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Delaware 105.9's Dan Gaffney traveled to Washington D.C. to broadcast his show LIVE from Capitol Hill for "Hold Their Feet to the Fire," an immigration reform movement aimed at holding U.S. lawmakers responsible for illegal immigration.

Appearing on the Dan Gaffney Show was, Art Del Cueto, President of the Tucson Sector Border Patrol Agency in Arizona. Del Cueto provided a first-hand perspective on illegal immigration, as his sector in Arizona is responsible for over "50-percent of all drug seizures in the country."

"You're looking at drug cartels, you're looking at illegal immigration. You see a couple of individuals crossing the border, usually some of the media likes to throw the 'mom & pop situation' people trying to get a better life for themselves, but it is far from that," said Del Cueto. "The biggest group that I caught once I started working for the agency was a group eighty people, my first day out there by myself, eighty people."

Dan Gaffney asked Del Cueto what were the eighty people doing, was it the 'better life' narrative? Del Cueto said "you don't know" what their intentions are and therein lies the problem.

"You don't know, and that's where the problem is. They're already coming in illegally, they're trying to not be detected and I think that's a huge deal. So you don't know what these people are up to, and that's what a lot of people don't understand," Del Cueto explained. "Now as we move forward, we've seen is a lot more aggressiveness. I've been in situations where I've been shot at. I've been 'rocked,' which is where they use the big forty-ouncers of beer, and what they'll do is fill them with dirt and mud, so they'll pack them, and it's like a block of cement that is getting thrown at you. Not to mention the drugs."

Dan Gaffney asked Del Cueto what drugs specifically are being trafficked across the border, and if agents ever find documentation on the immigrant hopefuls? "You're looking at everything, anything you can think of. You're looking at marijuana, which is primarily what comes through that area, but I know at the checkpoints they've detected cocaine, heroin, and they're not staying in Arizona, this is something that is coming into the country," Del Cueto explained. "We catch false documents all of the time, especially with Central Americans. You catch a lot of Central Americans with false documents claiming that they're citizen of Mexico. I think it's two-fold, one they believe it's easier, once you apprehend if you send them back, to send them to Mexico that way they can make the trek back in, as opposed to going all the way back to Central America and having to make the trek back."

"We would turn them over to ICE and they'd give them a piece of paper, and let's use Delaware as an example, and ICE would say 'when you get to Delaware, find the nearest immigration court, and tell them about your case,'" said Del Cueto. "Well, I think it was somewhere around 1-percent that would show up, but the other 99-percent would never show up and I'm not sure that there is an actual list or a way to find out where these individuals are now."

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EXCLUSIVE | Dan Gaffney interviews Border Patrol Agent on Immigration Reform Movement in DC - Delaware 105.9

Thousands attended a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for President Donald Trump on June 21, 2017, his first visit to the state since the election. (Getty Images)

President Donald Trump recently told supporters that he wanted to reduce the number of people receiving public assistance, and he wants to put in place new rules barring immigrants from receiving government benefits for at least five years.

"We want to get our people off of welfare and back to work. We also want to preserve our safety net for struggling Americans who truly need help," Trump said in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on June 21. "That's why I believe the time has come for new immigration rules which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years."

Trump said legislation for that purpose would come "very shortly." But several media outlets pointed out that a law on benefits for immigrants already exists, passed more than 20 years ago, though it had some exceptions.

Neither Trump or administration officials have detailed exactly what Trump would like to see in new legislation that would be different from the 1996 law. Here, we lay out whats already on the books and what weve heard so far from Trumps team.

1996 law restricts benefits

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 said immigrants who entered the United States on or after Aug. 22, 1996, (when the law was enacted) would not be eligible for federal "means-tested" public benefits for five years, starting on the date of their entry into the United States with a status that met the definition of "qualified alien."

The term qualified alien included lawful permanent residents, refugees and asylees. But the law outlined several exemptions and said certain groups were not subject to the five-year restriction, including refugees and asylees, military veterans, and active duty military members along with their spouses and unmarried dependent children.

Federal means-tested benefits offer assistance for health care, nutrition, education and other needs. The five major programs are: non-emergency Medicaid, the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which was previously known as the Food Stamp program. (States provide some funding for Medicaid, CHIP and TANF.)

