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Dan Stein Published 7:25 p.m. ET Feb. 21, 2017 | Updated 13 hours ago

President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly(Photo: Evan Vucci, AP)

While the Trump administration is busy fulfilling the presidents promise to protect the interests of the American people and enforce our immigration laws, the news media are fixated on the fate of illegal aliens who enjoy temporary protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

DACA was an overly broad and unconstitutional exercise of executive power by President Obama that would likely have been struck down by the courts had it been challenged. In addition to being unconstitutional, DACA also triggered a surge of illegal immigration of unaccompanied minors and families with children in tow. The message it sent was that coming to the U.S. illegally, or bringing children here illegally, would be rewarded.

However much people might empathize with the situation of DACA recipients, we must make it clear that the responsibility for their circumstances rests with the parents who knowingly violated our laws and put their children in this situation. In every other area of law, we hold lawbreakers accountable for any negative consequences to family members, and immigration law should not be the exception.

Early Trump administration actions seem to indicate that the 750,000 DACA recipients will be allowed to maintain their two-year deferments until they lapse, at which point they will revert to their earlier status. The president has pledged to review the situation of this group of illegal aliens but not before making good on decades of broken promises to the American people.

Allowing the program to lapse does not mean that DACA recipients will be targeted for removal, but they would no longer be exempted from enforcement or be eligible for work authorization. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly defined seven categories of aliens who will be priorities for removal. Most DACA recipients would not fall into those categories.

Immigration crackdown reality check: Our view

Most important, by demonstrating the resolve to enforce immigration laws, President Trump is deterring others from putting their children in this difficult situation.

Dan Stein is president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a non-profit group that favors more restrictive immigration policies.

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Let DACA program lapse: Opposing view - USA TODAY

SALT LAKE CITY One Utah lawmaker borrowed part of a President Donald Trump campaign quote Tuesday as he advocated for immigration reform, saying Congress needs to build a door into its immigration policy.

Members of Utah's faith and business community joined with state lawmakers to call upon Congress to promote immigration reform. Over a dozen speakers from various backgrounds shared their experiences hiring and working with immigrants, and stressed the difficulties of doing business with a workforce that is growing concerned about its place in the country.

The speakers organized with New American Economy, an organization promoting the economic contributions of immigrants. They cited recent immigration and workforce figures to demonstrate immigrants' contributions to the nation's economy.

Rep. Mike Winder, R-West Valley City, advocated for entrepreneurial involvement by immigrants to the U.S. and said immigrants bring $4 billion in spending power to the state of Utah.

"President Donald Trump, in the recent campaign, talked about building a wall. You may have heard of it," Winder said. "But he also talked about a big beautiful door in that wall."

He made note of the broad involvement of immigrants in the country, from agricultural workers to Nobel Prize laureates.

Winder was joined by Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, and Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, as they discussed Utah's involvement in immigration programs.

Stephenson cited Utah's early adoption of the DREAM Act, which allows undocumented children to attend colleges with in-state tuition, as one example of Utah's efforts in assisting immigrant needs. He also cited Utah's dual-language immersion program as another method that has helped immigrant students and families adjust to life in the state.

Weiler made note of the nearly 70,000 immigrants in his congressional district who make up around 10 percent of the area's population and who contributed about $115 million in state and local taxes and $224 million in federal taxes in 2015.

"Immigrants are innovators who really help drive our economy forward," he said.

Steven Klemz, a pastor for the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, discussed his concerns over members of his congregation expressing fears about deportation.

"One proprietor, because of the fear in this country, is closing down his business. He has asked that if they get detained or deported, I take his two children to Mexico," the pastor said.

A number of speakers stressed support for reforming immigration policies, ahead of concerns about Trump's proposal to build a wall along the southern border of the country.

Jorge Dennis, the CEO of EnviroKleen and a member of Utah's Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, supports what he says is a moderate and centered approach.

"The issue of immigration has been used by both parties as a partisan weapon to throw back and forth for reasons of their advantage," Dennis said, adding that the entry system for the country needs to be updated to allow people to more easily work within the country.

