As the U.S. gets bombarded with an unprecedented surge of migrants along the southern border, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records show a shocking decline in deportations during the Biden administration’s first year including dangerous criminals. Removals by the Homeland Security agency created after 9/11 to secure the nation’s borders fell nearly 70% last year, according to government figures obtained by the Center for immigration Studies (CIS) this month. The Washington D.C. nonprofit had to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to access the alarming stats because the Biden administration hides them. In the last decade ICE’s annual reports have contained detailed enforcement and removal information, but under Biden the agency has omitted damaging specifics from its most recent annual report.

The records obtained by CIS tell a disturbing story of an administration with detrimental policies that are destroying immigration enforcement. For instance, in fiscal year 2021, ICE removals dropped by a ghastly 70% even as the number of migrants entering the U.S. through Mexico shattered records. Agency figures reveal 59,001 removals from both the border and the interior of the country in 2021 compared to 185,884 in 2020. In 2019, the last full year under Trump administration policies, ICE removed 267,258 illegal aliens, more than quadruple the amount deported in 2021. Even convicted criminals were given a pass by the Biden administration, the ICE records show. Removals of criminal aliens dropped 62% in 2021 to 39,149 compared to 103,762 in 2020. In contrast, 150,141 convicted criminals were removed by ICE in 2019. Last year the agency also slashed the number of aggravated felons that were removed by 43% over 2020, from 9,161 to 5,221. Among the alien offenders are murderers, human and drug traffickers as well as rapists.

The removal of criminal aliens from the interior also dropped substantially even though the administration claims it is prioritizing deporting those who pose a threat to public safety. The ICE records show that in 2021 only 26,210 criminals were removed compared to 48,606 the previous year. In its assessment of the recently obtained ICE figures CIS, the nation’s only think tank devoted exclusively to the research of U.S. immigration policy, writes that “the drop in enforcement activity in 2021 is directly attributable to the implementation of the Biden enforcement policies.” A breakdown of removals by fiscal year clearly illustrates a steep reduction in every category—interior, border, illegal immigrants with criminal convictions and aggravated felons—after Biden policies were adopted. One major factor is the administration’s effort to diminish a federal-local partnership known as 287(g) that notifies ICE of jail inmates in the country illegally so they can be deported after serving time for state crimes.

President Joe Biden’s open borders policies have led to a more than 10% surge in the United States's illegal immigrant population, according to a new review of federal data.

Numbers reviewed by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the illegal population grew from 10.2 million when Biden took office to 11.6 million in April.

“This means that illegal immigrants accounted for some 1.35 million (about two-thirds) of the two million growth in the total foreign-born population since President Biden took office,” according to the analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies.

As a result, the foreign-born population in the nation, which includes legal and illegal immigrants, is 47 million, or 14.3% of the total population, the highest in 112 years.

Without taking action to stop illegal crossings, more illegal immigrants are expected to pour over the border, raising the foreign-born population to a record level by Election Day, the analysis said.

“As a share of the total population, the foreign-born now account for 14.3% of the U.S. population — the highest percentage in 112 years. If present trends continue, the foreign-born share of the population will surpass the all-time high in American history by September of next year,” according to the report written by Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler.

“Immigration is sometimes seen as like the weather — something outside the control of public policy," the report added. "In fact, it must be understood that the level of legal immigration as well as policies and resources directed at controlling illegal immigration all represent policy choices. The dramatic growth in the foreign-born population in the last 16 months are the direct result of those choices."

The center advocates strict immigration controls, warning that boosting the foreign, and especially illegal, population is costly to taxpayers.

As Democrats’ prospects in the 2022 mid-term elections dim, the party needs to revive itself with what was once a reliable constituency – Hispanic voters.

A Wall Street Journal poll taken in December found Hispanic voters split 37% to 37% “if the election were held today.” The Journal poll also showed that Hispanic voters mirror the overall voter pool. When asked how Biden is handling his responsibilities, 42% approved of the president’s job performance, and 54% disapproved – in line with the 41% approval and 57% disapproval among the broader voting public.

Since the Journal published its results, conditions in the country have worsened, more bad news for the flailing administration. As of late May, only divine intervention can save Democrats from electoral calamity when November rolls around.

A clarifying note: the term Hispanic voter should be interpreted broadly. The Census Bureau includes as Hispanic any person who, when asked, identifies as Hispanic. Included are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, South Americans and other mostly Spanish-language speakers.

Continued erosion in the Hispanic vote would leave Democrats’ chances of maintaining its slim margin in Congress at nil. Equis Labs, which studied the Latino electorate, found that in 2020 swings toward the GOP of 20 points occurred in parts of Florida’s Miami-Dade County, 12 points in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and double-digit swings in parts of the Northeast. In South Florida, the move was large enough to flip two congressional seats from Democrat to Republican.