States such as California and New York fund some benefits for immigrants who are restricted by the five-year rule, said Randy Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

A December 2015 report from the National Immigration Law Center also noted that since the passage of the 1996 law, additional legislation has expanded access to SNAP for some individuals, including qualified immigrant children.

Also, in 2000, Congress allowed survivors of trafficking to become eligible for federal public benefits "to the same extent as refugees, regardless of whether they have a qualified immigrant status," the report said.

Individuals living in the country illegally and those who arrive on non-immigrant visas (such as students and tourists) are generally not eligible for federal public benefits, but are able to receive care for emergency medical conditions, short-term non-cash, in-kind emergency disaster relief, crisis counseling and select other services.

Trumps plans for legal immigration reform

Trumps spokesman Sean Spicer at a June 23 press briefing said the president was aware of the 1996 law already restricting federal public benefits.

"But that law, while on the books, has not been enforced and clearly either needs to be reexamined, enforced, or new legislation needs to be introduced," Spicer said.

Trumps fiscal year 2018 budget proposal said welfare and immigration were among the eight pillars Trump wanted to reform. The budget said the National Academy of Sciences found that in 2013 first-generation immigrants and their dependents may cost all levels of government $279 billion more than they paid in taxes. Trump said a variation of this in his February address to Congress. FactCheck.org and the Washington Posts Fact Checker noted that Trumps claim did not reference long-term contributions of the children of immigrants.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a statement in response to Trumps claim, saying: "The report found that the long-term impact of immigration on the wages and employment of native-born workers overall is very small, and that any negative impacts are most likely to be found for prior immigrants or native-born high school dropouts. First-generation immigrants are more costly to governments than are the native-born, but the second generation are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S. The report concludes that immigration has an overall positive impact on long-run economic growth in the U.S."

Nonetheless, Trumps budget said some of the billions-of-dollars cost was driven by the nations refugee policy that allows them to be "instantly eligible for time-limited cash benefits and numerous non-cash federal benefits, including food assistance through SNAP, medical care, and education, as well as a host of state and local benefits."

The budget said it supports immigration reform in favor of merit-based admissions for legal immigrants, an end to illegal immigration and "substantial reduction" in refugee admissions.

Trump in March met with Republican senators who support his campaign promise to reform legal immigration. Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue introduced legislation in February seeking to cap refugee admissions per fiscal year to 50,000, to reduce the number of family-sponsored immigrants, and to eliminate the diversity visa program, among other restrictions.

Originally posted here:
Trump says 'time has come' for law restricting federal assistance to immigrants. It already exists - PolitiFact

USA TODAY 6:16 p.m. ET June 26, 2017

Rally outside of the San Francisco office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency on June 20, 2017.(Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)

Letter to the editor:

President Trump has brandished his deportation machine by attacking Dreamers who arrived here as children, raiding schools hunting for illegal middle-schoolers and kidnapping parents on their worksites an immigration policy that relies on creating a culture of fear, hate and distrust of anyone perceived to be an immigrant. If we value our neighbors, our young people and our coworkers, we will resist the administration's cruel and racially-biased deportation policies and create a better path toward public safety.

As federal immigration policy becomes more extreme, clarified by acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency Acting Director Thomas Homan saying, You should look over your shoulder and you need to be worried, it will be up to states and local jurisdictions to refuse to submit to Trumps mob rule policies that target, criminalize and scapegoat immigrants and other communities of color. Instead, our immigration policies should assert values of safety and family unity.

Thats why the California Values Act, which is on its way to becoming law, would make our public schools, hospitals, courthouses and libraries safe and available to all California residents, regardless of immigration status.

California could lead the way in showing how values-based immigration policy that allows immigrants to access basic protections and directs law enforcement to do its job not Trump's dirty work will enhance public safety, keep families together and strengthen the economy for all.

Matt Nelson, Presente.org;Oakland

California and Colorado want to thwart Trump on immigration. Bad idea.

Letter to the editor:

The demand for the work that undocumented immigrants provide is not going away and will not abate by punishing employers. We need immigration policy that accepts this reality, allowing immigrants to work legally in a way that jeopardizes neither them nor their employer.

We used to admit the workers who take these jobs as immigrants who could bring their families, work legally and stay in the communities they helped to build. Now the only legal way for these workers to enter the United States is on a temporary guest worker visa, such as an H-2 visa, that resembles indentured servitude.

