Can Kate Steinle's Family Sue San Francisco Over Its Sanctuary City Policy?

FILE -- July 2, 2015: Liz Sullivan, left, and Jim Steinle, right, parents of Kathryn "Kate" Steinle, talk to members of the media outside their home in Pleasanton, Calif. (Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle via AP

)Looking for justice? Move to Mexico. When it comes to looking to the U.S. courts for protection, you may have a better chance if you’re from south of the border.

Kathryn "Kate" Steinle was shot dead on July 1, allegedly by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican felon who was in the U.S. illegally. Lopez-Sanchez would have been deported but for the fact that San Francisco is a "sanctuary city," which is why officials there chose to release him and ignore an ICE detainer. This effectively put him back on the street. And yet, if Steinle's family tries to sue the city for this travesty, it may be thrown out of court.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, a judge has just denied a motion to dismiss a case brought by the mother of a Mexican teen who was shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a cross-border shooting. You read that right. The teen was Mexican, shot in Mexico, and the judge still ruled that his mother may sue the Border Patrol agent. U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins opined that "the Mexican national may avail himself to the protections of the Fourth Amendment and that the agent may not assert qualified immunity." The ACLU attorney on the case applauded this ruling, saying, "The court was right to recognize that constitutional protections don't stop at the border."

Perhaps they begin there. If Kate Steinle's family cannot use our laws to get justice in her name, and yet the family of this Mexican teen can, the immigration debate has truly become the twilight zone.

Via: Fox News

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Donald Trump Raises Uncomfortable Truths

Donald Trump enjoyed a surge in the polls after his allegedly "racist" remarks about how all that diversity from South of the Border is not all it's cracked up to be.

The brash real-estate tycoon and TV star has struck a nerve, saying things that America's political elites would never publicly admit, with two notable exceptions being Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Both said Trump had made some good points, even if they were expressed in less than diplomatic terms.

Trump's surge in the polls is being fueled by ordinary Americans. They are applauding or murmuring quiet approval because they probably live in areas that have gotten massive influxes of immigrants -- the majority from Mexico -- over the last decade or two. They know what the score is; that diversity has failed to provide the benefits that political elites said it would. They've seen public schools overwhelmed with non-English speakers, dumbed down, social problems increase, and crime go up -- and it all seems to have a Hispanic face as millions upon millions of immigrants have flooded over the border. Now at long last, they see Trump telling it like it is -- even if his remarks were undiplomatic and, well, not all that presidential.

Trump says many Mexican immigrants are losers -- part of Mexico's social problems that the country's elites are glad to “dump” on America. “When Mexico sends it's people, they are not sending its best,” Trump said. True or false?

Short answer: True.

Most Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, are high school or grade-school dropouts, according to the data; and their offspring continue to be underachievers. On the later point, Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington revealed some disquieting statistics in his must-read book, "Who Are We: The Challenges to America’s National Identity."

Citing statistics from the 1990 census, Huntington noted that high percentages of Mexican-Americans, from one generation to the next, lack high school diplomas. The first generation without diplomas was 69.9%; the second generation, 51.5%; the third generation, 33.0%; and fourth generation, 41.9%.

That last figure, incidentally, isn't a typo. The fourth generation is less educated than the third. So much for assimilation. Those dropout rates are far higher than America's overall dropout rate: 23.5% for all Americans, except Mexican-Americans.

Via: American Thinker

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[VIDEO] Trump Hits Back at Rivals on Immigration: 'No One Else Knows Where to Begin'

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Saturday slammed fellow challengers Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush for their attacks on his statements about illegal immigration — charging that both Florida politicians are soft on the issue.

"I am very proud to be fighting for a strong and secure border," the billionaire businessman told Newsmax in a statement. "This is a very important issue, which all the other candidates would have ignored had I not started this important discussion.

"I will fix the border. No one else knows where to begin," Trump said.

In New Hampshire, Bush said that he was "absolutely" offended personally by Trump's comments in his June 16 campaign announcement. Bush's wife, Columba, is from Mexico.

