Archive for the ‘Illegal Immigration’ Category

Sanctuary Cities Promise to Make 1 Million Immigrants Citizens in 2017 – Fox News Insider

Putin: TV Trump Very Different From Real Trump

Twenty-one cities, several of them sanctuary cities, have pledged to make one million immigrants American citizens by the end of 2017.

TheNaturalize Now initiative is aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from deportation under the Trump administration. President Trump is not against legal immigration, but has promised to crack down on illegal residency in the U.S., especially of criminals.

The cities include New York City, NY; San Francisco, CA; Seattle; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Jersey City, NJ; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; Pittsburgh, PA; and Tucson, AZ.

Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and other progressive elected officials have joined in the path to citizenship effort.

"We celebrate our independence on July 4, and honor the values of freedom, justice, unity, and equality that make us who we are," Garcetti said.

The House of Representatives passed two immigration bills June 29,"Kate's Law" and the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act. The bills exact harsher penalties on those who re-enter after being deported and put pressure on local governments to cooperate with feds on immigration enforcement.

Putin: TV Trump Very Different From Real Trump

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Sanctuary Cities Promise to Make 1 Million Immigrants Citizens in 2017 - Fox News Insider

Caribbean Currents: Is taxing illegal immigrants before citizenship fair? – The Philadelphia Tribune

Were you aware that many illegal immigrants pay millions of dollars in taxes to our government each year through payroll deduction? According to a CNN report, out of the nearly 11.1 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S., the information that they gathered from Pew Research showed that there were about 8 million in the workforce in 2014. Nearly half, or 3.4 million, of those workers paid social security taxes, according to 2014 estimates from the Social Security Administration. And while the agency doesnt have a figure for how much this group paid in taxes that year, it said that unauthorized immigrant workers and their employers contributed $13 billion in payroll taxes in 2010, its most current estimate.

In a documentary hosted by Charles Barclay which aired on TNT cable network recently, he interviewed a Hispanic family where the father held down two full-time jobs for many years. Taxes were taken out of both of his paychecks just like any normal American; federal taxes like Social Security, state taxes, unemployment taxes, etc. The dad pointed out that he does not have a social security number but he was given a Tax Identification Number to pay his taxes. This same person cannot collect any benefits from the government without a social security number. I found that fact very interesting.

These immigrant families come to the United States because they are trying to escape political and economic oppression in their country. They want a better life for their family and will risk coming here as an illegal immigrant to do so. It costs money and takes years to apply for a green card to come to the United States, money that a lot of these people dont have to get through the process. And those who do save the money, get to a certain point in the process and are turned away only to have to save more money to re-apply. If you are from another country, you know it can be a vicious cycle.

These illegal immigrants pay into the system and they are helping to sustain Social Security. Some Americans are ready for them to be drop-kicked back into their country. Isnt it amazing that the government can somehow issue a Tax Identification Number for these people to pay their taxes but they cannot work with them to become naturalized citizens or permanent residents?

Michelle (who wishes to go only by her first name) is originally from Jamaica. She said illegal immigrants who pay into the system through their taxes should be giving back to the system. She explained that from her understanding of the process, the Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) is a tax processing number issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to ensure that people including unauthorized immigrants pay taxes even if they do not have a social security number and regardless of their immigration status. ITINs allow the IRS to bring in billions of dollars the federal government otherwise would have no way of collecting.

Many people might question the fairness of an illegal immigrant paying taxes without being able to get the same benefits as a citizen or a permanent resident, she said. This becomes an interesting question to ponder. From my perspective it is fair. As the daughter of an immigrant that came to American legally, I know all of the sacrifices that they had to make to come into this country the correct way. While I dont agree with some of the deportation practices, I do think that withholding certain benefits until an immigrant has the correct legal status is fair. I certainly think having to pay taxes and not getting certain benefits is used as a deterrent for individuals to work toward becoming legal and not remain in this country as illegal immigrant workers. Bottom line is, if you come into this country legally, you should be entitled to receive more benefits than those who chose to enter illegally, she said.

Michelle makes some very good points but it still tears me up to hear these original Americans (who evidently do not have family members who were immigrants to this country) shouting, go back where you came from. If they go back through their family history, they more than likely will find an illegal immigrant or two or maybe even three. Why dont they go back where they came from?