H-2 visas are owned by employers, not the immigrants themselves, which means these workers cannot legally find work elsewhere in the U.S. once theyre here. The boss holds all the power and can have them deported at any time. Immigrants with H-2 visas typically arrive in debt after agreeing to pay recruiters in their home countries for the opportunity to work here.

Natalie Tsu, Deputy Legal Director of the Immigrant Justice Project, Southern Poverty Law Center; Atlanta

Comments are edited for clarity and grammar:

President Trump, please come down hard on these liberal Democrats ruining my once great state of California. Make California Great Again!Remove all liberals!

Joe Richards

States that try to adjust and enforce immigration laws as they see fit will end up regretting itin the long run. Some undocumented immigrantare coming from badplaces, I'm sure they made those placethat way and they will make whatever state they take over exactly the same.

Marlene Augst

The progressive consistency is in opposing what they consider to be inhumane and unconstitutional actions by local, state and federal government agencies. Thesenew well-meaningbut misguided local ordinances, designed to shield illegals from ICE,do not advance progress towards immigration reform.

Businesses and politicians have an economic incentive to keep immigration reform mired in stalemate. Businesses benefit from cheap, illegal labor, avoid payroll and workman'scompensation cost, as well as depress legal labor costs. Politicians benefit in their fundraising campaigns, by using the specter of undocumented criminals pouring over the border,or (on the flip side) sob stories of families being ripped apart by an unfeeling, uncaring political opponent.

The sad thing isboth of the respective political basesare duped by these simplistic characterizations of undocumented immigrantsand theimmigration policy problem. Then, politicians get reelected and nothing meaningful happens.

Citizens, local and state governments should be pressuring Congress to update our immigration laws and regulations. Demand real solutions, not just more empty rhetoric.

Businesses that routinely hire undocumented immigrants should be exposed and prosecuted. Simply paying the occasional fine should not be the "cost of doing business,"when hiring undocumented immigrants.

Building a wall or having sanctuary cities are not solutions to our broken, outdated immigration system. Here is where progressives and conservatives should be finding common ground.If the they could only stop vilifying each other and start talking to each other.

Todd Fedoruk

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Readers sound off: California makes its own immigration rules - USA TODAY

Throw a D.A.R.T for cattle health

Any parent knows when their child is sick, because they tell you. But parents can usually tell just by looking at them. Your cattle, however, cant tell you they dont feel well, so you can use the D.A.R.T system, an acronym that literally helps producers to keep in mind likely tell-tale signs of poor animal health, says Barry Whitworth, veterinarian and Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension food animal quality and health specialist.

Those four indicators include the following symptoms to look for, according to the Oklahoma Farm Report:

D stands for Depression

A stands for Appetite (or lack of appetite)

R stands for Respiration.

T stands for Temperature.

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One of the frustrations in running a rural business is higher-cost, slow internet. President Trump hopes to fix that, saying that expanded access to broadband internet service in rural areas will be part of the infrastructure plan he will submit to Congress, reports Southwest Farm Press.

"I will be including a provision in our infrastructure proposal -- $1 trillion proposal, youll be seeing it very shortly -- to promote and foster, enhance broadband access for rural America also," Trump said in remarks last week at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after touring agricultural facilities on campus. "We will rebuild rural America."

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Chinas long-awaited return to the U.S. beef market is indeed the buzz of the beef business. And even though the U.S. has a robust export beef trade, it will take time for the U.S. to ramp up the programs and procedures necessary to fulfill the potential that China represents, according to the Oklahoma Farm Report.

On the other side of the world, products not suited for our domestic market may actually be in higher demand and have a higher value in foreign markets. The ability to export these cuts, allows U.S. beef producers to salvage the carcass value that might have been lost if it were sold domestically. This has been the case for the major markets we're already exporting to, like China and South Korea. But it didn't happen overnight, says Oklahoma State Livestock Marketing Economist Peel.

"There's a lot of potential in this market over time. But, I think it will take some time," Peel says. "That's a process that will grow over time as you try to build market share."

Click here to hear and read more. http://www.oklahomafarmreport.com/wire/beefbuzz/2017/06/00644_BeefBuzzDerrellPeelWorldUtilization06162017_121024

Former U.S. Representative Charlie Stenholm teaches a class on agriculture, energy, and food policy at Tarleton State University. This article in Southwest Farm Press includes views and recommendations from that class, which have been respectfully submitted to House and Senate Ag Committees.