Mark Zandi, Moody Analytics chief economist, wrote that, despite a booming jobs market, today’s political environment is among the toughest for incumbents that he’s ever surveyed. The consensus among political analysts like Zandi is that voters are out to punish incumbents with their Republican vote. If conventional wisdom is correct and if Hispanics continue to abandon Democrats, they’ll be the minority in the upcoming 118th Congress.

Hispanic voters’ shifting allegiance took the establishment media by surprise, but not other impartial, national scene observers. First, Hispanic voters have the same goals as other citizens – a stable economy, educational opportunities for their children and a good quality of life.

In the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s highest-profile promise was to build the wall — that is, to construct a barrier along about 1,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Once elected, Trump’s best chance to win money from Congress for a wall came in 2018, when Republican Speaker Paul Ryan controlled the House and Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell controlled the Senate.

It didn’t happen. Now, one of Trump’s strongest supporters on Capitol Hill, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, is out with a new memoir, “Do What You Said You Would Do,” on Nov. 23 that describes those months when GOP lawmakers fought over competing visions of immigration reform. The battle was intense, it was passionate and it came to nothing. No stricter immigration laws were passed, and there was no significant funding for a wall. For that failure, Jordan points the finger of blame straight at then-Speaker Ryan.

“Paul Ryan is not where the American people are,” Jordan writes. “Paul Ryan’s position on immigration is the same as the positions of the National Chamber of Commerce.” In the world of conservative immigration policy activists, accusing someone of siding with the Chamber of Commerce is about as harsh as it gets.

As Jordan tells it, Ryan sabotaged Republican immigration reform by refusing to support a bill that the large majority of Republicans supported, instead pushing a weaker bill that the Chamber supported. The result was that, facing united Democratic opposition, neither Republican bill passed.

The bill promoted by Jordan and his colleagues in the House Freedom Caucus would have “ended family-based chain migration apart from spouses and children,” Jordan writes. “It contained mandatory E-Verify language for employers and eliminated the visa lottery … [it] also defunded sanctuary cities and appropriated $30 billion for construction of the wall.” The bill, Jordan argues, “was consistent with the message of the 2016 election.”

The bill supported by Ryan would also have funded the wall, albeit with $25 billion. “But it did nothing else to address the problems we were elected to solve,” Jordan writes. “It had no language to address chain migration, E-Verify or sanctuary cities … [It] also created a renewable six-year legal status for up to 2.4 million illegal immigrants and gave those individuals a path to legal citizenship.” Finally, while the bill ended the visa lottery, it “reallocated those visas to amnesty recipients.”

Facebook, the tech giant famous for censoring posts that promote political views opposite to its perspective, recently admitted that its users are aiding and abetting illegal immigration.

Responding to a letter sent by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Facebook acknowledged it allows online users to share information that advises how to immigrate illegally and, alternatively, how to hire human traffickers to smuggle aliens into the U.S., and then apply for asylum. Shocked by Facebook’s candid confession to helping aliens to criminally beat the system, Brnovich wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding that the Justice Department open a full investigation into Facebook to find a way to “stop its active encouragement and facilitation of illegal entry.”

Brnovich’s indignant letter continued: “Facebook’s policy of allowing posts promoting human smuggling and illegal entry into the U.S. to regularly reach its billions of users seriously undermines the rule of law. The company is a direct facilitator, and thus exacerbates, the catastrophe occurring at Arizona’s southern border.”

The odds that Garland will investigate Facebook are zero. Because Facebook has shown a blatant willingness to barefacedly break immigration laws, CEO Mark Zuckerberg, et al consider themselves above the law, and know that the feds won’t lift a finger to interfere with their agenda, no matter how brazen.

For example, in mid-October, DOJ caught the social media titan reserving jobs for and then hiring foreign-born H-1B visa workers. In December 2020, the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division filed a complaint against Facebook with the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer. DOJ alleged that Facebook refused to recruit – and therefore could not hire – skilled U.S. tech workers. The investigation began in 2017 when then-President Donald Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” Executive Order, mandating that American worker protections be prioritized, was in effect.

When pro-immigration activists accosted Krysten Sinema, in a ladies’ room stall earlier this month, the Arizona senator missed a great opportunity to score points with the state’s Independent and Republican voters.

Sinema, an adjunct School of Social Work professor at Arizona State University since 2003, was followed into a campus bathroom and recorded while inside. Living United for Change in Arizona, a radical organization, posted the Sinema video, which include a student identifying herself as illegally present.

Taping and then distributing the video, which is what Sinema’s brazen student activists did, violates Arizona law. Add that threatening a sitting senator is a federal felony that can land violators in prison for up to five years.