Have a little compassion for your fellow man. You all would do the same thing. That is why people came up with the expression, walk a mile in my shoes.

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Caribbean Currents: Is taxing illegal immigrants before citizenship fair? - The Philadelphia Tribune

Illegal immigration spikes along U.S.-Mexico border – Washington … – Washington Times

Illegal immigration across the southwest border rose yet again in June, according to the latest Homeland Security figures released Friday that show a noticeable jump over the past two months.

Border Patrol agents nabbed 16,089 illegal immigrants trying to sneak in, while Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers identified another 5,570 illegal immigrants who showed up without authorization at the ports of entry.

The combined 21,659 illegal immigrants is still the lowest numbers for June in years, but the spike is worrisome because illegal immigration generally begins to slow in the summer months. Indeed, the past four years saw an average drop of 10 percent in Border Patrol apprehensions in June but this year saw an 11 percent rise.

The number of illegal immigrant children and families also rose sharply. Unaccompanied children spiked 31 percent in June, compared to May, and the total number of people coming as families shot up a stunning 47 percent last month.

The numbers could end up spurring action on President Trumps border wall, which had been attacked as unnecessary earlier this year as the numbers of those attempting to cross the border plunged to 40-year lows.

Experts say the number of people caught is a rough yardstick of how many people are trying to cross, so a rise in apprehensions signals a rise in the overall level of illegal immigration.

CBP acknowledged the increase, but said the numbers are still well below where they were during the latter years of the Obama administration.

These numbers represent a 53 percent decrease as compared to June of 2016, the agency said.

Officials did not offer an explanation for the spike, which now has spanned two months.

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Illegal immigration spikes along U.S.-Mexico border - Washington ... - Washington Times

9th Circuit Opens Door for Mass Release of Illegal-Immigrant Minors – LifeZette

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that illegal-immigrant minors must be granted a bond hearing a hearing in which the burden of proof is on the government to show why the person should be held rather than released.

The overall issue is that it releases people we know nothing about and cant properly vet, says Matthew OBrien, a former trial attorney for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who now works for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

The justices of the 9th Circuit ruled against Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, and the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, writing that two federal laws did not invalidate a 1997 settlement, in which the government had agreed to certain practicesregarding the detention and release of illegal immigrant juveniles.

According to this agreement, referred to as the Flores settlement, minors cannot be held without being given a bond hearing at which they have the right to be represented by a lawyer, and at which the government mustmake an argument for why they should be held.

In a bond hearing in a regular criminal case, O'Brien noted, the government would have to show that the person is a danger or is a flight risk in order for a judge to agree that heshould be held pending a trial.

Under mandatory detention rules, all illegal immigrants have always been considered a flight risk, as they areunlikely to show up at a future court appearance.

"That puts this on its head," says O'Brien of the 9th Circuit's decision, and adds that it removes a lot of the discretion normally accorded to ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The case, he says, represents a "further erosion" of those agencies' power to determine who should not be released for national security reasons.

"The interests of alien children should not trump the security interests of the citizens of the United States," he told LifeZette.

In the original Flores case, which dates to the 1980s, a 15-year-old girl from El Salvador who'd entered the country illegally was handcuffed and detained in an area with minors of both sexes for two months.

But things have changed since the '80s, and the influx of thousands of unaccompanied minors from Mexico and Central America, most of them male, created a crisis at the border in 2014 and 2015 after President Barack Obama signed the executive order creating DACA Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrant minors from Mexico and Central America have been released in the past few years and placed around the country. Many have joined the ranks of criminal gangs such asMS-13 in small, previously peaceful small towns like Central Islip on Long Island, New York, where young gang members murdered a teenage girl last year. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are more than 1,000 MS-13 members in towns on Long Island, and that most came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors.

And while those claiming to be minors are supposed to show documentation to verify their age, many don't have anything, making it very easy for an illegal immigrant who is 18 or older to claim that he is a minor, and thus win release and avoiddeportation.

But why would they be in a detention center in the first place?

A 2008 law meant to protect victims of human trafficking made it difficult for the U.S. government to deport unaccompanied minors. The law required the government to institute a legal process for unaccompanied minors from Central America, in particular, rather than quickly returning them to their countries. The legal process usually takes several years, and more often than not results in the minors remaining in the U.S.

Added to this is a special visa program that awards permanent residency status "green cards" to thousands of illegal immigrants who were detained as juveniles.

