political “horse trading” waters down his priorities in the bill.

Though he defended the idea of comprehensive immigration reform, Rubio warned that if the individual components (such as E-Verify and border security) aren’t treated “as separate issues even though they are dealt with in one bill, then I won’t be able to support that anymore.”

Read more: http://conservativebyte.com/2013/06/rubio-raises-the-possibility-of-jumping-off-immigration-reform-push/#ixzz2VCYt1tiy
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The Mother of All Legislative Train Wrecks:

(Washington, D.C. May 29, 2013) The Gang of Eight immigration bill, S.744, is on its way to the Senate floor for a vote, possibly as early as the week of June 10.

The bill was drafted in secret by eight senators and a group of Washington lobbyists. After its introduction on April 17, it received minimal scrutiny at a handful of hearings stacked with supporters of amnesty for illegal aliens and cheap labor for business interests, followed by a hasty Judiciary Committee mark-up in which virtually no substantive amendments were adopted.

“The product of this rigged and secretive effort to hijack American immigration policy under the guise of reform is a bill that can best be described as the mother of all legislative train wrecks,” declared Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “S.744 includes a massive amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, a massive infusion of foreign labor to compete with skilled and low-skilled American workers, trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, and unprecedented discretionary authority for the Obama administration to ignore immigration laws. What the Gang of Eight bill does not include are mandates for border enforcement, or meaningful protections for American workers.”

In anticipation of the bill heading to the Senate floor for debate, FAIR has compiled a list of the Top 40 Reasons to Oppose the Senate Amnesty Bill, including:

The bill would not secure our borders or improve immigration enforcement:

  • No border security requirements. The bill merely requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit a plan to secure the border.
  • A rollback of existing border fencing requirements.
  • No biometric exit system at all land, air and sea ports of entry to track aliens who enter and leave the U.S., which is already required under current law.

The bill would not enhance homeland security, or prevent legalization of criminals and terrorists:

  • Illegal aliens would be protected from detention or removal merely by filing an application for Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status.
  • Would allow illegal aliens with multiple misdemeanor convictions to gain RPI status.
  • Allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to waive a broad array of unlawful behavior for the purpose of determining whether illegal aliens are admissible, including gang membership, drunken driving offenses, domestic violence and others.

The bill would not protect U.S. workers or taxpayers:

  • E-Verify won’t go into effect for all employers until four years after DHS issues regulations implementing the mandatory program, meaning these protections would not be in place for a decade or more after enactment.
  • Doubles the admission of new permanent immigrants to compete with U.S. workers.
  • Increases the number of guest workers by 50 percent during the first decade of enactment, including as many as 200,000 new low-skilled guest workers.
  • Reduces protections for skilled U.S. workers against losing jobs and opportunities to H-1B guest workers.
  • Does not require legalized aliens to pay back taxes.

The bill poses an enormous unfunded liability for U.S. taxpayers:

  • Future costs of government services and benefits to amnesty recipients could run as high as $6.3 trillion.
  • Requires that DHS waive the public charge law when determining which aliens are eligible for amnesty.
  • Would allow people with as little as 125 percent of poverty level income to qualify for green cards after ten years AND sponsor relatives to immigrate legally.
  • Creates a slush fund for advocacy groups to recruit and assist amnesty applicants.
  • Allows illegal aliens, and even broad classes of illegal aliens, to litigate unfavorable amnesty decisions, with taxpayers picking up the legal costs.

The full list of the Top 40 Reasons to Oppose the Gang of Eight Amnesty Bill can be found on FAIR’s website, www.fairus.org.
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OSU student is a real gem

Gabbriella and OFIR became acquainted when she volunteered to testify against the instate tuition benefit bill for illegal alien students.  Her testomony was outstanding.  Because of that, FAIR became interested in her potential and invited her to attend Hold Their Feet to the Fire with me last month.  She was a delight to have along and was well spoken, gracious and poised even in some fairly stressful situations...like meeting with Senator Rubio's Senior Advisor and Immigration staff.

Gabby is currently participating in an internship program back in DC again.  She wrote this article just published by The Washington Examiner.

OFIR salutes Gabby for her active participation in our country's future!


  Read more about OSU student is a real gem

No need for speed on immigration bill

The Senate "Gang of Eight" immigration bill, S. 744, now wending its way through the Judiciary Committee, has been sold as a "pathway to citizenship" for the estimated 11 million illegal aliens. It does a lot more damage than that, and the public needs to understand what's in it.

Just a few years ago, key members of the "Gang of Eight" would have seemed content to enact the so-called Dream Act — a more modest amnesty for about 500,000 to 700,000 aliens brought here as young people. This has been replaced with a massive proposal that tries to rewrite virtually every aspect of U.S. immigration law, and not for the better.

Why the big reach now? Because the bill's major sponsors figure the stars have aligned and that it is time to go for broke. Under prodding from President Obama and the supervision of Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, S. 744 is not just a big amnesty — it goes way beyond that in ways the mainstream media haven't reported. Mr. Schumer has assembled a wish list for every special-interest group that profits from immigration either financially or politically. In doing so, the public and national security interests are in very real danger of irreparable damage.

If you care about effective and enforceable immigration policies, you need to pay attention. The bill has the potential to change everything that makes America a great place to be. Overcrowding, congestion, unemployment and even larger deficits will be the new norm.

Mr. Schumer has presided over the crafting of a stealthy legislative monster that would render any limits on immigration meaningless. Through its 867 pages, the bill explodes overall immigration — more than 50 million people will gain permanent residence or temporary work status in just the next 10 years — while rendering asylum, refugee and immigration laws virtually unenforceable. On top of the expected administrative anarchy, the huge increases in overall immigration could set off the biggest unmanaged population increase in modern history.

Mr. Schumer is not to be underestimated. A 30-year veteran of immigration law and policy, he knows how to design a program to maximize the inflow while derailing integrity. He gave us the fraud-ridden agricultural amnesty in 1986, viewed by most experts as having been riddled with fraud.

Mr. Schumer has built on this experience by authoring a bill designed to promote fragmentation, dysfunction and delay. Instead of actual border security, S. 744 promises us a plan to secure the border, with no consequence for failing to implement it. It hands lawyers carte blanche to tie our legal system in knots litigating denied amnesty claims, even on behalf of criminals and people who have already been deported. The bill would dramatically expand the admission of both skilled and low-skilled labor, while widening the grounds for gaining asylum beyond what is justified by law and common sense.

This bill is a political power grab by those who would sell off residency in the United States to the highest bidder — using a public asset for personal and party gain. Mr. Schumer and the rest of the "Gang of Eight" think they can get away with it because the American people — who still care about borders and the collective good — do not have powerful Washington lobbyists looking out for their interests.

The drafters know the details of the bill would be extremely unpopular if they were widely known, which is why it is being rushed through the Senate before anyone can even fully digest it. After just a handful of stacked hearings, S. 744 is now being rushed through markup in an effort to get it to the floor by June.

The American people need to know more about what is in this bill, and the media have the obligation to explain the scope and probable effects of this bill. Amazingly, even in the wake of the Boston bombings, concerns about the national security implications of the bill have not only not been explored, but dismissed as obstructionist.

S. 744 is much more than a big amnesty program. It shreds our immigration-control system and enshrines every fear that Americans have regarding our loss of border and administrative management. Passing bills first and reading them later is a prescription for disaster. We can only have an honest discussion about our national immigration future if we all have an honest opportunity to read and study the bill.

 

Dan Stein is president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Read more about No need for speed on immigration bill

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