HOUSE HEARING TO EXAMINE SANCTUARY CITY THREAT

A House panel will take a closer look at sanctuary cities, which refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, during a hearing next week.

“Sanctuary city policies needlessly endanger American lives by refusing to honor the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration laws,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said Thursday.

“Unfortunately, the Obama Administration’s own foolish policies enable rogue local governments to defy federal immigration laws,” he added. “All too often, these reckless policies create preventable tragedies.”

The murder of Kathryn Steinle — allegedly by a five-time deported, multiple-felon illegal immigrant who was released from police custody due to San Francisco pier’s sanctuary policies —  has brought sanctuary cities under increased scrutiny.

Next Thursday the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled “Sanctuary Cities: A Threat to Public Safety.”

“The border is porous, there are insufficient internal security mechanisms in place, and this administration has embraced non-enforcement and a constitutionally-suspect rewriting of what inadequate current laws do exist,” Subcommittee Chairman 

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC)

85%

 said.

“These administration policies enable the willful failure of localities to respect detainers and create more than benign-sounding things like ‘sanctuary’ cities. It creates gaping holes in our criminal justice system, which leads to deadly consequences,” he added.

At a House Judiciary Committee Department of Homeland Security oversight hearing this week, DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson argued against legislation forcing sanctuary cities to comply with federal immigration law.

Republicans in recent weeks have filed a number of bills aimed at compelling sanctuary cities to honor federal immigration detainer and notification requests.

The House Appropriations Committee earlier this week approved a DHS appropriations bill that includes a provision prohibiting sanctuary cities from receiving federal law enforcement grants.

Via: Breitbart

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[VIDEO] Sanctuary Cities Beyond Federal Control, Homeland Security Chief Jeh Johnson Says

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson admitted Tuesday that the administration goofed in releasing an illegal immigrant to sanctuary city San Francisco ahead of a shocking murder earlier this month, but said there’s little the government can do to pressure sanctuary communities to change their minds.

Facing lawmakers for the first time since the slaying of Kathryn Steinle, a 32-year-old killed while out walking with her father, Mr. Johnson said he’s made personal appeals to San Francisco to rethink its refusal to let police cooperate with federal immigration agents, and will try again in the wake of the killing.

But he declined to criticize sanctuary cities themselves, and told Congress not to try to pass laws forcing cooperation, saying it could conflict with the Constitution, and it won’t win over the hearts of reluctant communities.

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SEE ALSO: Jeh Johnson: No contact with family of S.F. victim, not sure about Obama

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“My hope is that jurisdictions like San Francisco — San Francisco County — will cooperate with our new program,” he told the House Judiciary Committee. “I’m making the rounds with a lot of jurisdictions. My deputy secretary and I and other leaders in DHS have been very, very active for the purpose of promoting public safety to get jurisdictions to cooperate with us on this.”

He said several dozen jurisdictions who had previously refused to cooperate have already signed up or signaled interest in working with the new Priority Enforcement Program.

Republicans doubted that asking nicely would work with the five cities and counties that have turned Mr. Johnson down already, and they wondered why he and President Obama didn’t want to get tougher on the recalcitrant ones.

“How in the hell can a city tell you ‘No’?” demanded Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican. “And when a young woman is shot walking with her father, with somebody with this resume, either you got to do something, we got to do something, or maybe we can do it together.”

Steinle’s death has refocused the immigration debate, which, for the last few years, had been won by immigrant rights advocates arguing for more lenient treatment for illegal immigrants, symbolized by the most sympathetic category of the Dreamers, young adult illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

Now, Steinle’s slaying — and the suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, deported five times before and out on the streets after San Francisco refused to hold him for pickup by immigration agents — has put attention on victims of illegal immigration.

Via: Washington Times

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[VIDEO] Liberal Prof.: Obama Has Brought Us To ‘Constitutional Tipping Point’

During testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, liberal constitutional professor Jonathan Turley said that the growth of executive power is “accelerating” and that the growth of such power has brought us to a “constitutional tipping point”.