"We must come up with a system that will allow for these good people to come out of the shadows and continue to make positive impacts in our communities but also to vet out those who would seek to do us harm," he said.

A number of business leaders shared their hopes for work visa reforms to better staff their businesses.

Melva Sine, CEO of the Utah Restaurant Association, said many visa workers are able to contribute to the business industry but encounter problems when they have to renew visas, and face anxieties about fears of deportation.

"Im hoping that this big beautiful door that we are referring to becomes a big beautiful revolving door," she said.

Jake Harward, owner of Harward Farms, said the H2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers is one program needing reform.

"The H2A program is very cumbersome, very expensive. It takes a long time to get my workers here by the month of May. I have to start my process in December," Harward said.

He said hiring his summertime workforce is a process that could be streamlined to the benefit of local farmers.

Excerpt from:
Utah leaders call for immigration reform, cite contributions of immigrants - Deseret News

The Department of Homeland Security has begun rolling out President Donald Trump's plans for a wider crackdown on people coming into the United States illegally. Here they are. USA TODAY NETWORK

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detain a suspect during an enforcement operation on Feb. 7, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.(Photo: Charles Reed, AFP/Getty Images)

The Department of Homeland Security issued a sweeping set of orders Tuesday that implement President Trump's plan to increase immigration enforcement, placingthe vast majority of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation.

The memosinstruct all agents includingCustoms and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify, capture and quickly deport everyundocumented immigrantthey encounter.

The memos requireundocumented immigrants caught entering the country to be placed in detention until their cases are resolved, increasethe ability of local police to help in immigration enforcement, call for the hiring of 10,000 more immigration agents and allowplanning to begin on an expansion of the border wall between the United States and Mexico.

The memos make undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime the highest priority for enforcement operations. But they make clear that ICE agents should also arrest and initiate deportation proceedings against any other undocumented immigrant they encounter.

"Department personnel have full authority to arrest or apprehend an alien whom an immigration officers has probable cause to believe is in violation of the immigration laws," one memo said. "They also have full authority to initiate removal proceedings against any alien who is subject to removal under any provision of the (Immigration and Nationality Act)."

More coverage:

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Trump immigration raids show greater focus on non-criminals

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the memos do not represent a goal of mass deportations.

"Everybody who is here illegally is subject to removal at any time. That is consistent with every country, not just ours," Spicer said. "But the priority that the president has laid forward (are) the people who have committed a crime or pose a threat to our public."

The memosfulfill Trump's campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration. Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, said the memos capture many recommendations his group has been making for years.

"It's Christmas in February," Stein said. "What (Homeland Security Secretary John)Kelly has done is lay out a broad road map of regaining control of a process that's spun out of control."

Immigration advocacy groups were crushed.Although Trump recently said his focus would be todeportundocumented immigrants with criminal histories or who pose a threat to national security, the new memos make clear that nearly all undocumented immigrants are at risk.

"These memos lay out a detailed blueprint for the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants in America," said Lynn Tramonte, deputy director of America's Voice Educational Fund, which advocates on behalf of immigrants. "They fulfill the wish lists of the white nationalist and anti-immigrant movements and bring to life the worst of Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric."

Miami-Dade commission votes to end county's 'sanctuary' status

Immigration 101: The legal paths to entering the U.S.

One group appears to be spared for now. Homeland Security spokeswoman Gillian Christensensaid Tuesday that deportation protections granted by President Obama in 2012 to undocumented immigrantsbrought to the country as children will continue to behonored so long as those immigrantsabide by the rules of theprogram.

Morethan 750,000 undocumented immigrants have been granted deportation protections under that program, known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA).

The orders also detail a broad plan to keep undocumented immigrants caught crossing the southwest border from making it to the interior of the U.S.They call for detaining all of them until their cases are resolved.

Currently, many undocumented immigrants are processed by immigration agents, released into the country and ordered to reappear for court hearings. The memos seek to end that practice, known as catch and release, by ordering the construction of more jails along the southwest border to house detained immigrantsuntil their cases are resolved.

