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The Biden administration is easing up on scofflaw illegal immigrants by pulling the plug on President Trumps program to fine them for defying court-issued deportation orders and forgiving all the debts racked up under the policy.

We can enforce our immigration laws without resorting to ineffective and unnecessary punitive measures, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday.

Under a Trump-issued January 2017 executive order, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued steep fines to non-citizens who refused to leave the country when ordered to do so.

Penalties started at $3,000 and could mount by up to $500 a day in one case adding up to a staggering $497,777, NPR reported in 2019.

But the agency was unable to collect on most of the bills, CNN reported, only recouping about 1 percent of the fines issued.

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The Department of Homeland Security stopped issuing penalties in January, the agency said and added that it intends to work with the Department of Treasury to cancel the existing debts of those who had been fined.

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Biden forgives Trump's fines on illegal immigrants who refused deportation - New York Post

President Biden is considering creating an anti-corruption task force to address mass migration coming from Central America, a top U.S. official announced Thursday.

Special Envoy to the Triangle Nations, Ricardo Zuniga, told reporters the task force would help local prosecutors manage corruption contributing to human rights abuses.

HARRIS TO TRAVEL TO GUATEMALA, MEXICO AMID CRITICISM OVER BORDER CRISIS

"Governance addressing corruption is at the center ofwhat the Biden administration is focusing on," Zuniga said.

Illegal immigration at the U.S. southern border has risen steeply this year, with migrants coming predominately from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

Biden has said he will take on the immigration crisis by reversing Trump-era policies and addressing the "root causes" contributing to migrants fleeing the Northern Triangle countries in Central America.

Zuniga told reporters Thursday the White House will release a proposal next month to disperse $4 billion over a four-year period. The plan is set to focus on promoting governance and transparency, economic development and security.

Biden tasked Vice President Kamala Harris with taking on the complex immigration crisis, and she is set to travel to Mexico and Guatemala "soon," the administration announced last week.

HOUSE REPUBLICANS DEMAND ANSWERS FROM VP HARRIS ON 'POLITICALLY MOTIVATED' BORDER DECISION

"We're also addressing structural problems [that have] infected so many lives and Central America, whether they regard insecurity or lack of opportunities," Zuniga said, applauding Harris"leadership."

The United States will also be imposing sanctions on Central American officials involved in corruption by barring their travelto the U.S., and assessing financial penalties.

"We have a mandate from the U.S. Congress to develop lists of officials who are involved in corruption and to propose actions against them," Zuniga said.

The Special Envoytraveled to Guatemala and El Salvador earlier this month, but was refused a meeting by Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele, who accused the administration of ill-treatmentsignalinga tough road ahead for officials in charge of combating massmigration.

Zuniga also said that Mexico "has been our key partner in efforts to manage migration."

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"We have really focused on countries that are at center of movement of people," he explained Thursday, adding that the U.S. is developing "working groups" in El Salvador and Honduras.

Harris is set to hold a virtual meeting with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei Monday.

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Biden to assemble anti-corruption task force to take on illegal immigration - Fox News

Laredo is getting mixed reactions to the updated terminology for immigrants who had crossed the border illegally.

In a memo by Troy A. Miller, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner, it establishes updated terminology for U.S. Customs and Border Protection communications and materials.

Changes mentioned in the memo are alien for noncitizen or migrant, alienage for noncitizenship, unaccompanied alien children to noncitizen unaccompanied children illegal alien to undocumented noncitizen, undocumented individual or migrant, among others.

In response to the vision set by the Administration, CBP will ensure agency communications use the preferred terminology and inclusive language as outlined below. This guidance applies to communications such as agency outreach efforts, internal documents and overall communications with stakeholders, partners and the general public, the memo reads.

For immigration attorney and former councilmember Nelly Vielma, this change was long overdue.