"I don’t think he represents the Republican Party, and his views are way out of the mainstream of what Republicans think," Bush after attending to Independence Day parades in the state, The Washington Post reports. "No one suggests that we shouldn’t control our borders — everybody has a belief that we should control our borders.

"But to make these extraordinarily ugly kind of comments is not reflective of the Republican Party. Trump is wrong on this.

"He’s doing this to inflame and to incite and to get to draw attention, which just seems to be the organization principle of his campaign," Bush added. "It doesn’t represent the Republican Party or its values."

Trump snapped back Saturday, saying that "Jeb Bush once again proves that he is out of touch with the American people.

"Just like the simple question asked of Jeb on Iraq, where it took him five days and multiple answers to get it right, he doesn’t understand anything about the border or border security.

"In fact, Jeb believes illegal immigrants who break our laws when they cross our border come 'out of love,'" Trump said.

He was referring to Bush's waffling in March over whether he would not have ordered the Baghdad invasion in 2003 — after days of avoiding the question and being attacked by rivals — and his comments in an interview the month before on immigration.

Trump, too, accused Bush of trying to inflame tensions among Hispanics.

"As everybody knows, I never said that all Mexicans crossing the border are rapists. Jeb is mischaracterizing my statements only to inflame."

The developer referenced Wednesday's shooting of a 23-year-old San Francisco woman by an illegal immigrant, Francisco Sanchez, 45, who has seven felony convictions and has been deported five times.

"As seen with the tragic and unnecessary death of Kathryn Steinle this past week in San Francisco at the hands of an illegal immigrant who was previously deported five times, our unsecured border is a national security threat," Trump said.

"Jeb will never be able to secure our border, negotiate good trade deals, strengthen our military or care for our veterans.

"The biggest difference between Jeb and me on the border is that I believe in securing our border by building a wall, which will protect our safety, economy and national security.

"This is a vital step in making America great again."

Earlier Saturday, Trump blasted both Rubio and former New York Gov. George Pataki for their attacks earlier in the week.

Rubio said in a statement Friday that "Trump’s comments are not just offensive and inaccurate, but also divisive. Our next president needs to be someone who brings Americans together — not someone who continues to divide.

"Our broken immigration system is something that needs to be solved, and comments like this move us further from — not closer to — a solution," the first-term senator added. "We need leaders who offer serious solutions to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system."

Pataki wrote a letter to all the Republican presidential candidates this week calling on them to speak out against Trump and his remarks.

"I know Pataki well," Trump told Fox News on Saturday. "He was a terrible governor of New York. Terrible.

"If he would have run again, he wouldn't have gotten anything," he added. "He was a failed governor.

"And, you know, as far as Rubio, he is very weak on immigration — and he I have been saying that for some time," Trump said.

He praised another candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz — who vowed in a "Meet the Press" interview to be aired Sunday that he was not going to participate in "Republican-on-Republican violence" — saying that he respected the Texas senator.

Trump's comments have also been attacked by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said in New Hampshire Saturday that the remarks reflected poorly on the Republican Party.

"I think he made a severe error in saying what he did about Mexican-Americans, and it's unfortunate," Romney told CNN during one of the holiday parades.

When asked whether more GOP candidates should call out Trump, Romney responded: "I think a number of them have."

Via: Newsmax

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Revealed: Feds predicted surge of illegals, see another 127,000 this year

Despite claims the administration was caught off guard, the White House and four Cabinet departments predicted last year's surge of at least 60,000 illegal juveniles over the U.S.-Mexico border and expect it to more than double to 127,000 this year, according to an internal document.

A 24-page administration PowerPoint for congressional appropriators dated April 22, 2014 bluntly stated that border arrivals of "unaccompanied alien children" would rise "by nearly a factor of 10" in 2014 to 60,000 and jump to 127,000 "if these growth rates continue." It is shown below.

Indications are that this year's surge won't meet that record number, but will be the second highest in recent history.