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The new directives also allow Customs agentsto send some people directly back to Mexico, whether theyre Mexican or not. Under previous administrations, people from Mexico and Canadacould be deported directly back home. But people from all other countries, such as from Central America, had to be detained until they could be flown back to their country of origin.

The memos do not mention the idea of using National Guard troops along the southwest border, as reported by several media outlets last week.

On the campaign trail, Trump regularly highlighted crimes committed by undocumented crimes and embraced the families of the victims of those crimes. Now, there will be a permanent office within ICE to carry on that message.

The Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office, or VOICE, establishes a process to keep victims and their families informed about the status of criminal cases against the undocumented immigrants and any followup deportation proceedings.The new orderseliminateprotections that had been granted to undocumented immigrants under the federal Privacy Act, meaning ICE will now publicly distribute information about thesecases.

"I direct the Director of ICE to immediately reallocate any and all resources that are currently used to advocate on behalf of illegal aliens ... to the new VOICE Office," Kelly wrote in onedirective.

Contributing: David Jackson

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Homeland Security unveils sweeping plan to deport undocumented immigrants - USA TODAY

According to a new poll byHarvardHarris Poll given to The Hill has discovered that Americans overwhelmingly oppose sanctuary cities.

The poll states that a whopping 80 percent of voters believe that local law enforcement should comply with Federal immigration laws, and immigration enforcement agents. Furthermore, Americans believe that our immigrations laws need an overhaul, and that criminals need to be deported.

The HarvardHarris Poll survey found strong support for an overhaul of the nations immigration laws, with 77 percent saying they support comprehensive immigration reform against only 23 percent who oppose.

While there is broad support for comprehensive immigration reform, there is overwhelming opposition to sanctuary cities, said HarvardHarris co-director Mark Penn. The public wants honest immigrants treated fairly and those who commit crimes deported and thats very clear from the data.

Whats more, the majority of Americans seem to approve of Trumps plans for more security on our southern border, including punishing cities that harbor illegal aliens.

A majority 52 percent say they support Trumps two executive orders allowing for the construction of a southern border wall, increasing the number of immigration officers by 10,000 and finding a way to revoke federal funds for sanctuary cities.

The crackdown on sanctuary cities is the most popular feature of those actions, followed closely by the directive to increase the border patrol, which is backed by 75 percent of voters.

Despite a very loud opposition to Trumps executive order that paused immigration from high risk countries, it would appear that the poll finds that 56 percentof Americans approve of it until a more reliable vetting system is in place. This approval jumps up to 60 percent when the countries Trump has paused immigration from are described as Muslim majority countries.

Finally, it would appear that when it comes to refugees, the majority of Americans believe that so much of it from these countries has a negative effect on the United States.

Forty-seven percent said allowing refugees into the country has a negative impact on the nation, compared to only 33 percent who said it has a positive effect.

When voters are told that the U.S. is slated to receive 100,000 Syrian refugees, 51 percent said that number should be lower, 34 percent said it is an appropriate number, and 15 percent said the U.S. should allow more.

Americans support both comprehensive immigration reform and stronger vetting and reduced refugees they want a mix of compassion, strong borders, said Penn. They see ISIS as the greatest threat to the country and that is spurring concerns about refugee migration.

Interestingly enough, this survey had a majority of its 2,148 participants identifying as Democrat than Republican, 39 to 30 percent respectively.

See more here:
Poll: A good majority of Americans oppose sanctuary cities, and support Trump's immigration efforts - TheBlaze.com

Mike Kemp/Blend Images/NewscomLast week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit overturned a censorious Florida law that tried to stop doctors from pestering their patients about guns, sacrificing the First Amendment in the name of protecting the Second. Such laws, which the National Rifle Association supports, show how fake rightsin this case, an overbroad understanding of the right to armed self-defenseendanger real ones.

