First Phase of Backdoor Amnesty Officially Begins

By Frosty Wooldridge

President Barack Obama has found a way to subvert U.S. immigration laws and give a back door amnesty to 20 million illegal alien migrants.  In other words, he picks the laws he wants to uphold and forgets the ones he doesn’t agree with in the Constitution.

ICE Issues New Memos Consolidating Power and Expanding Amnesty

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, www.fairus.org , speaks about Obama’s amnesty program.

“After months of covert planning, implementation of administrative amnesty is now officially underway,” said Stein. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memos FAIR obtained last week indicate that ICE attorneys will now begin reviewing illegal alien removal cases for the purpose of administratively closing those that do not meet narrow ICE “priorities.”

“The new memos outline detailed procedures for ICE attorneys reviewing removal cases initiated not only by ICE, but also Customs and Border Patrol and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). ICE attorneys are tasked with identifying which illegal aliens are “priorities” for removal under the guidelines laid out in the June 17 Morton Memo, and which can be considered for administrative amnesty.

“Under these guidelines, suspected terrorists, convicted felons, gang members, and those who entered the country illegally within the last three years are priorities for removal. Among those who will be eligible to stay in the U.S. are illegal aliens who meet the criteria for the failed DREAM Act – came to U.S. before the age of 16, been here for at least 5 years, completed high school – and those with a “very long-term presence” or “compelling” ties in the U.S.

“The priorities provided in these new, as well as previous, ICE memos serve as a “how-to” guide for illegal aliens and their lawyers.  The necessary requirements for getting an illegal alien deported are now even more burdensome and fall on ICE attorneys with explicit instructions to avoid deporting nearly all illegal aliens.

“Illegal aliens whose removal cases are administratively closed will also be eligible for work authorization, imposing additional competition for scare jobs that 23 million Americans are scrambling to find.

“There is no longer any need to speculate about what the administration is up to. The resources appropriated by Congress to enforce immigration laws is being spent to reassign lawyers and judges away from enforcement duties in order to identify illegal aliens whose removal cases can be dismissed. Through this rogue amnesty program, the administration is plainly defying the authority of Congress and the will of the American people.”

Illinois Congressman Leads Attack Against Alabama
Rep. Luis Gutierrez Leads House Dems in Immigration “Hearing” Today

“Today Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and a handful of House Democrats from Arizona, California, New York and Texas will travel to Birmingham, Alabama, to hold a public hearing on the perceived negative effects of Alabama’s immigration enforcement law,” said Stein. “At the hearing, illegal aliens and their employers will attest to how the law has affected their lives.

“Oddly enough, negatively affecting illegal aliens and their employers was exactly the law’s intent.

“Organized largely by amnesty advocates in Alabama, including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU, the hearing is not sanctioned by the U.S. Congress and has no bearing on the implementation of HB56. Rather, Rep. Gutierrez and his fellow sanctuary state lawmakers are taking their “We care more about illegal immigrants than Americans” show on the road.

“House Dems are seizing the opportunity to publicly protest Alabama’s law because they don’t want any immigration enforcement, whether it originates from Washington or the states. The hearing will likely characterize the law as racist, unfair and immoral, while glossing over the minor detail that HB56 largely mirrors immigration enforcement laws passed by Congress. Painting sympathetic, often misleading, pictures of families “torn apart” by deportations and crops rotting in the fields, Gutierrez and Co. will continue to ignore the federal laws that prohibit the hiring and harboring of illegal aliens, require the carrying of ID to prove immigration status and allow local law enforcement to check immigration status when reasonable suspicion exists.

“Although illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers $113 billion a year, lawmakers continually fail to acknowledge the fiscal burden shouldered by Americans in the absence of immigration enforcement. States like Alabama that attempt to enforce the law are portrayed as immoral and unjust while illegal aliens who take advantage of public services and the business owners who employ them are ignored.”

Obama Administration Refuses to Comply with Subpoena

“House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) is accusing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of providing an inadequate response to the Committee’s recent subpoena,” said Stein. “In the subpoena, the Committee requested a list of the illegal and criminal aliens ICE has identified but failed to detain or place into removal proceedings. Chairman Smith has demanded to know who made the decision not to comply with the subpoena, either at DHS or the White House. If DHS does not comply immediately, Smith aims to hold the department in contempt.

“Chairman Smith originally requested information pertaining to removable aliens on August 22, 2011. After several communications from ICE essentially delaying a response, DHS finally responded with a letter from Assistant Secretary Nelson Peacock on October 24. This letter, however, merely passed on information and data that was widely available and did not contain the requested list of criminal aliens.

“Following a second formal request to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano upon her appearance in front of the Judiciary Committee on October 26, an October 31 deadline was missed and the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, Elton Gallegly (R-Cali.), was forced to issue a subpoena for the twice requested data. The deadline for the subpoena was set for 12:00 p.m. on November 10. In response the Judiciary Committee received “a list numbered 1 through 220,995” with no further information.

“A response to the subpoena is critical to holding ICE accountable for decreasing enforcement against illegal and criminal aliens. Chairman Smith concluded the administration must be withholding the records because “administration officials are afraid that the information will show that illegal immigrants intentionally released by ICE have committed crimes that could have been prevented.””

Contact Dan Stein at www.fairus.org

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Frosty Wooldridge is a member of the board at www.fairus.org