“I believe we are now at a constitutional tipping point in our system,” Turley, who teaches law at George Washington University, said. “It’s a dangerous point for our system to be in, and I believe that your response has to begin before this president leaves office. No one in our system goes it alone.”

Turley noted that while he agrees with the President on most of his policies, it still “does not alter the fact that I believe the means he is doing is wrong” and that the continued acceleration of executive power can be “a dangerous change in our system."

Via: WFB

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IMMIGRANTS FACING DEPORTATION WINNING CASES AT HIGHEST RATE IN 20 YEARS

Since last October, almost half of the immigrants facing deportation are winning cases they have brought before an immigration judge according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. This is the highest rate of victories for immigrants in more than 20 years.

Every year since 2009, the U.S. government has lost more deportation cases. If the government wants to appeal the ruling, it can appeal it to the Board of Immigration Appeals, part of the DOJ.

Judges in California, New York, and Oregon have been most likely to side with the immigrants recently, while judges in Georgia, Louisiana, and Utah have taken the side of the government.

Some are accusing Obama of deporting too many people, and others aver that he is too lenient on immigrants. The Obama administration has issued policy orders telling immigration authorities to exercise discretion when ascertaining if illegal immigrants should be deported, and one-time Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano echoed that illegal immigrants who were not a threat to national security or public safety should also be treated with discretion. 

In 2012, Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed thousands of illegal immigrants to apply to remain in the U.S. for up to two years and obtain a work permit. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) has said that the huge number of losses by the government in the deportation cases is the result of the Obama administration's immigration enforcement policies.

In 2011, a backlog of over 300,000 cases forced the government to review them. Tens of thousands of cases were dismissed, but over 360,000 cases are still pending.

Via: Breitbart

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House GOP Objects To Obama Easing Immigration Rules For Terror Supporters

President Obama’s use of an executive directive to ease the rules for people trying to enter the United States or stay in the country even though they have given “limited” support to terrorists or terror groups is causing problems for Republicans working on immigration reform.

"President Obama should be protecting U.S. citizens rather than taking a chance on those who are aiding and abetting terrorist activity and putting Americans at greater risk," says Virginia GOP Rep. Robert Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and part of the GOP House leadership team working on immigration reform.

He and other Republican lawmakers argued that the administration is relaxing rules designed by Congress to protect the country from terrorists.

And Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt on "Fox News Sunday" repeated the concerns of fellow Republicans and others about Obama repeatedly saying that "he can use his pen and his telephone" to work around Congress.

The change is one of Obama's first actions on immigration since he pledged during his State of the Union address last month to use more executive directives.

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department now say that people considered to have provided "limited material support" to terrorists or terrorist groups are no longer automatically barred from the United States.

A post-Sept. 11 provision in immigrant law, known as terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds, had affected anyone considered to have given support to terror groups. With little exception, the provision has been applied rigidly to those trying to enter the U.S. and those already here but wanting to change their immigration status.

Via: Fox News

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Tom Price’s Alternate to Obamacare

Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.) is tired of hearing that the GOP is not proposing alternatives to Obamacare.

Price has proposed variations of comprehensive health care reform during three different Congresses. The first proposal came in 2009, then again in 2011, and most recently inJune 2013.

“You can’t beat something with nothing,” Price told the Free Beacon. “I think you always have to have that contrasting positive, principled solution and that’s what we’ve been putting forward.”

Price’s latest bill, the Empowering Patients First Act of 2013, has 40 cosponsors and is currently in a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

To date, none of the proposals have made it out of committee or enjoyed support of GOP leadership. However, as the Affordable Care Act faces a turbulent rollout, Price’s legislation seems increasingly well positioned to warrant reconsideration.

“There’s not unanimity [within the GOP] about whether there should be a comprehensive Republican plan. I’ve been pushing for it since the very beginning, as have some of the people […] and we’ll continue to push,” Price said.

“I understand why it’s difficult to move forward when you’ve got a law that is currently in place that is garnering so much attention. Folks’ attention isn’t that great unless there is a crisis. The crisis is coming and so I think there will be greater attention paid to the alternatives available,” he said.