Its about time that the human dignity of people, refugees, immigrants and other displaced human beings are given an appropriate name. For many years, our countrys laws have labeled people in the immigration system as aliens or illegals, Vielma said. We may see it as a term to refer to people as foreigners, but ask yourselves, how would you and your family feel with that label if you were in their shoes? Although it may seem as a minor change, I hope the migrant community will be treated with dignity and respect, which is the expectation as our system slowly changes the labels to remove the negative connotations.

Agent Hector Garza, president of the National Border Patrol Council-Local 2455, said that under the Biden administration, agents received new guidance and updated terminology. But he pointed out that this memo still allows agents to continue using the same terminology under the Immigraction and Nationality Act as mentioned in the second paragraph of the memo.

As needed and appropriate, CBP may use applicable terms defined in the Immigration Nationality Act in legal or operational documents, including when completing required forms, particularly where legally required or necessary to ensure the procedural rights of those whom CBP encounters, states the memo.

Garza added, What is interesting is that it appears the Biden administration is trying to at peace immigrant rights groups.

Garza pointed out that agents are trained under the law to use the term alien under the Immigration and Nationality Act. That terminology is ingrained in agents because those are the terms members of congress approved, Garza said.

Nothing is going to change. Illegal aliens will still be illegal aliens, he said.

For Congressman Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, he briefly mentioned during a news conference on another topic that he can understand some people are trying to be politically correct.

But if you look at what the statute says, they do use the word alien. Thats what the statute does. Unless the statute changes, some of us will continue to use the word alien on that. Thats just what the statute says right now, and I dont think the statute is going to be changed, Cuellar said.

Words matter but the question is, which words, in what circumstances are those words going to be used, the congressman mentioned.

The word alien is used in the statute. Its been used for many years. But theres a new thinking that they want to use something. I think right now that as long as the statute is there, I probably will be using the word alien. Thats the word thats in the statute until we change that.

Cuellar went on to say that while people focus on words, the focus should be shifted to stopping the flow of people coming in and handling the flow that is already in the country.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also released a statement regarding the updated terminology.

Consistent with the Biden Administrations goals to foster inclusion and build a more fair and humane immigration system, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is adopting terminology to help rebuild public trust and reshape the agency image. The change reflects ICEs commitment to treat everyone with whom we interact with respect and dignity while still enforcing our nations laws, ICE said in a statement.

An official also stated that ICE will make efforts to avoid using terminology that might be perceived by others as offensive or otherwise disparaging. The official also mentioned that ICE leadership will no longer use terms such as alien or illegal in internal or external public facing documents and communications.

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Scratch of illegal alien term gets mixed reaction in Laredo - Laredo Morning Times

Russ Sloan| Guest columnist

If you did not see the pictures of two little girls, ages 3 and 5, dropped over a 14-foot border fence to the ground bysmugglers,I guarantee that had you witnessedit,as I did,you would never forget what you saw.

This occurred on the New Mexico border and miles from the nearest residence. The little girls were rescued byborderpatrol agents while conducting virtual surveillance. It is a miracle that both girls were not seriously hurt or even killed by the fall. In the past 10 days there have also been pictures and interviews of children under 10 who do not speak Englishand were abandoned in the middle of nowhere,crying for help.

What parents would put their children through such an ordeal? We are seeing thousands of unaccompanied minors coming to our borderwhilePresidentJoeBiden and Vice PresidentKamalaHarris are missing in action.

In watching interviews of experienced border agents,they state they have never seen anything quite like this run on oursouthernborder. Yet, the Biden Administrationclaims there is no crisis.In other words, don't believe your lying eyes!

This entire border fiasco has been brought on by the Biden team reversing the policies of PresidentDonaldTrump that had proven to have worked.In a dire situation crying out for leadership, our top two leaders, Biden and Harris are both MIAs.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection took more than 172,000 illegal aliens into custody in March,which is the highest total in more than 20 years. This number represents those we know about. I heard an interview of along-timeborderagentstate that this number does not count the "get-aways,"which would bring the total close to 250,000.