Instead of ducking the agitators, Sinema could have given them a brief review of immigration law, which clearly states that unlawfully present aliens are subject to immediate removal, that deferred action isn’t law but was created through presidential executive action, and that she was elected to represent all Arizonans’ interests, not just the alien lobby.

House Democrats unveiled their plan to legalize millions of illegal immigrants — and to make taxpayers pay billions of dollars to process their applications.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s proposal, released late Friday, calls for $2.8 billion in federal funds to help U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services build capacity to handle the expected surge of paperwork and decision-making.

USCIS is almost entirely fee-funded, under the theory that immigrants should pay their own way. Mr. Nadler’s proposal would subvert that model.

SEE ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: Homeland Security would need years to prepare for new amnesty

His plan would also kick in the amnesty by May 1, giving USCIS little time to get up and running.

Previous directors have told The Washington Times it would take at least 18 months to prepare for a mass amnesty.

Mr. Nadler, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, envisions legalizing “Dreamers,” who came to the U.S. before age 18, those in the U.S. under the Temporary Protected Status program and illegal immigrants who held “essential” jobs during the pandemic. That covers more than three-quarters of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants believed to be in the country.

The plan does not contain new border security or enforcement measures. That marks a major break with past immigration plans, whose security measures were considered critical elements to prevent the amnesty from enticing more people to come to the U.S.

The eligibility date is the start of this year, meaning any illegal immigrant who made it to the U.S. by that time could qualify. That includes hundreds of thousands of people who jumped the border during the surge in 2019 and who should have been deported.

Three years ago, President Donald Trump issued his “Buy American, Hire American” executive order. But as the Nov. 3 election draws closer, many critics insist that he has come up short on his promise to “hire American.”

Trump’s myriad critics cynically joke that COVID-19 has been more effective at slowing the foreign-born worker influx, especially in the tech sector, than the hapless White House.

Through executive order, Trump pledged to protect American workers’ economic interests by creating tighter labor markets. Fewer international employment-based visa holders mean that U.S. workers will benefit from a more limited labor pool.

But in the end, the pandemic did more to help U.S. tech workers unfairly forced to compete with H-1B visa holders than Trump’s administrative bluster.

Because international university student enrollment has dropped precipitously to about 150,000 from the 2019 level of 400,000, future opportunities for U.S. graduates will increase dramatically.

A Sept. 10 Bloomberg article, “COVID-19 Interrupts Flow of Foreign Students to U.S.,” panicked the pro-immigration lobby of universities, cheap labor-addicted corporations and immigration lawyers.

An Institute for International Education study that polled 520 U.S. universities and colleges found that about 50 percent reported international enrollment declines, some of them steep. The Bloomberg reporter noted that many international students, who arrived on F-1 visas, decide to “stick around.” Therein lies the rub.

The F-1 student visa originated in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. As originally intended, a student would secure his F-1 visa, come to the United States, earn his degree and then return to his native land to improve his country’s economic future.

Today, however, an F-1 student who graduates with a science, math, engineering or technology degree (STEM) can apply for an Optional Practical Training (OPT) permit that allows him to work in the United States for three years. At that

In other words, the F-1 visa, which initially had to be renewed annually, has become, in some cases, the first step in a path to citizenship.

Dave Gorak: Pocan hasn't helped American workers

Oct 1, 2020

Dear Editor: Mark Pocan, whose Sept. 23 opinion piece blasts what he says is the Trump administration's "disastrous record" for Wisconsinites, is a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Of particular interest is this statement by Rep. Pocan: "Trump ran for president as the guy who would make big deals to help workers." Has Pocan helped American workers? Well, no. In fact, he has worked tirelessly against them as evidenced by his sorry voting record on immigration since entering Congress in 2013. He has never — absolutely never — introduced a bill or supported legislation that would protect American workers from the flood of cheap foreign workers who depress wages and fatten the bottom lines of their employers.

While lamenting that "tens of millions" of Americans who remain unemployed, Pocan continues to champion an immigration policy that on average since 1990 brings in more than 1 million legal immigrants who compete for jobs with our most vulnerable citizens. Remember, too, that he cosponsored the House version of the 2013 Senate bill that would have doubled legal immigration and given amnesty to 11 million illegal aliens, 8 million of whom remain in their jobs in the construction, manufacturing and service industries.

Pocan's support of Joe Biden is a natural fit because the latter also sold out American workers during his nearly 50 years in Congress. It's what the "new" Democratic Party does best. Nevertheless, Mr. Pocan appears to be suggesting in his column that putting Mr. Biden in the White House will produce "big deals" for American workers. If this is the case, then he should use the time-honored sales pitch used by all political candidates heard in a Biden TV spot: "You have my word on it."

Dave Gorak

Executive director, Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration

La Valle, WI