The document and accompanying graphs, provided by congressional sources, also set a price tag of $2 billion "to accommodate" the juveniles, some members of the MS-13 crime gang, this year.

The briefing counters claims by top federal officials that they didn't see the surge coming last year. President Obama called it an "urgent humanitarian situation" in seeking nearly $4 billion, and a top aide said it "was much larger than we anticipated."

It also indicated that the administration is changing its policy in handling the minors in a way that could expand the number allowed into the country, and is funnelling money to countries such as Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to reverse the trend.

Recent reports show that most of the illegal immigrants allowed into the United States have skipped out on their immigration and deportation hearings.

The appropriations briefing was presented by the Office of Management and Budget and the departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice and State.

Shocked at what's in the PowerPoint briefing, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz fired off a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell demanding answers raised in the briefing.

A sign at the Falfurrias Station's U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint about 70 miles north of McAllen, Texas, shows the tally of drugs and illegal immigrants taken by last July. AP Photo

Cruz, a leading Republican presidential candidate, said that it appears the administration is deceiving the public about surge of kids. Referring to the 24-page PowerPoint, he wrote Burwell that it "raises significant questions about whether the administration has been truthful with the American people and Congress about its knowledge of the scope of the UAC problem."

Citing the 2014 prediction, which was nearly correct, Cruz wrote, "Far from being an unforeseen crisis, the high number of UAC that approached the United States-Mexico border last summer appears to have been calmly predicted."

Via: Washington Examiner

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Isis Expansion Along U.S. Borders

WASHINGTON, D.C. -

Our southern border is long and U.S. border patrol agents work to fight illegal activity like illegal immigration, drugs and now according to an FBI consultant, the border could be an attractive region for ISIS thanks in part to powerful drug lords.

"Drug dealers have found a way to move money without it being followed,” said Tyrone Powers, Former FBI Agent. “They found a way to move people in and out and they found a way to move product."

That product powers refers to is tons and tons of meth, heroin and pot transferred through a labyrinth of tunnels from Mexico.

Drugs that are headed for the streets of the U.S.

But these tunnels could easily be an underground highway for ISIS to spawn its brutality here.

"The stronger they get over there, the more power they have so I can definitely see, in the future, collaboration between terrorist groups and drug dealers to our south," said Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, 2016 Presidential Candidate

"It's individuals they bring into this country, maybe at some point, suicide bombers which is really scary and then weapons of mass destruction," said Powers.

Terrorist experts say the epidemic of unstable leadership in Mexico, combined with ruthless drug cartels creates a vacuum.

"What's been going on in Mexico creates an opportunity for any organization to try to take advantage of it, whether it's ISIS or Al Shabbab," said Brandon Behlendorf, Terrorist Targeting Strategist.

Two major drug cartels that could attract ISIS cover a lot of land in Mexico. Both skirt the U.S. border.

The Sinalos Federation takes up western Mexico and borders Texas to California.

Los Zetas occupies eastern Mexico and hugs the southern Texas border.

Experts say Al Qaeda already tried linking up with drug lords in Mexico roughly 15 years ago. But to no avail.

But Isis is far more determined than Al Qaeda.

"It makes logical sense for ISIS to do this,” said powers. “But I do not think they'll be catching the intelligence agencies off guard, because this has been a persistent problem whether it was Al Qaeda or any other group."

Via: Sioux Land News

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Senate passes trade 'fast track,' handing Obama a major victory

The Senate voted Wednesday to give President Barack Obama "fast track" authority to negotiate trade deals—one of the final steps in a long political battle that pitted the White House against House Democrats.

The bill—which passed 60-38 in the Senate—will be sent to the president's desk later this afternoon, but it was not immediately clear when he would sign it.

Unions and most congressional Democrats say free-trade deals cost U.S. jobs and reward countries that pollute and mistreat workers. Obama and most Republican leaders say U.S. products must reach broader markets.

Getty Images

President Barack Obama.

After killing one version of fast track (also known as Trade Promotion Authority, or TPA), the House eventually voted last week to pass the measure.

