amnesty

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) believes that the mainstream media have not done enough to advance the pro-amnesty amnesty.

The mainstream media, in their “balanced” immigration reports, often have a pro-amnesty Republican and a pro-amnesty Democrat touting the benefits of comprehensive amnesty legislation while never mentioning the impact such legislation will have on American workers outside of the permanent political class. Pro-enforcement voices are never given the time of day. In fact, Univision’s Jorge Ramos, who has interviewed pro-enforcemnet advocates like D.A. King, has been more fair and balanced than his mainstream media brethren on the immigration issue–and that’s saying something.

The mainstream press lauds DREAMers as valedictorians, vilifies Americans opposed to amnesty because of the impact it would have on American workers of all backgrounds, and ignores crimes committed by illegal immigrants. And when Gallup, the organization the mainstream press most respects, publishes a poll that found only seven percent of Americans want more immigration at this time, the media that is quick to publish every bit of minutiae from the reputable Gallup organization ignores it. But that is still not enough for Gutierrez, who declared “they haven’t understood our relevance.”

“We’re still not as important as we should be,” he said in a interview with TeleSur Englishwhen asked if the mainstream press is aiding anti-amnesty advocates.

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas says two more states have joined its coalition suing over the Obama administration's executive action on immigration, meaning 26 states are now part of the case.

New Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that Nevada and Tennessee have officially become part of the coalition.

More than half the states are now fighting the order in a federal court in Brownsville.

Announced in November, the president's unilateral move is designed to spare millions of people living illegally in the United States from deportation. The lawsuit accuses the White House of "trampling" the Constitution.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is now chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, his office announced in a Thursday release. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)—another immigration hardliner who’s stood with Sessions every step of the way over the past several years—will serve as that subcommittee’s deputy chairman.

Sessions will also chair the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee. This announcement comes after Sessions, who was in line to chair the full Senate Budget Committee, stepped aside to allow Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) to chair it. Enzi asserted seniority, even though Sessions has been ranking member for the last four years. Sessions and Enzi were elected to the U.S. Senate on the same day, but Enzi technically due to the luck of the draw.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to chair these two crucial subcommittees,” Sessions said in his statement, before detailing what he will do with each subcommittee.

As chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, Sessions said his focus “will be to advance the core interests of the nation and its people” over the interests of lobbyists, special interests and illegal aliens.

“On no issue have special interests had a tighter grip than on the issue of immigration,” Sessions said, noting his first action as chairman will be renaming the subcommittee to a much more fitting name.

That is why I am renaming the subcommittee “Immigration and the National Interest,” as a declaration to the American people that this subcommittee belongs to them. Senator Vitter, a strong voice for the national interest, will be serving as Republican Deputy Chairman. The financial and political elite have been controlling this debate for years; this subcommittee will give voice to those whose voice has been shut out: the voice of the dedicated immigration officers who have been blocked from doing their jobs; the voice of the working families whose wages have been reduced by years of record immigration; the voice of the American IT workers who are being replaced with guest workers; the voice of the parents who are worried about their schools and hospitals; and the voice of all Americans who believe we must have a lawful system of immigration they can be proud of and that puts their interests first.

President Obama's Department of Homeland Security issued 10 memos outlining the administration's planned lawless amnesty, but they are limited in detail and leave much of the policymaking to executive branch agencies.¹ As such, much remains unknown about exactly how this scheme will operate.

For example, in a memo titled "Expansion of the Provisional Waiver Program", the administration has expanded provisional unlawful presence waivers for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) who, under law, are not eligible to adjust status in the United States and must travel abroad to obtain a visa. This is a problem for those who have been in the country illegally for more than 180 days because if they travel home and attempt to come back in, they will discover they are barred from returning for three or 10 years.² The purpose of this law is to deter people from living illegally in the United States for long periods of time.

On March 4, 2013, the Obama administration offered a waiver to immigrant visa applicants who are spouses, minor children, or parents of U.S. citizens. But the new memo extends this to "all statutorily eligible classes of relatives for whom an immigrant visa is immediately available." This means the spouses, children, and parents of lawful permanent residents and the adult children of U.S. citizens and LPRs will now have access to these waivers.

As part of this, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson — who authored the memos — announced that he has directed "USCIS to provide additional guidance on the definition of 'extreme hardship'." The memo notes that to be eligible for the waiver, aliens much demonstrate that their absence from the United States would cause extreme hardship to a spouse or parent who is a U.S. citizen or LPR.

More notable is the fact that Johnson notes that the statute "does not define the term, and federal courts have not specifically defined it through case law." In other words, the administration is going to come up with as-of-yet unseen guidelines about the definition of "extreme hardship" that Johnson notes "would provide broader use" of the waiver.

Of course, Congress could better define the phrase through legislation. If they do not, they are explicitly allowing the Obama administration to do as it pleases.

President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration survived their first major court test Tuesday, when a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit claiming the president exceeded his constitutional power.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell dismissed a challenge brought by Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and backed by conservative legal activist Larry Klayman. Howell ruled that Arpaio had not shown the direct harm from Obama’s actions needed to institute a lawsuit in the federal courts.

The ruling came just one day after Klayman, Arpaio’s lawyer, presented a colorful argument laced with political barbs at a hearing that extended to more than an hour. During the session, Howell — an Obama appointee — shot several quizzical looks at the well-known lawyer and made a series of pointed remarks suggesting she was highly skeptical of his arguments.

