Archive for the ‘Illegal Immigration’ Category

Open Borders Leader: DHS Illegal Immigrant Victims Unit Is ‘Despicable’ – Breitbart News

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During an interview with 89.3 KPCC, Chris Newman with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network blasted the mere creation of DHS Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office, which DHS Secretary John Kelly unveiled this week with American victims.

Victims are not more harmed or need greater healing when the perpetrator of those crimes are not citizens, Newman said. This is clearly not an earnest effort. So you do have to ask whats going on here. I think it seems pretty clear that this office is designed to gin up fear as part of President Trumps overall war on non-white immigrants in the United States. I think its about, unfortunately, the racist exploitation of grief and tragedy. I think that the office is despicable.

Newman also said the office was not about illegal immigrant crime victims, but had everything to do with politics.

Its not just for people here illegally. I think its for the entire foreign born population in the United States, Newman said. This is an office thats designed to its a propaganda office. Its politically motivated. It has nothing to do with public safety or restorative justice. It has less to do with providing services to victims it has more to do with spreading fear of the foreign born population in the United States.

Despite Newmans claims that VOICE will not offer much help to Americans who have suffered due to illegal immigration, Jessica Vaughn with the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) says the office will finally give voice to marginalized victims.

The creation of this office is aimed at supporting people who in the past have been marginalized and also faced real practical difficulties in getting information out of our immigration bureaucracy about the offenders who victimized them or their families, Vaughn said. Every law enforcement agency practically has an office for victim advocacy.

And I know many of the people who pushed for this office and the struggles they went through trying to get information about what was going to happen to the person who was responsible for their loved ones death or other crimes that occurred, Vaughn continued.

Vaughn says that unlike all other law enforcement agencies, before VOICE, there was no route for illegal immigrant crime victims to take.

ICE had no mechanism to do that. They couldnt get notifications if people were released, which would be customary from a law enforcement agency, Vaughn said. They couldnt find out what the process was for peoples immigration hearings and things that they were entitled to attend, but couldnt get information on. Thats the main purpose of this new office is to help them navigate the immigration bureaucracy and get information that they should be able to get about people who caused harm to their family.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at@JxhnBinder.

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Open Borders Leader: DHS Illegal Immigrant Victims Unit Is 'Despicable' - Breitbart News

5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S. | Pew Research Center – Pew Research Center

For the first time, the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. was lower in 2015 than it was at the end of the Great Recession in 2009. The origin countries of unauthorized immigrants also shifted during that time, with the number from Mexico declining and the number from other regions rising, according to the latest Pew Research Center estimates.

Here are five facts about the unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S.

1There were 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. in 2015, a small but statistically significant decline from the Centers estimate of 11.3 million for 2009.

The Centers preliminary estimate of the unauthorized immigrant population in 2016 is 11.3 million, which is statistically no different from the 2009 or 2015 estimates because it is based on a data source with a smaller sample size and larger margin of error. Unauthorized immigrants represented 3.4% of the total U.S. population in 2015. The number of unauthorized immigrants peaked in 2007 at 12.2 million, when this group was 4% of the U.S. population.

2Mexicans may no longer be the majority of U.S. unauthorized immigrants. They made up half of all unauthorized immigrants in 2016, according to the Centers preliminary estimate, marking the first time in at least a decade that they did not account for a clear majority of this population. Their numbers (and share of the total) have been declining in recent years: There were 5.6 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016, down from 6.4 million in 2009.

Meanwhile, the number of unauthorized immigrants from nations other than Mexico has grown since 2009, from 5 million that year to 5.4 million in 2015. Non-Mexicans numbered 5.7 million in the preliminary 2016 estimate, a total that was not statistically different from 2015.

From 2009 to 2015, the number of unauthorized immigrants from Asia and Central America rose. Increases in the number from other countries have mostly offset the decline in the number from Mexico (and a relatively small decrease in the number from South America).

3The U.S. civilian workforce includes 8 million unauthorized immigrants, accounting for 5% of those who were working or were unemployed and looking for work, according to separate Pew Research Center estimates. The 2014 number was unchanged from 2009 and down slightly from 8.2 million in 2007. The share of unauthorized immigrants in the civilian labor force was also down slightly from 2009 (5.2%) and 2007 (5.4%). Compared with their 5% share of the civilian workforce overall, unauthorized immigrants are overrepresented in farming and construction occupations (26% and 15%, respectively). In all industries and occupations, though, they are outnumbered by U.S.-born workers.