We certainly don't begin to catch all thosecrossing our border so whatever number we know aboutdoes not accurately account for those who are actually illegally within our country. Of those who are caught, many are being released byborderagents without a returncourt date due to limited space in already over-crowded holding facilities.Don't think for one second that this massive influx ofillegal immigrantswill not have long-term consequences on our country, especially our political process.

Personally, I join those who believe that the Biden Administration expected this massive run on our border but are largelylooking the other way as they view this as thepricewe must pay to ensure future Democrat voters and maintaining power.

The reason that Biden and Harrishave not gone to the border is that they know the whole press corps would have to follow them to the border andAmericans would seefirsthandthe magnitude of the crisis. Currently the Biden team can claim there is no crisis and theliberal media will not challenge their dishonestborder assessment.

The Trumpborder policies were working. Keeping those migrants seeking access to America on the Mexican side until their cases could be heard was a huge positive step in preventing access to America, never to be seen again. The cost ofillegalimmigration is substantial, well over $200 billion annually. But the costs ofillegalmigrationisbut one of the major negative aspects to breaking our laws. Congressionaldistricts are determined by the census count ofperson, regardless of their resident status.This aloneshifts political power.

Illegal immigrationover the years, since PresidentRonalReagan, has moved California from a fairly reliableredstate to abluestate, as children of migrants born into citizenship reach voting age.Democratvoter registrations outnumber Republicans by a margin of almost two to one.It will be a miracle if any Republican will ever again hold a state office in California.

Biden's tolerance of the currentsouthernborder onslaught is a deliberate calculation that in the coming years, amnesty for illegal immigrants and citizenship for their children will swell the number of Democratic voters whoflip Texas, Florida and Arizonafromred toblue. Itassures no Republican ever again win thepresidency. Four years of a Bidenpresidency,and the illegal immigration that will follow, is deliberately devious and will prove fatal to our two-party system and our republic.

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From the Right: Biden and Harris are missing in action from the southern border crisis - Daily Commercial

Glenn Pinocchio Kessler of theWashington Postassertsit is a bogus claim by Heritage Action that Democrats want to register undocumented immigrants to vote and denies that the automatic voter registration requirement inHR 1will lead to that. He clearly doesnt understand the practical problems arising from a voter registration system in which election officials do absolutely nothing to verify that individuals registering to vote areactually citizens.

Should anyone be surprised, though, when Kessler bases his assessment on the Brennan Center, a liberal advocacy group that litigates against any attempt by states to verify citizenship and that has tried to stop almost every attempt to reform the election process to ensure the security and integrity of elections?

Kessler dismisses as a minor problem the fact that the California Department of Motor Vehicles had toadmitthat, due to a glitch, 1,500 noncitizens (not one, as Kessler claims) may have been registered to vote in error through its new automatic voter registration system. What he fails to say is that California election officials didnt discover this on their own; they only found out about the mistake after a Canadian citizen went to theLos Angeles Timesandtoldthem he had gotten a notice from the DMV telling him he had been registered to vote.

Its notable that Kessler uses the politically correct term undocumented immigrants instead of illegal immigrants, which is another indication of his bias. How many of these people may have been automatically registered that California officials still dont know about? This discovery waslayeredon top of mistakes made with twenty-three thousand other registrations by California officials, something else Kessler fails to mention. Reports indicate there were as many asone hundred thousanderrors made by Californias automatic system in just the first year.

There is no way of knowing how many of these illegal immigrants may have become registered because California, as both a state that provides people with drivers licenses and a sanctuary jurisdiction, has gone toextraordinary lengthsto shield the information in its DMV files on the citizenship status of its licensees (and thus voter registrants). It wont even provide that information to law enforcement authorities.