Florida's Firearm Owners' Privacy Act, enacted in 2011, was a response to complaints that pediatricians and family practitioners had become excessively nosy about guns in the homes of their patients. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians encourage their members to ask parents about guns, treating them as hazards analogous to alcohol, swimming pools, and poisonous household chemicals. Sometimes gun owners object to such inquiries, especially if they seem to be colored by a moralistic anti-gun ideology. The 11th Circuit's decision describes half a dozen examples that influenced Florida's legislators:

Assuming these accounts are accurate, the behavior of these doctors may have been unreasonable or even (when they misrepresented Medicaid requirements) unethical. But their requests for information about guns were not unconstitutional, since the Second Amendment applies only to the government. The law passed in response to these anecdotes nevertheless purported to protect the Second Amendment rights of Floridians by regulating what doctors say to their patients. As the 11th Circuit notes, that makes no sense (citations omitted, emphasis added):

There was no evidence whatsoever before the Florida Legislature that any doctors or medical professionals have taken away patients' firearms or otherwise infringed on patients' Second Amendment rights. This evidentiary void is not surprising because doctors and medical professionals, as private actors, do not have any authority (legal or otherwise) to restrict the ownership or possession of firearms by patients (or by anyone else for that matter). The Second Amendment right to own and possess firearms does not preclude questions about, commentary on, or criticism for the exercise of that right. So, as the district court aptly noted, there is no actual conflict between the First Amendment rights of doctors and medical professionals and the Second Amendment rights of patients that justifies [the law's] speaker-focused and content-based restrictions on speech.

In addition to prohibiting doctors from discriminating against gun owners (a provision the appeals court upheld), the Firearm Owners' Privacy Act forbade them to request or record information about guns unless it is "relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others"a standard that rules out routine inquiries about firearms. The law also instructed doctors to "refrain from unnecessarily harassing a patient about firearm ownership during an examination." As 11th Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus notes in a concurring opinion, that "incomprehensibly vague" provision raises due process as well as free speech concerns, since doctors are "left guessing as to when their 'necessary' harassment crosses the line and becomes 'unnecessary' harassment." Violations of these rules were punishable by fines and disciplinary actions such as letters of reprimand, probation, compulsory remedial education, and license suspension.

The speech restrictions imposed by Florida's law are clearly content-based, since they target communications dealing with a specific subject. The Supreme Court generally views content-based speech restrictions as "presumptively invalid" under the First Amendment, meaning they are subject to "strict scrutiny," which requires showing they are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The 11th Circuit concludes that the Firearm Owners' Privacy Act fails even the more lenient standard of "heightened scrutiny," which the Supreme Court applied in a 2011 case involving state regulation of pharmacists. That test requires the government to show the challenged law "directly advances a substantial governmental interest and that the measure is drawn to achieve that interest," meaning there is a "fit between the legislature's ends and the means chosen to accomplish those ends."

Noting that state legislators "relied on six anecdotes and nothing more" when they enacted the Firearm Owners' Privacy Act, the appeals court finds the official rationales for the lawwhich, in addition to the Second Amendment, invoke patient privacy, protection against discrimination, and public healthinadequate to justify its speech restrictions. "Florida may generally believe that doctors and medical professionals should not ask about, nor express views hostile to, firearm ownership," the 11th Circuit says, "but it 'may not burden the speech of others in order to tilt public debate in a preferred direction.'" As for patients who object to questions about gun ownership, the appeals court says, they are not required to answer them, and they are free to choose less inquisitive doctors.

Florida's attempt to protect gun owners from offensive questions is reminiscent of the Oklahoma law requiring businesses to let employees keep firearms in company parking lots. When ConocoPhillips challenged that law in federal court, the NRA launched a boycott of the oil and gas company. "We're going to make ConocoPhillips the example of what happens when a corporation takes away your Second Amendment rights," said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

ConocoPhillips cannot take away people's Second Amendment rights any more than Florida doctors can. And just as doctors have a right to ask patients about guns, even if that makes some patients uncomfortable, businesses have a right to control their own property, which includes the right to ban guns there. In both cases, the NRA argues, in effect, that the Second Amendment requires violating people's rights.

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NRA-Backed Law Violates the First Amendment in the Name of Protecting the Second - Reason (blog)