4Six states account for 59% of unauthorized immigrants: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. But individual states have experienced different trends. From 2009 to 2014, the unauthorized immigrant population decreased in seven states: Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Nevada and South Carolina. In all of them, the decline was due to a decrease in unauthorized immigrants from Mexico. In six states, the unauthorized immigrant population rose over the same time period: Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington. In all of these but Louisiana, the increases were due to growth in unauthorized immigrant populations from nations other than Mexico. (In Louisiana, the overall increase was driven by an increase in Mexican unauthorized immigrants.)

5A rising share of unauthorized immigrants have lived in the U.S. for at least a decade. About two-thirds (66%) of adults in 2014 had been in the U.S. at least that long, compared with 41% in 2005. A declining share of unauthorized immigrants have lived in the U.S. for less than five years 14% of adults in 2014, compared with 31% in 2005. In 2014, unauthorized immigrant adults had lived in the U.S. for a median of 13.6 years, meaning that half had been in the country at least that long. Only 7% of Mexican unauthorized immigrants had been in the U.S. for less than five years in 2014, compared with 22% of those from all other countries.

To learn more: Explore unauthorized immigrant population trends for states, birth countries and regions, and see an interactive map and detailed table showing our latest estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population by state.

Note: This post was originally published on Nov. 18, 2014, and has been updated to include more recent data.

Topics: Hispanic/Latino Demographics, Immigration, Immigration Trends, Migration, Unauthorized Immigration

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5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S. | Pew Research Center - Pew Research Center

Illegal Immigration to United States Drops Bigly – Heat Street

Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail that illegal immigration would drop under his administration. According to some new numbers, it looks like hes delivering.

A press release from the Department of Homeland Security showed a dramatic reduction in the number of arrests and apprehensions at the southern border. In February, law enforcement agencies captured 18,754 individuals down from more than 40,000 a year before. In March, that number was even lower at 12,193.

At the same time, arrests by immigration officials away from the border increased by around a third during the first three months of 2017. Federal agents arrested 21,362 people in January through March, compared to only 16,104 in 2016.

The number of arrests of illegal immigrants with no criminal records since entering the country more than doubled in the first three months of 2017 as well. A senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told NPR that his agency has been able to open the aperture on the kinds of immigrants it can arrest.

Aleaked Department of Homeland Security report showed that the agency plans on expanding its immigration crackdown by speeding up the hiring of officers, identifying more illegal immigrant hotspots, and allocating money for border wall designs.

What [the Trump administration is] trying to do are very splashy, draconian enforcement efforts that are really meant to tell people: nobody is safe, and nobody should come thats not documented, says Donald Kerwin, executive director of the Center for Migration Studies, a liberal immigration think tank.

Follow Joe Simonson on Twitter.

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Illegal Immigration to United States Drops Bigly - Heat Street

Illegal immigrant denies any ties with husband’s alleged drug-smuggling ring – Fox News

Friends and family of an undocumented woman arrested Monday during a cocaine bust at her home say she is not linked to any illicit activity regarding the operation and are demanding she not be deported.

Dozens of people gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday to express support for 54-year-old Teresa Vidal-Jaime, whose husband Hugo Rueda was being investigated by undercover Border Patrol agents on suspicion of drug smuggling.

The investigation led to an apartment complex where officers discovered 33 pounds of cocaine inside the husbands vehicle. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Vidal-Jaime then granted consent to conduct a search inside the apartment, resulting in the discovery of approximately $600,000 and about one ounce of crystal methamphetamine.

TEXAS, CALIFORNIA TAKE VERY DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO 'SANCTUARY CITY' DEBATE

Supporters for Vidal-Jaime, who is being held in Chula Vista for deportation proceedings, say the woman has been wrongly implicated in a criminal investigation and argue that otherwise she would not have let officers in the apartment.

Tuesdays protest was organized by Claudia Rueda, a daughter of the couple who is an immigration activist.

Despite being told she would not be detained as long she cooperated, my mother was apprehended during an illegally conducted raid at my apartment,she said in a statement to Los Angeles Times.