The 9th Circuit's decision applies only to the western states California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington and also Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, and the Mariana Islands.

But other federal appeals courts are likely to consider its decision in similar cases, and it throws yet another wrench into the Trump administration's efforts to enforce immigration laws.

"I think all these things do is hobble the federal government and hobble ICE as they attempt to do their jobs," says O'Brien. "We believe they should be challenging things like this. There's no reason why, 20 years later, the government should be hewing to this agreement," he said, referring to the Flores settlement.

After the 9th Circuit blocked the travel ban and the attempt to withhold funds from any city that refused to cooperate with enforcement of immigration laws, President Donald Trump said that he was "absolutely" considering proposals to break up the 9th Circuit, presumably into two or more smaller courts.

And now, he has a third reason to consider such a proposal.

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9th Circuit Opens Door for Mass Release of Illegal-Immigrant Minors - LifeZette

Trump is winning the argument on immigration – New York Post

With his penchant for tweeted insults and GIFs, President Trump will never be mistaken for a master of the sweet art of persuasion. Yet he is clearly winning the public argument on the issue of immigration.

He isnt doing it through sustained, careful attention. No, it is the sheer fact of his November victory, and the data showing the importance of the issue of immigration to it, that has begun to shift the intellectual climate.

It had been assumed, even by many Republicans like John McCain, that opposition to amnesty and higher levels of legal immigration would doom the GOP to minority status forevermore. Trump blew up this conventional wisdom.

Now, intellectuals on the center-left are calling for Democrats to rethink the partys orthodoxy on immigration, which has become more and more hostile to enforcement and to any skepticism about current high levels of immigration.

The swing here was enormous. A Trump defeat in November after running on an exaggerated version of immigration restriction would have sent Republicans scurrying back to the comfortable, corporate-friendly cliches about so-called comprehensive immigration reform. And if Hillary Clinton had won on a platform that doubled down on President Barack Obamas executive amnesties, serious immigration enforcement would have lost its political legitimacy.

In light of the election, Josh Barro of Business Insider, William Galston of the Brookings Institution, Peter Beinart of The Atlantic, Fareed Zakaria of CNN and Stanley Greenberg of Democracy Corps, among others, have urged Democrats to recalibrate.

Many of these writers dont merely note the perilous politics of the maximalist Democratic position on immigration or argue that policy should take account of the economic costs as well as the benefits of immigration. They also give credence to cultural concerns over mass immigration concerns that much of the left considers poorly disguised hate.

In an act of heresy for the Davos set, Zakaria recommends that the party should take a position on immigration that is less absolutist and recognizes both the cultural and economic costs of large-scale immigration.

This sentiment wouldnt be so noteworthy if the Democratic Party hadnt become so radicalized on immigration. Beinarts essay in The Atlantic is a trenchant reminder that as recently as 10 years ago, the left allowed much more room for dissent on immigration. Go back a little further, to the 1990s, and Bill Clinton was forthrightly denouncing illegal immigration, and liberal giant Barbara Jordan was heading a bipartisan commission that called for enhanced enforcement and reduced levels of legal immigration.

In the interim, Democrats convinced themselves that liberality on immigration has only political upside, and that immigration is in effect a civil rights issue, and therefore non-negotiable.

Reversing field wont be easy. The House just voted on Kates Law, named after Kate Steinle, the young woman killed in the sanctuary city of San Francisco by an illegal immigrant who had re-entered the country after getting deported five times. The bill merely strengthens the penalties on repeated illegal re-entry, yet only 24 Democrats could bring themselves to vote for it.

The pull of the lefts cosmopolitanism is strong. In an attack on Beinart, Dylan Matthews of Vox argues that the lefts egalitarianism cant stop at the nations borders it means a strong presumption in favor of open immigration.

So itd be a mistake to make too much of the recent spate of articles calling for Democrats to rethink this issue. If Democrats are ever going to shift on immigration, though, elite opinion has to change first, and at least there is now an opening.

Few would have guessed that in the 1990s, conservative Republicans, so unreservedly in favor of tough sentencing, would be open to joining liberals on criminal justice reform. Perhaps Democrats will eventually recalibrate on immigration. If so, the unlikely instrument of the sea change will have been none other than Donald J. Trump.

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Trump is winning the argument on immigration - New York Post