The Senate plans to vote on three other trade-related bills. One would extend a job retraining program for workers displaced by international trade. That program requires House approval, too.

Read More Pacific trade: Why DC is fighting about 'fast-track'

On Tuesday, Senators voted 60-37 to streamline the debate process—a key victory for the Obama-backed measure.

Senate passage Wednesday of fast-track authority boosts Obama's hopes for a 12-nation Pacific-rim trade agreement. Members include Japan, Malaysia, Mexico and Canada.

In addition to the traditional arguments for trade deals, administration officials and many Republicans contend that the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership would help underscore the U.S. pivot toward Asia—and establish Washington's system in a part of the world increasingly influenced by Chinese interests.

Via: CNBC

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1,037,900 Jobs Deficit: U.S. Created 16x as Many Jobs in Mexico as Mexico in U.S.

CNSNews.com) - U.S.-majority-owned multinational enterprises employed 1,106,700 in Mexico in 2012 (the latest year on record), according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, but Mexican-majority owned enterprises employed only 68,800 in the United States that year.

That means that U.S.-controlled multinationals employed 1,037,900 more people in Mexico than Mexican-controlled multinationals employed in the United States.

Put another way, multinational enterprises that had a majority U.S. ownership employed 16 times as many people in Mexico as Mexican-controlled multinationals employed in the United States.

Forty-nine percent of the jobs--546,500 of 1,106,700--that U.S.-controlled multinationals maintained in Mexico in 2012 were in manufacturing, according to the BEA. (See Table 5.2 in the August 2014 BEA report "Activities of U.S. Multinationl Enterprises in 2012.")

Those 546,500 Mexican manufacturing workers employed by U.S.-controlled multinationals included at least 100,000 in transportation equipment manufacturing, 71,300 in food manufacturing, 53,700 in computer and electronic products manufacturing, 34,000 in machinery manufacturing, 32,200 in chemical manufacturing, 30,500 in electrical equipment, appliances and components manufacturing, 18,600 in primary and fabricated metals manufacturing.

Of the 68,800 that Mexican-controlled multinationals employed in the United States in 2012, 56,200 were in manufacturing, according to the BEA.

The 546,500 that U.S.-controlled multinationals employed in manufacturing in Mexico was almost 10 times as many as the 56,200 Mexican-controlled multinationals employed in manufacturing here.

The overall number of workers that U.S.-majority-owned multinationals employ in Mexico has been increasing.

Via: CNS News

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Exclusive--Texas Lt. Governor: We Shut Down the Border Ourselves

Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst announced a Texas-led three-week effort that he says reduced illegal immigration, smuggling, and human trafficking to a standstill in the Rio Grande River section of the U.S./Mexico border. 

The Lt. Governor spoke with me in an interview for Breitbart News; he stated: “In the Rio Grande Valley sector, nearly nothing moved in those three weeks. We shut it down. We had teams of Texas law enforcement in the brush, high altitude aircraft, gun boats, and more," he explained. “Our intel revealed that the Gulf cartel was growing frustrated with our three-week effort.”

“The border issue is just about dollars and cents,” Dewhurst said. “This proves Texas can do the job the federal government has refused to do — to invest in the border and shut it down from illegal activities that are hurting Texans and other Americans.” He added: "Texas will protect our own citizens and other Americans from the criminal gangs that are destabilizing our state and our nation.”

The plan, according to Dewhurst, was to do a three-week operation with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) as the tip of the spear. He said the effort cost approximately $5 million each month. “We are fixing to appropriate more money,” he said. The Lt. Governor is seeking an additional $60 million to be approved by the State Legislative Budget Board. 

Dewhurst stated, “We started appropriating money to plug the holes that exist in the border. We’ve allocated hundreds of millions, as a state, since 2008.” He added: “Nearly 796 million of state money, not a dime federal, has been allocated by the State of Texas to plug the holes in our border. This covers things like over-time for Sheriffs’ deputies,  equipment, and Texas Rangers SWAT teams [referring to the elite Texas Rangers, an arm of the DPS].”