The lawsuit challenged a policy Obama implemented in 2012 deferring deportation of individuals brought to the U.S. illegally as children, as well as two moves the administration announced last month: expanding that program and instituting a broader deferred deportation program for illegal-immigrant parents of U.S. citizens. Both programs will soon carry the possibility of three-year reprieves from deportation, along with work permits.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz hailed the judge’s ruling.

“Judge Howell’s decision today confirms what the Department of Justice and scholars throughout the country have been saying all along: the President’s executive actions on immigration are lawful,” Schultz said in a statement. “The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that federal officials can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws, and the actions announced by the President are consistent with those taken by administrations of both parties for the last half century.”

Homeland Security Department officials say the changing face of illegal immigration and the reluctance of “sanctuary cities” to help enforce immigration laws have led to the stunning drop in deportations over the past few years.

Statistics released late Friday showed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported about 315,000 immigrants in fiscal year 2014, a steep drop from more than 360,000 deported in 2013 and well below the more than 410,000 the previous year.

Even more striking is the drop in the number of immigrants kicked out from the interior of the U.S. — the 11.5 million or so who dominate the debate. ICE removed 102,000 in 2014, the lowest rate since 2006, which was before President George W. Bush began to take immigration enforcement seriously.

President Obama recently announced plans to give legal status and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. Many members of Congress and the president continue to support efforts to increase the level of immigration, such as Senate bill S.744 that passed that chamber last year. Yet data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on its website (see Table A-7) show that all of the net gain in employment since 2007 has gone to immigrants (legal and illegal), also referred to as the foreign-born.¹ Native employment has still not returned to pre-recession levels, while immigrant employment already exceeds pre-recession levels. Furthermore, even with recent job growth, the number of natives not in the labor force (neither working nor looking for work) continues to increase.

Additional findings:

• The BLS reports that 23.1 million adult (16-plus) immigrants (legal and illegal) were working in November 2007 and 25.1 million were working in November of this year — a two million increase. For natives, 124.01 million were working in November 2007 compared to 122.56 million in November 2014 — a 1.46 million decrease. 
   
• Although all of the employment growth has gone to immigrants, natives accounted for 69 percent of the growth in the 16 and older population from 2007 to 2014. 
   
• The number of immigrants working returned to pre-recession levels by the middle of 2012, and has continued to climb. But the number of natives working remains almost 1.5 million below the November 2007 level. 
   
• More recently, natives have done somewhat better. However, even with job growth in the last two years (November 2012 to November 2014), 45 percent of employment growth has gone to immigrants, though they comprise only 17 percent of the labor force. 
   
• The number of officially unemployed (looking for work in the prior four weeks) adult natives has declined in recent years. But the number of natives not in the labor force (neither working nor looking for work) continues to grow. 
   
• The number of adult natives 16-plus not in the labor force actually increased by 693,000 over the last year, November 2013 to November of 2014. 
   
• Compared to November 2007, the number of adult natives not in the labor force is 11.1 million larger in November of this year. 
   
• In total, there were 79.1 million adult natives and 13.5 million adult immigrants not in the labor force in November 2014. There were an additional 8.6 million immigrant and native adults officially unemployed. 
   
• The percentage of adult natives in the labor force (the participation rate) did not improve at all in the last year. 
   
• All of the information in BLS Table A-7 indicates there is no labor shortage in the United States, even as many members of Congress and the president continue to support efforts to increase the level of immigration, such as S.744 , which passed in the Senate last year. That bill would have roughly doubled the number of immigrants allowed into the country from one million annually to two million.² 
   
• It will take many years of sustained job growth just to absorb the enormous number of people, primarily native-born, who are currently not working and return the country to the labor force participation rate of 2007. If we continue to allow in new immigration at the current pace or choose to increase the immigration level, it will be even more difficult for the native-born to make back the ground they have lost in the labor market.

McALLEN — The media tent that once stood in the parking lot of Sacred Heart Church is gone, as are the television crews and reporters who descended this summer when the flow of Central American immigrants illegally crossing the Texas border was major news.

But after a brief lull, the surge of undocumented families passing through a temporary shelter set up by Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley seems to be rising again. The spotlight may have turned away, but if the sense of crisis is gone, the people have not stopped coming. 

“The numbers increased a lot this past month, almost to 100 every day [last week],” said Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. “We have seen some that have already been caught and tried again. They have hope that they have a chance at a better life here.”

After Christmas, she said, the charity will begin searching for a facility to turn what began as a temporary shelter into a permanent offering.

CHICAGO (AP) — Unions across the United States are reaching out to immigrants affected by President Barack Obama’s recent executive action, hoping to expand their dwindling ranks by recruiting millions of workers who entered the U.S. illegally.

Labor leaders say the president’s action, which curbs deportation and gives work permits to some 4 million immigrants, will give new protection to workers who have been reluctant to join for fear of retaliation.

“I think we’ll see very positive changes” because of the action, said Tom Balanoff, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1. “One of them, I hope, is that more workers will come forward and want to organize.”

SEIU, whose more than 2 million members include janitors and maintenance workers, recently announced a website where immigrants can learn about the action. The AFL-CIO says it’s training organizers to recruit eligible workers. And the United Food and Commercial Workers and other unions are planning workshops and partnering with community groups and churches to reach out to immigrants.

The efforts come even as Republicans and other opponents of Obama’s action work to undo it, saying it will hurt American workers, and as some labor experts say they’re skeptical immigrants will feel safe enough to unionize in large numbers.

Labor unions have struggled over the past decade to maintain their membership and political muscle. The ranks fell by more than 1.2 million between 2003 and 2013, when there were about 14.5 million members nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The percentage of workers that were union members fell from 12.9 percent to 11.3 percent during that same period.