enforcement

During debate on the Department of Homeland Security’s appropriations bill, the House voted cut off funds for implementing Administration policies that shield most illegal aliens from the threat of deportation. The 224-201 vote on an amendment sponsored by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) could be a harbinger of the difficulties amnesty proponents face in the coming debate over immigration reform [amnesty for illegal aliens].

  Read more about House Votes to Overturn Obama Administration No-Deportation Policies

Next week, the U.S. Senate is expected to begin deliberation on S.744, the Gang of Eight's secretly-negotiated bill that promises to deliver "comprehensive immigration reform." By "comprehensive," the sponsors mean giving amnesty to an estimated 12 million [to 20 million to 40 million] illegal aliens...

They also mean turning the United States government into the world's largest personnel agency, dispatching "needed" skilled and unskilled workers to business interests that no longer feel the need or the inclination to recruit, train and fairly compensate American workers.

And, of course, "comprehensive" also means solemn pledges to the American people that this time we really will enforce our immigration laws: Our borders will be secured, the magnet of jobs for illegal aliens will be cut off, American workers will not be displaced from jobs, American taxpayers will not be burdened with the costs of social services and benefits to amnesty recipients...

If it feels like you've heard all this before, it's because you have. This is exactly the "comprehensive immigration reform" package the American public was sold in 1986. And, if anyone cares to hear it again, C-SPAN has preserved video footage of the key players in the 1986 debate - " including some who are still in Congress and behind the Gang of Eight bill - " making precisely the same arguments we are hearing in 2013.

To be sure, some of the promises made in 1986 were kept. Some 3 million illegal aliens got amnesty, many of them fraudulently. Business interests have been able to take advantage of millions of foreign workers - both illegal aliens and guest workers.

Then there were the promises made to the American public - the ones about immigration enforcement. Of course none of those promises were kept.

...a little historical refresher is in order:

Our borders will be secured.

Promise broken. And it won't happen under S.744 either. The bill requires that the secretary of Homeland Security, within 180 days of enactment, submit to Congress a plan to secure our borders. Implementation of the plan would not be required until five years after enactment...

The magnet of jobs will be cut off.

Promise broken. Even under the best case scenario, that powerful magnet would not be ended by S.744 for quite some time. It could be a decade or more... In the meantime, state laws that protect American workers by requiring employers to use E-Verify would be preempted.

American workers will be protected.

Promise broken. S.744 won't do any better. In fact, provisions of the bill will actually make it easier for employers to bypass high skilled American workers and hire guest workers...

We will never again grant amnesty to illegal aliens.

Needless to say, promise broken. Here we are 27 years with a bill before Congress that would legalize at least four times the number of people who got amnesty under the 1986 bill.

...consider the words of at least two of the Gang of Eight.

  Read more about What Americans Need to Understand about 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform'

Sen. Marco Rubio blocked numerous immigration-enforcement bills when he served as speaker in the Florida House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009...

Rubio’s record is relevant now because he’s presented himself as a moderate backer for the Democratic-led “Gang of Eight” immigration bill. Proponents of the bill argue that its extensive loosening of immigration laws (including a “pathway to citizenship” that Rubio in 2010 described as “basically code for amnesty”) will be balanced by tougher enforcement.

But the record shows that Rubio used his power in Florida to block popular immigration-enforcement bills prior to his election-trail conversion into an immigration-hawk.

In the 2010 race, he criticized one of his opponents, Gov. Charlie Crist, for backing the amnesty proposal developed by Sen. John McCain and Ted Kennedy in 2006 and 2007...

In 2007 and 2008, Rubio repeatedly kept tough reform bills from getting passed, despite a wave of public support for reforms.

Numerous enforcement proposals – ranging from bills requiring employers to check the status of workers to others mandating increased cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies – were blocked by Rubio even though they cleared bipartisan committees... Read more about Rubio has long history of blocking immigration enforcement

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants [illegal aliens]. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet... Read more about Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform

As the Senate prepares to conduct its markup of the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill on Thursday, sheriffs and other law enforcement officials have joined forces to oppose the legislation on the grounds that it, in their opinion, makes the current system of immigration law worse than it would “be a significant barrier to the creation of a safe and lawful system of immigration.”