Some 43 million foreign born immigrants currently live in the U.S. (9.5 to 11 million are estimated as undocumented). That must change. In our opinion, rounding them up, locking them up, and deporting all of them is not a feasible or desirable option. For most, their only crime was seeking a better place to live and earn a living.

Reform must include a workable plan to encourage most of the undocumented to come forward voluntarily (with their employer or sponsor) to receive legal documents that will allow them to become legal immigrants. They or their sponsor must pay the appropriate fine or other punishment applicable as determined by Congress.Those who have broken other laws or do not come forward should be deported. Changes proposed by the current Administration on H1B visas are an important step in the right direction. A workable immigration policy for the future must have the buy-in of employers and an absolute enforcement mechanism with buy-in of We the People. Only Congress can provide that.

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Just about everything we do with our cattle comes down to driving them someplace, whether to summer pasture and back, into or out of the corral, up the alley, onto the scale, or through the crowd pen and up the chute. And a really important thing to understand is that if we dont drive our animals properly, were going to have problems (e.g., resistance, runbacks). But if we drive them properly, we should avoid creating unnecessary problems and old problems will often disappear.

From the low-stress livestock handling perspective developed by Bud Williams, all the hoopla of conventional driving is unnecessary and counter-productive. Effective driving is based on communicating with the animals through proper technique so they understand what we want and do it willingno fear or force necessary.

Click here to see two different ways to drive cattle with less stress on you and the cattle

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5 Trending Headlines: Throw a DART for cattle health; PLUS: Immigration reform concerns - Beef Magazine

Immigration groups are increasingly doubtful President Trump will end President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program after the Department of Homeland Security announced last week that recipients of the Obama-era program were safe for the unforeseen future.

Four national organizations representing a variety of immigration stances told the Washington Examiner the White House has been silent on the issue, and has not told even the groups that support Trump how it plans to go forward. That silence, according to two groups who supported Trump's immigration positions as a candidate, indicates the idea of DACA reform is not stalled, but dead.

"If the president had decided to end DACA, it would have happened. I don't know what they are waiting for. He promised to end DACA," said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA. "Once you say something is illegal and unconstitutional, you can't just keep doing it."

New data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' second fiscal quarter shows 107,524 DACA renewals and 17,275 new applications were approved from January to March, approximately 70 percent of which happened under the Trump administration.

While campaigning last year, Trump promised to "immediately terminate" the 2012 policy that permitted illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors to receive a two-year period of deferred action and work permit. Recipients' approval would last two years and could be renewed if the individual remained in good legal standing.

As a candidate, Trump blasted the "amnesty" program that former President Barack Obama's second term Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson imposed by memo because Congress could not pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Shortly after his inauguration, Trump appeared to be wavering in his commitment to rescinding DACA. He told one news outlet that recipients "shouldn't be worried" because "we're going to take care of everybody."

Then in April, Trump reiterated that compassionate view when he said "we need special heart" to "understand the other side of that equation" as it relates to DACA recipients.

But last Thursday, DHS Secretary John Kelly said DACA would remain in place while its 2014 sister program, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, would end before it had even begun. The Trump administration revoked the parental program, though it was never implemented, because there was "no credible path forward to litigate the currently enjoined policy" due to its current entanglement in the courts.

Last week, a White House official told the New York Times "there has been no final determination made about the DACA program, which the president has stressed needs to be handled with compassion and with heart."

When asked about a timeline for Trump's deciding the fate of DACA, the White House referred the Washington Examiner to a two-month-old interview it conducted with Trump in which he said "we need special heart."

Trump has some choices he could make related to the program. He could direct DHS to immediately stop issuing renewals and new permits, or announce the program will be discontinued at a future date, giving people time to come up with a plan for how to respond.

But Kelly has said the issue should be taken up by Capitol Hill lawmakers because "Congress is the only entity that can provide a long-term solution to this issue."

Other groups agree with Kelly.

"Though I was initially skeptical, it might even make sense to try to trade a real, lawful amnesty for the DACAs in exchange for important immigration changes only Congress can pass specifically, universal E-Verify and cuts in legal immigration. In that case, announcing that renewals would continue until, say, the end of the year could be a powerful motivator for congressional Democrats," writes Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports conservative-aligned immigration reforms.

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Immigration groups: Trump's silence on DACA means it's here to stay - Washington Examiner