You wouldnt know from Kesslers analysis that undocumented immigrants registering and voting in California without detection by the state isnt a new problem. Aninvestigationby the U.S. House of Representatives of the 1996 election contest between Republican Rep. Bob Dornan and Democrat Loretta Sanchez concluded that literally hundreds of ineligible immigrants had voted in that election. That election wasnt overturned because Sanchez squeaked by with just enough legal votes to win. But California election officials had no clue (or didnt care) that hundreds of registered California voters were aliens. None were ever prosecuted, and California never took any steps to fix this security hole in its registration system.

Kessler also fails to mention that Illinois has had thesame problem, with hundreds of illegal immigrants being registered because of a technical glitch in its new automatic voter registration system. Contrary to what you might hear from the Brennan Center, there sure are a lot of glitches occurring out there. Of course, Illinois is another sanctuary state that doesnt actually verify citizenship when individuals register to vote and whose DMVs shoddy practicesallowed these immigrants to registerto vote even before they implemented automatic voter registration.

Take Margarita Del Pilar Fitzpatrick, a native and citizen of Peru whoregisteredto vote when she obtained an Illinois drivers license and then voted twice. As in California, Illinois election officials didnt detect this; the only reason we know about it is the investigation that occurred when she applied for U.S. citizenship. In fact, Kessler is apparently unaware of52 U.S.C. 20506(a)(5)(c), which specifically prohibits DMV officialseven when they know a license applicant is not a citizenfrom mak[ing] any statement to an applicant or tak[ing] any action the purpose or effect of which is to discourage the applicant from registering to vote.

Kessler doesnt mention Pennsylvania either, whereanotherglitch in the states DMV system registered over eight thousand illegal immigrants to votewithout election officials realizing they had a problem until years later. And they didnt even have an automatic voter registration system.

How often is that going to happenall over the country, given the long, extensive list of state and federal agencies subject to the mandate in HR 1including public schools, which make it a point not to learn the citizenship status of their students? Just how accurate are their databases and how often are they going to make mistakes, or send information on to election officials when they are in doubt or when they dont inquire about or really know the citizenship status of the individuals their agencies deal with, lest they be accused of trying to deny someones civil rights?

Local and state officials greatly fear such accusations and if they are in doubt, they will submit the registration rather than rock the boat and risk an accusation of having engaged in discriminatory behavior.

As to whether the Left and prominent Democrats want illegal immigrants to register and vote, which Kessler denies, one should ask why they are filing lawsuits against states like Kansas to stop new state laws that require those registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship. Why did Terry McAuliffe, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, when he was governor of Virginia,vetoa 2015 bill that would have required state courts to simply notify county election officials when individuals called for jury duty from the voter registration list were excused because they were not U.S. citizens or felons?

The only possible reason for vetoing such a bill is because you want illegal immigrants (and felons) to be able to registerand do so without detection or prosecution.

Heritage Action said in its ad against HR 1 that the Left wants to pass the bill to register illegal immigrants to vote. It is quite clear that the sponsors of HR 1, their denials and bogus fact checks notwithstanding, fully expect that the automatic voter registration mandate will result in illegal (and legal) immigrants being registered. Why else would they include a provision ( 1015(a)(2)) saying that an immigrant who is automatically registered as a result of this mandate cannot be prosecuted under any Federal or State law, adversely affected in any civil adjudication concerning immigration status or naturalization, or subject to an allegation in any legal proceeding that the individual is not a citizen of the United States?

The truth is, that America already has a problem with illegal immigrants registering and voting, as demonstrated by numerous reports and cases. Given the vulnerabilities andsecurity weaknessesin the U.S. registration system, HR 1s automatic registration threatens to make this problem much, much worse. Thus,The Washington Postsclaims to the contraryare deserving of four Pinocchios and a pants on fire for good measure.

This piece originally appeared in The National Interest https://nationalinterest.org/feature/real-hr-1-problem-illegal-immigrants-voting-182301

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The Real HR 1 Problem: Illegal Immigrants Voting? - Heritage.org