In a letter (below) that was delivered to every member of Congress in both the House and the Senate on Thursday, National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers chairman Zack Taylor, National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council president Chris Crane and at least 30 sheriffs nationwide argued the bill would make America’s broken immigration laws worse off than they already are. 

In addition to the safety and security risks of the ongoing rush of illegal immigrants on the border, the law enforcement community representatives point out that the Rubio-Schumer bill “provides no guarantee of increased border security.”

“Instead, it relinquishes Congress’ authority to establish border security measures to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which will then develop its own unilateral border security plan,” they wrote...

Sheriffs who signed the letter are from counties in states including New Mexico, Colorado, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Maryland, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Read more about Sheriffs, Law Enforcement Groups Unite Against Senate Immigration Bill

Not only does the Gang of Eight’s bill allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to decide for herself whether weak, undefined enforcement measures (“triggers”) are met, but it grants her unprecedented discretion in determining whether an alien is allowed to enter the country, whether future illegal aliens can be removed from the country, and who is eligible for amnesty in the bill. The net effect of these waivers and discretionary authority is to permanently hamstring and undermine law enforcement and create a new, endless bureaucracy surrounding immigration proceedings. These provisions, carefully crafted by special interest immigration attorneys, serve only one purpose: to weaken current law and make future enforcement impossible.

· For instance, this bill would allow the Secretary to overlook convictions for crimes related to gang activity, child abuse, domestic violence, and drunk driving in determining whether an individual is eligible for admission to the country if the person’s admission serves “humanitarian purposes,” “ensure[s] family unity,” or is in the “public interest.” These standards are so broad as to render most current legal restrictions meaningless.

· S. 744 would also grant the Secretary of Homeland Security and Immigration Judges enormously broad discretion to block the removal of any future legal and illegal aliens—including convicted criminals—where such a removal is not in the “public interest” or would result in mere “hardship” to the alien’s U.S. citizen or permanent resident parent of a child, spouse or child.

· The bill would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security, when determining whether an individual is eligible for amnesty, to overlook that individual’s convictions for the following types of offenses that would otherwise render the alien inadmissible to the United States: a crime involving moral turpitude (which could include theft, child abuse, domestic violence, and a variety of other serious crimes); a controlled substance (non-trafficking) offense; and multiple drunk driving offenses (which, interestingly, is added as a ground of inadmissibility elsewhere in the bill), if the Secretary determines that granting the individual amnesty would serve “humanitarian purposes,” “ensure family unity,” or is in the “public interest.”

· In reviewing an application for the amnesty provided in the bill, the Secretary is explicitly barred from considering: document forgery, skipping court-ordered removal hearings, making false statements to authorities, multiple illegal re-entries, or felony arrests that did not result in convictions.

· Even those who have been deported are eligible to apply for amnesty under the bill. Current law requires the Attorney General to automatically remove an alien who re-enters the U.S. after being deported. Under S. 744, however, this would no longer apply to future deportees who re-enter the U.S. before reaching 18 years of age. It would also no longer apply to any deportee—regardless of age—whose removal the Secretary determines would not be in the “public interest” or would result in “hardship” to the alien’s U.S. citizen or permanent resident parent, spouse, or child. For instance, under this bill, an alien who was removed after committing a deportable offense—such as assault or a crime involving moral turpitude—and returns before the age of 18 is no longer deportable, as he would be under current law.

· S. 744 provides that an alien is ineligible for amnesty if he has been convicted of three or more misdemeanor offenses on different dates, other than minor traffic offenses (a term which is not defined). That means that an alien is eligible for amnesty even if he or she has been convicted of two misdemeanor criminal convictions, or even a theoretically unlimited number of misdemeanor criminal convictions, as long as the convictions occurred on the same date. That also means that an alien who committed a serious felony offense but had his charges reduced to a misdemeanor as the result of a plea bargain is eligible for amnesty. Despite these already lax requirements, the Secretary is given authority to waive the bar for even those with multiple convictions.

· S. 744 also provides that Immigration Judges have the authority to appoint attorneys to illegal aliens at government expense. The appointment of an attorney at government expense is unprecedented outside of the criminal court context.