A key difference, and perhaps the most marketable, between Price’s legislation and the current health care law is the method employed to encourage individuals to purchase insurance.

Via: WFB

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Carney Tells Republicans to ‘Pay Some Attention to Spanish-Language Media’

With the immigration debate ongoing and the House weighing its legislative plans, Jay Carney said Republican leaders need to follow Spanish-language media.

Noting a La Opinión editorial opposing Republicans’ version of the DREAM Act, Carney told reporters that “all of us, but mostly Republican leaders, [need] to pay some attention to the Spanish-language media in this country.” (La Opinión is America’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, and second-most-widely-circulated newspaper in Los Angeles.)

“That media are making clear [sic] they expect action from Congress, and they hold those who oppose commonsense solutions to this challenge responsible,” he explained.

Eric Cantor and Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte have reportedly been working on a Republican version of the DREAM Act that provide a path to citizenship for the children who were brought to the U.S. illegally. Democrats have already voiced dissatisfaction with the bill because the children’s parents won’t have a similar path.

Carney reiterated that the administration wants to pass a comprehensive version of immigration reform, rather than taking the piece-by-piece approach preferred by House Republicans. Carney said he believed that, ultimately, the “the consensus is so strong” behind comprehensive reform that “a bill will land on the president’s desk that meets his principles.”

Via: National Review Online

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Congressional Report: Fast And Furious Scandal Result Of “Deliberate Strategy” Laid Out By Eric Holder, Other Senior Obama Officials…

The latest congressional report on Operation Fast and Furious found that the gunwalking-program-turned-scandal was the result of a “deliberate strategy created at the highest levels of the Justice Department aimed at identifying the leaders of a major gun trafficking ring.”

The report is the second installment in a three-part series from Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Chuck Grassley and House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa.

That “deliberate strategy,” congressional investigators argue, sprang from “a series of speeches about combating violence along the Southwest border” that Attorney General Eric Holder delivered shortly after taking office.

“Although [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] ATF did not officially open the Fast and Furious investigation until the fall of 2009, the groundwork for the strategy that would guide the operation began shortly after new leadership took control of the Department of Justice nine months earlier,” the report reads. “On February 25, 2009, just one month after Attorney General Eric Holder took office, he gave a speech noting the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, focusing on the Sinaloa cartel in particular.”

On Feb. 25, 2009, Holder said the drug cartels “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision” and, under his leadership, he promised “these cartels will be destroyed.”

A little more than a month later, on April 2, 2009 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, congressional investigators say Holder “gave further insight into the department’s new strategy for combating these dangerous cartels.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Is Obama Administration ‘Cooking The Books’ To Achieve Record Deportation Numbers?

Internal documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee show that the Obama administration has been “cooking the books” in order to reach their “record” number of deported illegal immigrants, chairman Rep. Lamar Smith said Friday.

Based on the internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) documents, the number of removals are actually down, the opposite of what the administration has been claiming.

According to the committee’s review, in 2011 officials at the Department of Homeland Security began including the number of individuals removed through the Alien Transfer Exit Program (ATEP) in its annual removal numbers. ATEP is a program which moves apprehended illegal immigrants to another point along the border.

The committee chair claims that counting those individuals as removals is misleading because there are no repercussions for illegal immigrants who are deported through the program, and they can simply try to re-enter.

“It is dishonest to count illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol along the border as ICE removals,” Smith explained in a statement. “And these ‘removals’ from the Border Patrol program do not subject the illegal immigrant to any penalties or bars for returning to the U.S. This means a single illegal immigrant can show up at the border and be removed numerous times in a single year — and counted each time as a removal.”

Given the new information, the committee’s Republican majority subtracted the ATEP removals from ICE’s deportation totals.

With the ATEP subtraction, in 2011 the estimated 397,000 deportations become approximately 360,000, and the 2012 removals to date drop from about 334,000 to an estimated 263,000, according to the committee estimates. Projections for number of people to be deported by end of the year drops from 400,000 to 315,000 removals.

Via: The Daily Caller

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