Via: Breitbart

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MEXICO OFFICIAL: STOLEN COBALT-60 FOUND

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's nuclear safety director says that missing radioactive cobalt-60 has been found near where the stolen truck transporting the material was abandoned in central Mexico state.

Juan Eibenschutz says the area is a kilometer from the nearest town and so far poses no threat or need for evacuation.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

A stolen container of radioactive material was found empty Wednesday and radioactivity was detected nearby, Mexico's nuclear safety director said.

Authorities cordoned off an area about 1 kilometer (a half mile) from where the stolen truck and empty container were found in the state of Mexico, said Juan Eibenschutz, director general of the National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards.

"Fortunately there are no people where the source of radioactivity is," Eibenschutz said.

Via: AP

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NSA Explodes At Obama: He Ordered Spying, Not Us; Now He’s Trying To Throw Us Under The Bus

WASHINGTON — The White House and State Department signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Monday, pushing back against assertions that President Obama and his aides were unaware of the high-level eavesdropping.

Professional staff members at the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies are angry, these officials say, believing the president has cast them adrift as he tries to distance himself from the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have strained ties with close allies.

The resistance emerged as the White House said it would curtail foreign intelligence collection in some cases and two senior U.S. senators called for investigations of the practice.

France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Sweden have all publicly complained about the NSA surveillance operations, which reportedly captured private cellphone conversations by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among other foreign leaders.

On Monday, as Spain joined the protest, the fallout also spread to Capitol Hill.

Until now, members of Congress have chiefly focused their attention on Snowden’s disclosures about the NSA’s collection of U.S. telephone and email records under secret court orders.

“With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies — including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany — let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Via: Pat Dollard

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Oregonians Fight Illegal Alien License Law

Oregon taxpayers are successfully fighting back against a law—passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor months ago—to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses by the start of 2014.

The measure, Senate Bill 833, directs the Department of Transportation to issue special driver cards to applicants who don’t provide proof of legal presence in the United States. The illegal aliens must still pass a driving test and provide “acceptable documents that prove their identity, date of birth, and residency in Oregon for more than a year.” Here’s another interesting line in the actual law: “A Social Security number will also be required if one has been assigned.”

The campaign started around the middle of last year when Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber ordered state police to begin accepting the Mexican Matricula Consular identification cards as valid ID. Shortly afterwards he vowed to pass a measure that would allow illegal aliens to obtain Oregon driver’s licenses, asserting that the undocumented would come “out of the shadows” and “contribute to our economic recovery.” The state legislature overwhelmingly approved the bill in May and the governor quickly signed it.

Under the measure state Department of Motor Vehicle offices can accept foreign identification cards issued by the consulates of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico and South Korea. The card must be “valid” and not expired, according to the new Oregon law, which advises illegal immigrants to “contact your consulate office if you need to renew it.”

This outraged an Oregon group that favors immigration control. At the very least, citizens should be able to vote on the matter. So the group, Oregonians for Immigration Reform, got busy and collected the necessary 58,142 signatures to put a referendum blocking the law onto the November 2014 ballot. This already delays the law’s implementation by almost a year because it was supposed to kick in on January 2014.

The new law granting driver privilege cards to illegal aliens will now be sidelined until after the November 2014 election, the group says on its website. If voters choose to overturn the measure, it will be dropped. If voters approve it, the law will go into effect 30 days after the election. The group cites a recent Rasmussen poll that reveals 68% of U.S. voters oppose giving illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. The survey found that just 22% favor allowing illegal aliens to get licenses in their home state.

A dozen states—not including Oregon—have laws that allow illegal aliens to obtain a driver’s license or special driving privilege card, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Among those that recently passed measures are California and Illinois. States—such as Arizona and Nebraska—that refuse to give illegal aliens licenses have been dragged into costly legal battles to preserve their laws.

Via: Judicial Watch

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