I know my mother is innocent, and both [the Sheriffs Department and Border Patrol] know that, which is why they were supposed to let her go.

VOLUNTEERS ACCOMPANY US IMMIGRANTS TO COURT TO ALLAY FEARS

According to the Times, the woman entered the U.S. in 2001.

Her mother didnt have anything to do with this, said Marcela Hernandez, one of the organizers, to the Times. [She] didnt know anything about anything in the apartment. She let them in.

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Illegal immigrant denies any ties with husband's alleged drug-smuggling ring - Fox News

Trump’s attempt to link illegal immigration to Chicago’s homicide problem is extremely tenuous – Washington Post

The path to the crime crisis often articulated by President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions goes something like this: Although rates of violent crime remain near their lowest points over the past half-century, spikes in gun violence in several cities most notably Chicago are evidence that things are deteriorating. (The Brennan Center for Justice estimated that increased killings in Chicago constituted half of the overall increase in homicides in big cities nationally in 2016.) This crime wave, then, bolsters the administrations efforts on immigration through a simple rhetorical connection.

So much of the problems you look at Chicago and you look at other places, Trump said in February. So many of the problems are caused by gang members, many of whom are not even legally in our country. When his Justice Department warned nine jurisdictions last week that they faced reduced federal funding if they upheld sanctuary city policies, a news releasereiterated that purported link. Many of these jurisdictions are also crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime, it read. The number of homicides in Chicago has skyrocketed, rising more than 50 percent from the 2015 levels. Thats the end point of the path: Crime is up and illegal immigration is the cause.

Theres little evidence that this is really the case. Studies indicate that immigrants broadly are more law-abiding than native citizens. Theres no evidence that a big percentage of immigrants in the country commit violent crimes, much less that they constitute most or even many of the violent criminals in the country.Theres no link between a jurisdiction being a sanctuary city and higher crime rates.

We can evaluate the Trump administrations claim more directly, though. The site DNAInfo collects data on each homicide in Chicago, including data on age and race.

Since January, the site has logged 190 killings in the city. About 82 percent of the victims were black. Nine percent were white, and 4 percent were Hispanic.

FBI data show that most killings in the United States are carried out by people in the same racial group as the victim. The reason for this is obvious: Homicides are usually a function of personal relationships, and people generally associate with family members and friends who share their racial identity. When Trump retweeted a set of fake data implying that black Americans were responsible for most homicides, we created this chart.

Why does this matter? Because most of the undocumented immigrants in Chicago are from Latin America implying that theyre heavily Hispanic.

The Chicago Tribune created estimates of the size and composition of the undocumented population in Illinois, determining that about 36 percent of immigrants living in the state illegally lived in Chicago and that 84 percent of all of those immigrants came from Latin America.

(That the second-largest group of immigrants in the country illegally originates from Asia shouldnt be surprising. New research from the Pew Research Center suggests that, even as the number of undocumented immigrants from Mexico fell since 2009, the number from Asia increased by 17 percent.)

The implication, just to spell it out, is that most of the immigrants in Chicago illegally are Hispanic, not black. (While the Census Bureau differentiates between race and ethnicity meaning that one can be both Hispanic and black the DNAInfo figures do not.)

We cant say from these figures that there is no link between immigrants in the country illegally and Chicagos homicide problem. There are a number of ways to argue that there may be a link. Perhaps those crimes without known perpetrators most of them were committed by such immigrants. (A request for information about the immigration status of known suspects from the state attorney of Cook County was not answered by the time this article was published.) Perhaps some of the victims of the killings fell into that category. Most realistically, perhaps many of the killings can be traced to gang activity that ties, directly or indirectly, to criminal groups linked in some way to Latin America. (How such links would overlap with illegal immigration is another question.)

What we can say, though, is that this isnt what wed expect the demographics to look like if Chicagos homicides were tightly intertwined with a population of immigrants who are in the country illegally from Latin America.

This is just one city, but its one that has driven much of Trumps rhetoric on crime. Theres no question that the recent increase in killings in Chicago deserve attention and analysis. But its very fair to question the role that illegal immigration plays in that increase.

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Trump's attempt to link illegal immigration to Chicago's homicide problem is extremely tenuous - Washington Post