Rather than enhance border security and ensure future enforcement of the law, S. 744 rewards illegal aliens with criminal records, and creates an incentive for people to illegally enter the United States in the future. In essence, if S. 744 passes as currently drafted, the following scenario is not at all unlikely: An individual who has previously been convicted of a crime and subsequently removed from the United States illegally crosses the border at one of the six sectors not addressed by S. 744. The United States Border Patrol apprehends that individual, and rather than simply expediently removing him from the United States, places that individual into removal proceedings before an Immigration Judge. The Immigration Judge appoints an attorney for the alien at taxpayer expense. The attorney assists the alien in demonstrating that any future removal would cause mere “hardship” to a qualifying relative. The Immigration Judge terminates the case and permits the individual to stay in the United States—presumably indefinitely.

Quite opposite from creating the “toughest” enforcement in history as the proposal sponsors’ promised, this legislation would devastate enforcement and officer morale and disastrously undermine the rule of law for years to come. Read more about Waivers And Exemptions In Gang Of Eight Plan Would Permanently Hamstring Enforcement

In August 2012, the Obama administration started a program that allowed young undocumented immigrants [illegal aliens] to legally live and work in the U.S. on a temporary basis.

The “Gang of Eight” claims that its immigration bill does not provide amnesty for illegal immigrants. But an analysis of the legalization portion of the 844-page Senate proposal uncovers at least 11 amnesties for illegal aliens and their employers.

The report, by Ronald Mortensen, a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, shows that the token penalties, when they do exist, are not commensurate with the employment-related felonies committed by the majority of illegal aliens, nor are they commensurate with the benefits received by illegal aliens. Just as unfortunate is the fact that millions of victims of these crimes are ignored while the amnestied illegals are rewarded and even benefit from the so-called penalties, as the monies actually go into a fund that provides services to the very people who paid the "penalties".

“Illegal aliens will be rewarded for breaking laws for which American citizens are routinely punished," said Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "For example, an American citizen would face a maximum penalty of ten years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for using a fraudulent Social Security card, but under this bill the illegal alien would face a $1,000 penalty covering all his many offenses, a penalty which in many cases will be waived. Then, they would be issued a new Social Security number without any past bad credit or arrest records.”

View the full report.

Dr. Mortensen discovered the following amnesties for illegal aliens and their employers:

• Amnesties for Illegal Aliens Amnesty for the estimated 75 percent of illegal aliens committing Social Security fraud.
• Amnesty from returning to home countries for 10 years before adjusting status.
• Amnesty for illegal aliens committing Identity theft.
• Amnesty for illegal aliens by officially authorizing them to continue committing identity theft by using fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers belonging to American citizens.
• Amnesty for illegal aliens who have committed perjury on I-9 forms.
• De-Facto amnesty from the token $1,000 penalty, since it effectively pre-pays services provided to illegal aliens.
• Amnesty from existing exclusion, deportation, and removal orders.
• While illegal aliens would be granted amnesty for crimes they have committed, government employees who discover Social Security fraud, identity theft, or perjury on I-9 forms while reviewing applications for provisional status would be prohibited from notifying victims, law enforcement, etc. with a threat of a $10,000 penalty. This is 10 times more than the $1,000 penalty paid by an illegal alien who has committed felony identity theft.

Amnesties for the Employers of Illegal Aliens<

• Amnesty for employers found to have employed illegal aliens or who are currently employing illegal aliens. Moreover, employers may continue to employ illegal aliens, accept fraudulent Social Security numbers, and renew falsified I-9 forms for those who apply for provisional status.
• Amnesty for employers who did not withhold and/or submit payroll taxes for individuals illegally in the United States.
• Amnesty for employers who violated labor laws by paying unfair wages, who failed to pay wages, etc.
• Amnesty for employers who facilitated Social Security fraud and identity theft by providing or accepting false Social Security numbers.
• While employers would be held harmless, government employees who find that employers violated the law while reviewing applications for temporary status would be prohibited from notifying the appropriate law enforcement authorities. If government employees do report tax or labor violations, they could face a fine of $10,000.